The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way

The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way

Author: Visit Amazon's Gregory Bassham Page | Language: English | ISBN: 0470405147 | Format: PDF

The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way Description

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Amazon.com Author Exclusive: Bassham and Bronson Talking Hobbits, Philosophy, and Peter Jackson

Bassham: Although New Line Cinema’s The Hobbit is coming after the success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit first. Of course, Bilbo finds the magic ring, the dragon’s treasure is recovered, and greed begins to grow in many of the main characters in the story. What other philosophical issues posed in The Hobbit get developed later in the The Lord of the Rings?

Bronson: One of the great themes to emerge from Tolkien’s Middle-earth is what it means to go on an “adventure.” So much of Frodo’s adventure to destroy the ring in Mordor is developed from Bilbo’s adventure to slay the dragon on the Lonely Mountain. Both uncle and nephew go through serious personal changes as they confront danger. These confrontations are much more challenging than simply staying at home, enjoying some ale and a good smoke. Consistently, Tolkien tells us that change can be a good thing and that we can grow through confronting challenges and adventures. But what separates Tolkien from so many self-help authors today is his understanding that change and maturation can also be troubling. Lost innocence has its costs, and not everybody grows when confronted by pressures or adversity. Just ask Saruman or Denethor. Or Nietzsche.

Bassham: What makes The Hobbit different from The Lord of the Rings?

Bronson: Well, one of the biggest differences between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit is the tone. Right from the opening line we understand The Hobbit is meant to appeal to children. All the life and death battles in the book are meant to fascinate readers, not frighten us. I wouldn’t say The Lord of the Rings is humorless, but its themes are certainly darker. And darker themes always appeal to philosophers. That said, we shouldn’t be too easily seduced by the elves, dwarves, and humans that populate The Hobbit. Having fun can be serious business. The ancient Greeks understood the connection between play and education. Philosophers from Aristotle to Elmo have taught us that developing our imagination requires a sense of humor and uninterrupted leisure time. In the age of humorless machines, this theme was very important to Tolkien. He believed combatting the sour-faced goblins of Modernity was also important.

Bassham: Why do you think Tolkien’s tales of Middle-earth are so popular today?

Bronson: We’re very attracted to magical worlds, particularly those that hearken back to simpler times and invoke classic virtues, such as courage, honor, and loyalty. So much of popular culture, from Harry Potter to The Chronicles of Narnia, owes a debt to Middle-earth. But Tolkien was also suspicious of magic if it meant manipulating the natural world for the sake of power or control. Stealth bombers and heat-seeking missiles can create that kind of “magic.” Enchantment and artistry were more interesting themes to Tolkien. Creating credible and highly developed alternate worlds that delight and instruct isn’t easy. Tolkien was the master, the fountainhead of an entire genre. When works of fantasy inspire us to imagine different worlds, we see our own world with fresh eyes and perceive the wonder in everyday things. And that, I think, is a very good thing.

Review

“Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson’s anthology of essays, 'The Hobbit and Philosophy', may have an overblown title, but the authors do a good job of focusing on themes like possessiveness, providence and free will, courage and decision-making.”  (The Times Literary Supplement,  21 December 2012)

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 2, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470405147
• ISBN-13: 978-0470405147
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Thag You Very Buch x

Introduction: Never Laugh at Live Philosophers 1
Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson

PART ONE DISCOVER YOUR INNER TOOK

1 The Adventurous Hobbit 7
Gregory Bassham

2 “The Road Goes Ever On and On”: A Hobbit’s Tao 20
Michael C. Brannigan

3 Big Hairy Feet: A Hobbit’s Guide to Enlightenment 32
Eric Bronson

4 Bilbo Baggins: The Cosmopolitan Hobbit 45
Dennis Knepp

PART TWO THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SLIMY

5 The Glory of Bilbo Baggins 61
Charles Taliaferro and Craig Lindahl-Urben

6 Pride and Humility in The Hobbit 74
Laura Garcia

7 “My Precious”: Tolkien on the Perils of Possessiveness 90
Anna Minore and Gregory Bassham

8 Tolkien’s Just War 103
David Kyle Johnson

9 “Pretty Fair Nonsense”: Art and Beauty in The Hobbit 118
Philip Tallon

10 Hobbitus Ludens: Why Hobbits Like to Play and Why We Should, Too 129
David L. O’Hara

PART THREE RIDDLES AND RINGS

11 “The Lord of Magic and Machines”: Tolkien on Magic and Technology 147
W. Christopher Stewart

12 Inside The Hobbit: Bilbo Baggins and the Paradox of Fiction 161
Amy Kind

13 Philosophy in the Dark: The Hobbit and Hermeneutics 176
Tom Grimwood

PART FOUR BEING THERE AND BACK AGAIN

14 Some Hobbits Have All the Luck 193
Randall M. Jensen

15 The Consolation o

A fuller version of this review can be found at [...]

Bassham and Bronson's new volume, The Hobbit and Philosophy, contains a collection of seventeen essays that reflect on hobbits as a vehicle for exploring a variety of important philosophical questions such as the value of art, the concept of just war, the importance of play and playfulness. The book is thus a reference point for philosophical inquiry for those who are more familiar with Tolkien than with Kierkegaard, Kant, or Rene des Cartes. The essays are as likely to launch into a paragraph or three about Plato, Augustine, Thoreau, or Aquinas as they are a paragraph about Thorin, Bilbo, or Gollum. But ultimately they all do find their way back to Middle-earth, and those who know all the mountains and forests of Middle-earth may suddenly gain a new understanding of Plato.

The contributors of the essays are primarily philosophers writing about Tolkien rather than literary scholars (though there are a few English or Humanities Professors mixed in.) As the title suggests, and as one will quickly guess form the voice and tone of the opening essay "The Adventurous Hobbit" (by Bassham), there is a certainly whimsical feel to the book and to its approach. The contributors all seem to love both philosophy and J.R.R.Tolkien, and they also seem to take both topics seriously. The seriousness does not lead to dullness or a dry esoteric approach; rather it leads to something like playfulness, joy, energy, excitement (the degree to which these elements appear varying from contributor to contributor).

The strength of an edited collection like this, and also its weakness, is that the work as a whole has only a vague cohesiveness centered on the unifying topic--albeit a well defined topic.

SUMMARY

"The Hobbit and Philosophy: For When You've Lost Your Dwarves, Your Wizard, and Your Way" has apparently been published in anticipation of the upcoming movie "The Hobbit", which will appear in American theaters on December 14, 2012. "The Hobbit" is J.R.R. Tolkien's prequel to his book "The Lord of the Rings". Overall, I believe that co-editors Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson tried their best to do justice to the philosophical themes present in this beloved children's book. There are a number of very good essays here. In addition, ideas from Eastern philosophies were presented, which is the exception in collections such as this. Unfortunately, this collection of essays lost its way, and it suffers from enough defects to make this a merely mediocre entry in the Wiley-Blackwell "Philosophy and Pop Culture" series. There were too many essays that were either poorly-written or were more social commentary or literary analysis than philosophy. Quite a number of the essays exhibited a style of writing that appeared to focus more on name-dropping than on developing an identified philosophical theme. Finally, the "curse of the book's editor" appeared not once, but twice.

STRUCTURE

The main idea behind this collection of seventeen essays is that Bilbo Baggins' adventures in "The Hobbit" provide situations wherein philosophical themes can be identified and explored. In Part One, "Discover Your Inner Took", Bilbo's decision to leave his home and venture forth to find The Ring raise questions about growth and human potential, change versus stability, enlightenment, and cosmopolitanism versus provincialism.

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