Lord of the Rings and Philosophy @ Concordia University Wisconsin

[Dûrbelethwen]

This semester I am taking a class called the Lord of the Rings and Philosophy. The required books are: The Lord of the Rings, The Tolkien Reader, The Silmarillion, and The Philosophy of Tolkien.
Today was the first regular lecture. It was on an introduction to philosophy.
Philosophy really was the love of wisdom which is what Tolkien loved about it. A world view is the systematic way of looking at reality.
Lord of the Rings compares two world views. A world-view can be global which encompasses all of reality or limited world-view that defines human nature only.
Why relate philosophy to Lord of the Rings: Not because Tolkien was an academic philosopher, not because it uses many philosophical or theological terms. It is not an allegory because an allegory has one to one correlations, and Lord of the Rings is more complex. The characters have multiple dimensions and internal conflict (synchronic complexity)
The characters can live out philosophical theories, and not be able to live them out (ex. Saruman)
The characters also change over time, heroes have weaknesses and bad characters start out good, some repent.
The philosophy is hidden inside the individuals, events, and places
We learn to support the heroes because we see how easy it would be to fail.
Lord of the Rings resonates with human nature even-though it deals with many non-humans.
We can clearly see in it that it has truth, goodness, and beauty.
It shows the battle to change fundamental reality.
Even-though Tolkien could have changed definitions of the essentials but instead make it clearer (he lifted the veil of familiarity)
Literature shows the truth that philosophy talks about.
Philosophical themes in Lord of the Rings: What is reality? What does reality include? The supernatural or only the temporal? God's actions or only ours? God's purposes or only ours? What is good and evil? What, if anything, is the meaning of history? How do we know things? What is Wisdom? What is beauty and is it connected to goodness/ What is the nature and significance of language? What are some of the most important virtues and vices?