Doctor Strange and Philosophy: The Other Book of Forbidden Knowledge

✍ Scribed by Mark D. White

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Year: 2018
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 287
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Explore the mind and world of the brilliant neurosurgeon-turned-Sorcerer Supreme Doctor Stephen Strange Marvel Comics legends Stan Lee and Steve Ditko first introduced Doctor Stephen Strange to the world in 1963—and his spellbinding adventures have wowed comic book fans ever since. Over fifty years later, the brilliant neurosurgeon-turned-Sorcerer Supreme has finally travelled from the pages of comics to the big screen, introducing a new generation of fans to his mind-bending mysticism and self-sacrificing heroics. In Doctor Strange and Philosophy, Mark D. White takes readers on a tour through some of the most interesting and unusual philosophical questions which surround Stephen Strange and his place in the Marvel Universe. Essays from two-dozen Philosophers Supreme illuminate how essential philosophical concepts, including existentialism, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics, relate to the world of Doctor Strange. Fans will find answers to all their Strange questions: How does Doctor Strange reconcile his beliefs in science and magic? What does his astral self say about the relationship between mind and body? Why is he always so alone? And what does he mean when he says we’re just “tiny momentary specks within an indifferent universe”—and why was he wrong? You won’t need the Eye of Agamotto to comprehend all that is wise within. Doctor Strange and Philosophy offers comic book fans and philosophers alike the chance to dive deeper into the world of one of Marvel’s most mystical superheroes.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Contributors: The Philosophers Supreme
Acknowledgments: By the Glorious Grandiloquence of Gratitude!
Introduction: Opening the Book of the Vishanti
Part I “You’re Just Another Tiny, Momentary Speck within an Indifferent Universe”
Chapter 1 Bargaining with Eternity and Numbering One’s Days: Medicine, Nietzsche, and Doctor Strange
Heading East
“Matter and Nothing More”
Looking Beyond Death
“The World Is Not What It Ought to Be”
Whither the Hinterworlds?
“Pain Is an Old Friend”
A Strange Realization
Notes
Chapter 2 Death Gives Meaning to Life: Martin Heidegger Meets Stephen Strange
The Brilliant Doctor Strange
The Accident and Kamar‐Taj
Tiny Momentary Specks within an Indifferent Universe
Dark Powers
Death Gives Meaning to Life
Notes
Chapter 3 “Time Will Tell How Much I Love You”: A Nietzschean Übermensch’s Issues with Love and Friendship
Doctor Übermensch
Problems with Love
Noble Virtues
Narcissism
What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Strange
A Shared Higher Thirst
Notes
Chapter 4 Existentialism, Nihilism, and the Meaning of Life for Doctor Strange
A Strange Beginning
Bad Faith and a Paradox
Scientific Nihilism and Existential Anxiety
The First Existential Step Is the Hardest
Strange versus Kaecilius
Strange’s Hesitation
The Final Turning Point
The Existential Redefinition of Doctor Strange
Notes
Part II “Forget Everything That You Think You Know”
Chapter 5 “Through an Orb Darkly”: Doctor Strange and the Journey to Knowledge
How Do You Know?
Seeing Is Not Believing
Enter the Rationalists
Descartes to the Rescue
Cogito, Ergo Strange
Defeating Descartes’ Evil Demon
By the Eye of Agamotto!
Out of the Orb
Notes
Chapter 6 Forbidden Knowledge and Strange Virtues: It’s Not What You Know, It’s How You Know It
“This Doesn’t Make Any Sense …”
Strange Epistemological Virtues?
“Finally, I Found My Teacher”
Is Strange Epistemically Virtuous?
A Strange Ending
Notes
Chapter 7 Doctor Strange, Socratic Hero?
Intellectual Humility—Who Has It?
Wisdom and the Wizard
Doctor, Examine Thyself!
A Sorcerer Supreme Stands Up for Others
To Dare Danger
The Sorcerer Socratic
Notes
Chapter 8 Are We All “Looking at the World Through a Keyhole”?: Knowledge, Ignorance, and Bias
Believing in One’s Knowledge and Knowing One’s Ignorance
“We’re Not Savages”
Looking at the World Through a Keyhole… or a Colored Glass
Whitewashing the Ancient One
Stereotypes, Supervillains, and Fortune Cookies
Strange Transformations
We Can All Be Socratics Supreme
Notes
Chapter 9 Stephen Strange vs. Ayn Rand: A Doesn’t Always Equal A
Stop! Tampering with Continuum Probabilities Is Forbidden!
There Is No Other Way
Do Two Wongs Make a Right?
What if I Told You That Reality Is One of Many?
Sorcerers’ Greatest Weapons
They Really Should Put the Warnings Before the Spell
I Control It by Surrendering Control?
