Skip to Content
You may be using an older version of the Adobe Flash Player. To enjoy multimedia content on WGBH.org, please click here to upgrade to the latest version of the free Flash player.

Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates

October 23, 2009
Daniel Klein writer

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein discuss Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between.

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein achieved bestselling fame with their first book, Plato and a Platypus Walked Into a Bar, a survey of key philosophical concepts through jokes. This newest book is a hilarious take on the philosophy, theology, and psychology of mortality and immortality. That is, Death. Philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre have been wrestling with the meaning of death for as long as they have been wrestling with the meaning of life. Fortunately, humorists have been keeping pace with the major thinkers by creating gags about dying. Death's funny that way--it gets everybody's attention.

WGBH
Harvard Book Store
Image of Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
Author: Daniel Klein, Thomas Cathcart
Publisher: Viking Adult (2009)
Binding: Hardcover, 224 pages
Image of Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . .: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
Author: Daniel Klein, Thomas Cathcart
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (2008)
Binding: Paperback, 224 pages
Image of Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington
Author: Daniel Klein, Thomas Cathcart
Publisher: Abrams Image (2008)
Binding: Hardcover, 196 pages