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The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am. Ed. Richard Greene and Peter Vernezze. Chicago: Open Court, 2004.
The long-running HBO series The Sopranos inspired the latest volume from Open Court's Popular Culture and Philosophy series. In The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am, editors Richard Greene and Peter Vernezze collected seventeen essays from academic scholars with diverse interests. The essays range from Sun Tzu's The Art of War to Nietzsche's nihilisms and feminist philosophy on care ethics. This book cries to make philosophical sense of the conflicted main character, Tony Soprano, and his "family."
Tony, the beloved New Jersey mob boss and patriarch, is rich soil for deeply rooted philosophies. As Aristotle might say, "the root of education is bitter, but the fruit is sweet." Tony is abhorrent, with a total disregard for women through repeated infidelity, and his crimes include...