Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein Audiobooks

Collection of three Cathcart & Klein audiobooks:

1. Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
2. Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
3. Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington: Understanding Political Doublespeak Through Philosophy and Jokes


Did you know that Heidegger's notion of living in the shadow of death has its most profound articulation in a country and western song by Tim McGraw? Or what Law and Order has in common with theologian Paul Tillich's view of eternity? Such are the nuggets of wisdom found in this smart and lighthearted consideration of the philosophical dimensions of death. Cathcart and Klein (coauthors of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar) take readers on a whirlwind tour of anthropological, philosophical and theological theories of why and how we avoid accepting our own mortality. The authors demonstrate how humor allows us to express our fears about death while defusing anxiety. Succinct accounts of Kierkegaard's notion of embracing angst, Schopenhauer's notion of undying will and Descartes on mind-body dualism are thus all peppered by comic asides (Leibnitz maintained that Mind and Matter don't actually get into each others knickers). This little book is an entertaining and surprisingly informative survey of the Big D and its centrality in human life.

Outrageously funny, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . has been a breakout bestseller ever since authors—and born vaudevillians—Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein did their schtick on NPR’s Weekend Edition. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar . . . is a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). Philosophy 101 for those who like to take the heavy stuff lightly, this is a joy to read—and finally, it all makes sense!

In Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington, our two favorite philosopher-comedians return just in time to save us from the doublespeak and flim-flam of politics in America.
Deploying jokes as well as the occasional insight from Aristotle and his peers, Cathcart and Klein explain what politicos are up to when they state: "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"; "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is"; or even, "We hold these truths to be self-evident...."