Jason T. Eberl 
Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy 
Knowledge Here Begins Out There

PHILOSOPHY/POP CULTURE

‘The contributors to Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy strive to make things relevant to fans of the show, and they put their information out in a way that is accessible to folks who wouldn’t know Heidegger from Heineken.’

Green Man Review, Spring 2009

‘The writers are well versed in their subjects…The book is most effective at making the reader rethink what they thought they knew.’

Neo-opsis

What’s the point of living after your world has been destroyed? This is one of many questions raised by the Sci-Fi Channel’s critically acclaimed series Battlestar Galactica. More than just an action-packed ‘space opera, ‘ each episode offers a dramatic character study of the human survivors and their Cylon pursuers as they confront existential, moral, metaphysical, theological, and political crises.

This volume addresses some of the key questions to which the Colonials won’t find easy answers, even when they reach Earth: Are Cylons persons? Is Baltar’s scientific worldview superior to Six’s religious faith? Can Starbuck be free if she has a special destiny? Is it ethical to cut one’s losses and leave people behind? Is collaboration with the enemy ever the right move? Is humanity a ‘flawed creation?’ Should we share the Cylon goal of ‘transhumanism?’ Is it really a big deal that Starbuck’s a woman?

Table of Content

Giving Thanks to the Lords of Kobol.

‘There Are Those Who Believe …’.

Part I Opening the Ancient Scrolls: Classic Philosophers as
Colonial Prophets.

Erik D. Baldwin, How to be Happy After the End of the World.

Robert Sharp, When Machines Get Souls: Nietzsche on the Cylon
Uprising.

J. Robert Loftis, ‘What a Strange Little Man’:
Baltar the Tyrant?.

Jason P. Blahuta, The Politics of Crisis: Machiavelli in the
Colonial Fleet.

Part II I, Cylon: Are Toasters People, Too?.

Robert Arp and Tracie Mahaffey, ‘And They Have a
Plan’: Cylons as Persons.

Amy Kind, ‘I’m Sharon, but I’m a Different
Sharon’: The Identity of Cylons.

Jerold J. Abrams, Embracing the ‘Children of
Humanity’: How to Prevent the Next Cylon War.

Brian Willems, When the Non-Human Knows Its Own Death.

Part III Worthy of Survival: Moral Issues for Colonials and
Cylons.

Randall M. Jensen, The Search for Starbuck: The Needs of the
Many vs. the Few.

Andrew Terjesen, Resistance vs. Collaboration on New Caprica:
What Would You Do?.

George A. Dunn, Being Boomer: Identity, Alienation, and
Evil.

David Roden, Cylons in the Original Position: Limits of
Posthuman Justice.

Part IV The Arrow, the Eye, and Earth: The Search for a
(Divine?) Home.

Jason T. Eberl and Jennifer A. Vines, ‘I Am an Instrument
of God’: Religious Belief, Atheism, and Meaning.

Taneli Kukkonen, God Against the Gods: Faith and the Exodus of
the Twelve Colonies.

David Kyle Johnson, ‘A Story That Is Told Again, and
Again, and Again’: Recurrence, Providence, and Freedom.

Eric J. Silverman, Adama’s True Lie: Earth and the Problem
of Knowledge.

Part V Sagittarons, Capricans, and Gemenese: Different
Worlds, Different Perspectives.

James Mc Rae, Zen and the Art of Cylon Maintenance.

Elizabeth F. Cooke, ‘Let It Be Earth’: The Pragmatic
Virtue of Hope.

Sarah Conly, Is Starbuck a Woman?.

David Koepsell, Gaius Baltar and the Transhuman Temptation.

There Are Only Twenty-Two Cylon Contributors.

The Fleet’s Manifest

About the author

JASON T. EBERL, Ph D, is Professor of Health Care Ethics and Philosophy at Saint Louis University. His research interests focus on bioethics, metaphysics, and medieval philosophy. He is the co-editor of Sons of Anarchy and Philosophy (2013), The Ultimate Star Wars and Philosophy (2015), and The Ultimate Star Trek and Philosophy (2016).

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