Notes
Part III “Reality Is One of Many”
Chapter 9 Astral Bodies and Cartesian Souls: Mind-Body Dualism in Doctor Strange
“Let’s Get Physical,” Olivia Newton-John, 1981
“Soul Man,” Sam & Dave, 1967
“Miss You,” The Rolling Stones, 1978
“Body and Soul,” Billie Holiday, 1957
“It’s Possible,” from Cinderella, 1957
“Strange Magic,” Electric Light Orchestra, 1975
Notes
Chapter 10 Scientists, Metaphysicians, and Sorcerers Supreme
Don’t Judge a Sorcerer Supreme by His Flashy Cape
The Sorcerer Supreme Doesn’t Make the Magic
Beware the Thing in the Cellar
Teleology, Acorns, and the Slugs of Een’Gawori
Justice in the (Alleged) Name of Science
The Two Sides of Technology
Philosophy, Science, and… Magic?
One Thing We Know Is That Life Is Strange
Notes
Chapter 11“This Is Time”: Setting Time in Doctor Strange by Henri Bergson’s Clock
It’s Bergson Time
“Feels So Good,” Chuck Mangione, 1977
Strange Multiplicities
Feeling Time
Kaecilius Waits for No One
It’s Not About You
This is Time
All in Strange Time
Only Time Will Tell
Notes
Part IV “A Man Looking at the World Through a Keyhole”
Chapter 13 A Strange Case of a Paradigm Shift
Back When Strange Was Normal
From Science to Sorcery: How Scientific Revolutions Happen
The Dark Dimension? Why Understanding Is Tougher than It Seems
Puzzles about Paradigms
After Kuhn, Things Got Stranger
Of Science, Sorcery, and Philosophy
Notes
Chapter 14 Doctor Strange, the Multiverse, and the Measurement Problem
A Strange Cat
Philosophy and Physics—Not Such a Strange Combination
Leveling Up
The Marvel Multiverse and the MCU
Can Doctor Strange Both Be and Not Be Sorcerer Supreme?
A Cat and an Unstable Atom Walk into a Bar…
So Many Cats, So Many Doctors Strange
We’ve Run Out of Time… or Have We?
Notes
Chapter 15 The Strange World of Paradox: Science and Belief in Kamar-Taj
At the Door of Kamar-Taj
The Unknown, the Frontier, and the Collision
Socrates and “the God” as Teacher
Offense and the Paradox
Surrendering to the Unknown
Knock and the Door Will Be Opened… Eventually
Notes
Part V “It’s Not About You”
Chapter 16 The Otherworldly Burden of Being the Sorcerer Supreme
A Strange Doctor Indeed
The Sorcerer Extreme
The Sorcerer Solitary
Strange Romance
“I Must Save Humanity. Or Most of Them. At Least One of Them”
For the Life of Wong
The Sorcerer So Human
Notes
Chapter 17 The Ancient One and the Problem of Dirty Hands
The Problem of Dirty Hands: “It’s Not About You”
Does Dark Magic Get a Bad Rap?
The Ancient One’s Real Problem
Knock Knock…
The Bill Comes Due
Notes
Chapter 18 They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wong
Alfred, Jarvis, and Wong
Second-Rate Jarvis
World Saved, Lunch Delayed
Wong Matters Too
Occult Studies and Clean Socks
Worldly Matters
Power Behind the Cloak
Notes
Chapter 19 Doctor Strange, Master of the Medical and Martial Arts
Doctor Strange, M.D.
By the Hoary Hosts of Hippocrates!
I Swear by the Vishanti!
Enter the Doctor Strange
A Strange Meld of Magic and Medicine by the Moons of Munnopor!
Martial and Medical Mastery by the Omnipotent Oshtur!
By the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak… We Conclude!
Notes
Part VI “I’ve Come to Bargain”
Chapter 20 Is Dormammu Evil?: St. Augustine and the Dark Dimension
A Dread Understanding
St. Augustine and Doctor Strange, Not So Different?
What Is Not But What Should Be
A Dread Force of Nature
Is Dormammu Morally Evil?
What about Survival?
The Dread Conclusion!
Notes
Chapter 21 Doctor Strange and Leo Tolstoy: Brothers in Nonviolence?
Strange Transformations
The Evil of Violence
Evil in this World and Others
No Violence Means No Violence!
But What about Doctor Strange…?
Leo Tolstoy, Sorcerer-Defender Supreme
Notes
Chapter 22 Doctor Strange, Moral Responsibility, and the God Question
God Among the Gods
Strange Religion
The Lord Versus the Lord of Vampires
Back to the Start
A Strange Tale of Biblical Proportions
Pride Goeth Before the Zom
Magic and Deep Magic
Notes
The Index of the All-Seeing Eye of Agamotto
EULA