JAMES B. SOUTH is chair of the philosophy department at Marquette University. He edited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy and James Bond and Philosophy.

WILLIAM IRWIN is a professor of philosophy at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He originated the philosophy and popular culture genre of books as coeditor of the bestselling The Simpsons and Philosophy and has overseen recent titles including Batman and Philosophy, House and Philosophy, and Twilight and Philosophy.

Introduction: "A Thing Like That".

PART ONE: "PEOPLE MAY SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY, BUT THEY DON'T REALLY WANT TO": MAD MEN AND PROBLEMS OF KNOWLEDGE AND FREEDOM.

1 What Fools We Were: Mad Men, Hindsight, and Justification (Landon W. Schurtz).

2 "People Want to Be Told What to Do So Badly That They'll Listen to Anyone": Mimetic Madness at Sterling Cooper (George A. Dunn).

3 Capitalism and Freedom in the Affluent Society (Kevin Guilfoy).

PART TWO: "THERE IS NO BIG LIE, THERE IS NO SYSTEM, THE UNIVERSE IS INDIFFERENT": MAD MEN AND THE PROBLEM OF MEANING.

4 Pete, Peggy, Don, and the Dialectic of Remembering and Forgetting (John Fritz).

5 The Existential Void of Roger Sterling (Raymond Angelo Belliotti).

6 Egoless Egoists: The Second-Hand Lives of Mad Men (Robert White).

7 An Existential Look at Mad Men: Don Draper, Advertising, and the Promise of Happiness (Ada S. Jaarsma).

PART THREE: "AND YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPINESS IS?": MAD MEN AND ETHICS.

8 "In on It": Honesty, Respect, and the Ethics of Advertising (Andreja Novakovic and Tyler Whitney).

9 Creating the Need for the New: "It's Not the Wheel. It's the Carousel." (George Teschner and Gabrielle Teschner).

10 "You're Looking in the Wrong Direction": Mad Men and the Ethics of Advertising (Adam Barkman).

11 Is Don Draper a Good Man? (Andrew Terjesen).

12 Don Draper, on How to Make Oneself (Whole Again) (John Elia).

PART FOUR: "NO ONE ELSE IS SAYING THE RIGHT THING ABOUT THIS": MAD MEN AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

13 "And Nobody Understands That, but You Do": The Aristotelian Ideal of Friendship among the Mad Men (and Women) (Abigail E. Myers).

14 Mad Women: Aristotle, Second-Wave Feminism, and the Women of Mad Men (Ashley Jihee Barkman).

15 "We've Got Bigger Problems to Worry about Than TV, Okay?" Mad Men and Race (Rod Carveth).

16 "New York City Is a Marvelous Machine": Mad Men and the Power of Social Convention (James B. South).

APPENDIX: It's Not a List of Titles and Air Dates; It's an Episode Guide.

CONTRIBUTORS: Some Real Mad Men and Women.

INDEX: Client Files Lifted from Sterling Cooper.