Louis C.K. and Philosophy: You Don't Get to Be Bored

Description

Charlie Rose has called Louis C.K. "the philosopher-king of comedy," and many have detected philosophical profundity in his material. Twenty-five philosophers examine the wisdom of Louis C.K. from a variety of philosophical perspectives. The chapters draw upon C.K.'s standup comedy, the show Louie, and C.K.'s other writings. One writer looks at the different meanings of C.K.'s statement, "You're gonna be dead way longer than you were alive." One chapter shows the affinity of C.K.'s "sick of living this bullshit life" with Kierkegaard's "sickness unto death." Another pursues Louis's thought that we may by our lack of moral concern "live a really evil life without thinking about it."

Mark Ralkowski is assistant professor of philosophy and honors at The George Washington University. He is author of Plato's Trial of Athens (2016) Heidegger's Platonism (2009) and editor of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy (2012) and Time and Death: Heidegger's Analysis of Finitude (2005). He lives in Takoma Park, MD.