Geocities is ending! Update your links to Philosophical Powers' NEW site: all the pretentious humor with none of the unpretentious ads!

I had a little extra time on my hands the summer after my first year as a graduate student in Indiana University's prestigious philosophy department, so I decided to take on a project that would blend two of my greatest interests--or rather, one of my petty distractions and my greatest interest, which are philosophy and toys, respectively. I wanted to do something that would bring a discipline that is often seen as difficult, esoteric, and even irrelevant, into new light--especially in the eyes of young people.

I remember seeing a poster once in the graduate student offices of the sociology department at the University of Arizona that featured jokes based on the juxtaposition of intellectual subject matter with a toy-advertisement format. The only joke I remember (and perhaps the only joke worth remembering) from that poster is an action figure of Adam Smith with Invisible Hand action. I can all too easily imagine a crudely-painted 5.5-inch Adam Smith with a clear plastic, oversized hand accessory that fits onto his arm. It's a perfect gag. That poster, far from being inspiration for the current project, kept me from doing this for a long time out of a desire to avoid being unoriginal. But I've recently gotten over that desire. I'm very excited and a little bit embarassed to present my new line of philosophy action figures: Philosophical Powers!

Heroes get action figures; villains get websites about how mean they are.

Words and pictures by Ian Vandewalker 2003-2004