The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings, Peter Kreeft

The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings (2005). Kreeft takes the reader on a voyage of discovery into the philosophical bones of Middle earth. He organizes the philosophical themes in The Lord of the Rings into 50 categories, accompanied by over one thousand references to the text of The Lord of the Rings.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز چهارم ماه می سال2015میلادی

عنوان: فلسفه ی تالکین جهان بینی پشت ارباب حلقه ها؛ نویسنده: پیتر کریفت؛ موضوع: نوشتاری درباره ی ارباب حلقه ها - از نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده21م

کریفت خوانشگر خویش را به سفری اکتشافی به استخوانهای فلسفی سرزمین میانه میبرند؛ ایشان نوشتارهای فلسفی «ارباب حلقه ها» را در پنجاه دسته سازماندهی میکنند، که با بیش از هزار ارجاع و نمونه از متن «ارباب حلقه ها» همراه هستند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/02/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ 23/12/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Peter Kreeft, a prolific Catholic Christian author and professor of philosophy guides us through J.R.R Tolkien's world view as made evident to us in his richly Christian, Catholic even, works. The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and his essays and other works show us how Tolkien wove his beliefs and philosophy thru ought his sub-creation of Middle Earth.

This is the best book I’ve ever read on Tolkien. Read Tolkien first. But if you want to read ABOUT Tolkien, and his thoroughly Christian vision of things, I can’t recommend this book by Peter Kreeft enough.

Kreeft is a familiar name among Christian philosophers and apologists. He is a very committed Roman Catholic and often points out these aspects of Tolkien’s work. But he also presents a fairly sympathetically broad Christian view as well.

The book also serves as a broad introduction to the subject of philosophy and Kreeft often quotes from C. S. Lewis in making his points from Tolkien. So any Lewis fan should enjoy this work as well.

Highly, highly recommended for those interested in the philosophical and worldview aspects of Tolkien’s works.

Peter J. Kreeft’s The Philosophy of Tolkien is a really good book. While he uses this text to reaffirm his own belief in a Christian god, and these elves are not really Christian, we feel certain that his conclusions are an accurate reflection of Tolkien’s own beliefs, for he was a Catholic. Often, it seems to these elves that Mr. Kreeft while appearing to use logic and reason for his affirmation of his Christian beliefs actually, at the last moment, does a sort of intellectual slight of hand and ends up with faith rather than fact for his final assertions. However, that doesn’t bother us at all. Being lovers of Tolkien’s works and having an undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Religion we find this book quite well written and intriguing, even if it is not always logical. But then, we are elves and Mr. Kreeft is clearly, like Tolkien, a hobbit and our worldviews tend to be different. Still, we know that in sharing Middle Earth with these hobbits we are dealing with good, decent folk, and really what more can one ask for?

The Silver Elves authors of Faerie Unfolding: The Cosmic Expression of the Divine.

Peter Kreeft reminds me of my grandfather, Michael. Michael was a Catholic intellectual who studied at seminary for awhile, and was very well versed in the Aquinas-themed teachings of the Church. I can still see him in my mind's eye, standing in my grandmother's kitchen proclaiming "Vanity! Vanity, all things are vanity!" with a twinkle in his own very blue Irish eyes. He taught me a lot about the intellectual underpinnings of Catholicism. I think of him often, gone now almost 20 years.

Kreeft has written an introduction to philosophy through the lens of Tolkien...kind of. The author introduces the big topics in philosophy--ethics, metaphysics, moral reasoning, language--and uses Tolkien's writings as examples of thinking through these issues. With that said, I think there is more C.S. Lewis than Tolkien in this book! Don't get me wrong: I love me some C.S. Lewis, but there was not quite as much Tolkien as the title implied...

Regardless, a good book. Not a light read, and deeply seated in Catholic philosophy and theology. I enjoyed this very much, and learned a few things (or was given some food for thought):

1. Evil cannot create, only mock and corrupt (like with ents and trolls, or orcs and elves).
2. Mercy is very important. Is it more important than justice?
3. Something being made of something vs. what something is.
4. Enchantment vs. reductionism (this point hit my empirical, rational, scientific self hard)
5. The cheerful acceptance in the hobbit's walking song vs. Macbeth's "all of our yesterdays" speech.
6. The logos vs. the Tao.
7. Farimar's words about war (not loving the sword, but loving what the sword protects).
8. The cycle of history: blessings, prosperity, laziness and pride, decline, disaster...then blessing.

