Is George Michaels crush on his cousin unnatural?Is it immoral for Lindsay to lie about stealing clothes to hide her job?Is Gob better off living his life in bad faith?What inferences can we draw from Tobiass double-entendres?Are the picturesreally of bunkers or balls?

The Bluth familys faults, foibles, and character flaws are so excruciatingly familiar that we squirm in painful recognition of the outrageous impulses that we all have but would never act on. The Bluths seem utterly unaware of the gaping distance between their behavior and accepted social norms. Lurking behind this craziness are large moral and philosophical issues to be explored. From Plato to Aristotle, from Descartes to Marx,Arrested Development and Philosophy draws from great philosophical minds to shed new light on the shows key questions and captivating themes, including the nature of self-knowledge and happiness, business ethics and capitalist alienation, social class, the role of error in character development, and much more.

KRISTOPHER G. PHILLIPS is a PhD candidate (ABD) in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Iowa.

J. JEREMY WISNEWSKI is an associate professor of philosophy at Hartwick College. He is the editor ofFamily Guy and Philosophy, The Office and Philosophy, and30 Rock and Philosophy, and coeditor ofX-Men and Philosophy andTwilight and Philosophy.

WILLIAM IRWIN is a professor of philosophy at Kings College. He originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books as coeditor of the bestsellingThe Simpsons and Philosophy and has overseen recent titles includingHouse and Philosophy, Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy, andMad Men and Philosophy.

To learn more about the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, visit www.andphilosophy.com

INTRODUCTION 1Kristopher Phillips

PART ONE FAMILY FIRST

1 Is the Examined Life a Huge Mistake?: Happiness, Self-Knowledge, and the Bluths 7Jason Southworth and Ruth Tallman

2 Kissing Cousins: Incest, Naturalism, and the Yuck Factor 23Deborah R. Barnbaum

3 Freudian Arrested Development 33Tim Jung

4 Don't Know Thyself: Gob and the Wisdom of Bad Faith 46Daniel P. Malloy

PART TWO A BUSINESS MODEL

5 Dr. Fünke's 100 Percent Natural Good-Time Alienation Solution 61Jeff Ewing

6 Family First: HowNot to Run a Business 73Brett Gaul

7 Bourgeois Bluths:Arrested Development and Class Status 85Rachel McKinney

PART THREE SOME HUGE MISTAKES

8 What Whitey Isn't Ready to Hear: Social Identity inArrested Development 99J. Jeremy Wisnewski

9 "I Just Blue Myself": The Use and Abuse of Language inArrested Development 111M. E. Verrochi

10 To Bias Tobias: Gender Identity, Sexuality, andArrested Development 123Darci Doll

11 I'm Oscar.com: The Problem(s) of Personal Identity inArrested Development 136Kristopher Phillips

PART FOUR THE ONE WHERE THEY DO EPISTEMOLOGY

12 You Can't Do Magic: Gob Bluth and the Illusionists' Craft 151Michael Cholbi

13 Is Justified TrueBluth Belief Knowledge? 162Brett Coppenger and Kristopher Phillips

14 Bunkers and Balls:Arrested Development, Underdetermination, and the Theory-ladenness of Observation 172Michael Da Silva

PART FIVE SOLID AS IRAQ: POLITICS AND ETHICS ARRESTED

15 No Touching! George Sr.'s Brush with Treason 185Douglas Paletta and Paul Franco

16 "I've Made a Huge Mistake": George Oscar Bluth Jr. and the Role of Error in Character Development 197Christopher C. Kirby, Jonathan Hillard, and Mathew Holmes

17 The Comedy of Contradiction 210Erin Fay and Willie Young

PARTS IX: AND ON THE EPILOGUE . . .

18 And Now the Story of a Wealthy Family Who Lost Everything:Arrested Development, Narrative, and How We Find Meaning 227Tyler Shores

CONTRIBUTORS: Banana Stand Employee Roster 241

INDEX: Banana Stand Inventory 247