Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul

Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul by Mark D. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am not a Philosopher, and truly the only way anyone will get me to read a Philosophy book is to put Batman/Star War in the title or on the cover and making either the subject matter. The book is very informative on philosophical theories, (I will be the first to admit would have been lost on me), and well researched in the world of Batman.

The thing that attracted me to this book was, discussion style format. All of us who are comic book fans love to discuss out favorite stories, characters (their directions, development and decisions), and who would win in a fight between them. I admit my reason for being able to quote Aristotle at my next comic book argument, or point out that well learned and scholars in their field are also comic book/Batman fans.

The book is not a light read and I actually got more then I was expecting for it, on a Goodreads note I was glad to have my 100 book as heavier read. One of the issues that is brought up is Batman being a fictional character, should he be revered, or looked at as an example? Questions like should he kill the Joker fit in with arguments to an for capital punishments in the real world. Also you cannot have a debate about batman without the shadow of death, and the continuing debate of death itself credit to the author and contributors for giving both sides of every argument.

The only reason I did not give this book 5 stars is there are a couple of sections in the middle that were for hardcore linguists or philosophers which I felt went slightly off topic and were over analyzed for my tastes. This could be a personal prejudice on my part as I hate linguistics, but that is me. However this is a great book that use the fiction characters to highlight issues and theories that are in the real world. I personally though the second last chapter using the relationship of Batman and Nightwing to reconcile the debate of Aristotle and Immanuel Kant, was inspired and definitely holds true in the real world.

View all my reviews