(These are all the notes I jotted in the back of the book).

If you like LOTR and are interested in philosophy, this is a good book for you. It is similar to many of the author's other works and echoes arguments he makes in brief elsewhere, but it is still an enjoyable and accurate summary of Tolkien's philosophy as understood in LOTR.

This is really interesting and provides a very fascinating way to experience LOTR. Kreeft is insightful and pulls from various Western philosophies to interpret Tokien's writing. There were also a significant amount of quotes/examples pulled from C.S. Lewis, which although also interesting, I felt maybe took a bit away from the focus on Tolkien.

The language is not particularly accessible, and the book does require a relatively substantial background in philosophy in order to be appreciated fully.

Love for LOTR rekindled!

Peter Kreeft adroitly weaves together the rich tapestry of writings of C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, Plato, and Scripture into a discernible image of the true, good, and beautiful. I am delighted to venture forth again into the world of Middle-Earth but with new eyes to discover what was hidden but now discernible with the help of a guide to life's 50 great philosophical questions. Thank you!

Excellent! Kreeft gets Tolkien.

Kreeft does a great job of applying Tolkien’s thoughts, found in LOTR as well as published letters, to discuss dozens of questions. Some are abstract (What is truth?) and others are much more down to earth (What is the power of friendship?). The more abstract questions made my head spin, but everything else was thoughtful and referenced many other sources. I enjoyed this book more than the last one I read from Kreeft, perhaps because it is longer and has more room to fully expound his ideas. 4.5 stars

I had to read it throughout the school semester. Whatever redeeming qualities the novel had, presenting accurately Tolkien's philosophy, was ruined by the author providing his own religious opinion. I would have preferred an objective view of Tolkien instead of one-sided, believe-this-or-you-are-wrong, religious propaganda in school.

In the beginning of this book, the author goes through great lengths to argue that stories are a way to do philosophy by making it concrete and convincing not through reason, but through "the back door of the heart." In this vein he equates LOTR with books like Sartre's 'No Exit' and Camus's 'The Plague'. However, these latter two books served to illustrate an already existing philosophy supported by actual arguments in other works. They did not contain arguments in themselves. Tolkien had no explicit philosophy he meant to illustrate by writing LOTR, at least not philosophy in the formal sense of the word. What did bleed through LOTR and what this books uncovers is his philosophy in the conventional sense, meaning his outlook on life, which above all is his Christian faith. Nevertheless, this book (written by a philosophy professor no less) presents itself as an account of Tolkien's philosophy. Tolkien was many things, but he was not a philosopher. The title of this book is therefore deceptive. 'The theology of Tolkien' or 'The themes of Tolkien' would be much more accurate.

Throughout the book the author discusses Tolkien's "philosophy" by answering several often heavily biased questions. Most of the time, the answers are not derived directly from Tolkien's works, but from other authors, notably C.S. Lewis (at times I wondered if I was reading a book about Lewis instead of Tolkien). Tolkien's agreement with the views of Lewis and others is deemed implicit in his work, but this is often merely assumed rather than demonstrated. The "arguments" the author thusly uncovers are then contrasted to other philosophical views (e.g. free will vs. determinism, pacifism vs. Just War theory, etc.), but these contrasting views are quickly discarded, because they are presumed to be defeated by "arguments" heavy with unprovable Christian assumptions. Look, I'm a Christian myself and I believe in things like free will on a Biblical basis, but one can't argue against an atheist determinist by arguing that free will exists because God created it. Despite being a philosophy professor, the author engages in theology more than actual philosophy.

The reason I go on about this point, is because most reviews I read singularly praise this book while ignoring this major flaw. As much as I agree with the conclusions put forth in this book (though not all of them), the arguments leading to them I can't call philosophy, because they rely on faith rather than solid argumentation most of the time. Despite all this, I did enjoy this book for what it actually was, namely a thorough exploration of the themes and ideas implicit in the masterpiece that is LOTR. Not all of it was new to me, but what was new gave me new insight and a renewed appreciation for this great story and for that I'll give it four stars.