Justin Taylor hat aus Peter Kreefts Buch "The Philosophy of Tolkien" 50 philosophische Fragen zusammengestellt. Das Verfolgen einzelner Fragen gibt dem Lesen zusätzliche Tiefe.
1. Metaphysics
1.1. Metaphysical realism: that reality is more than appearance, more than our consciousness, and more than our expectations
1.2. Supernaturalism: that reality is more than the natural (matter, time, and space)
1.3. Platonism: archetypes
2. Philosophical Theology
2.1. God
2.2. Divine providence (especially providential timings and “coincidences”)
2.3. Fate (or predestination, or destiny) and free will
2.4. Religion
3. Angelology
3.1. The reality of angels
3.2. The task of angels: guardians
3.3. Elves as halfway between the human and the angelic
4. Cosmology
4.1. The beauty of the cosmos
4.2. The personality of things in the world
4.3. Magic in the world and man
5. Anthropology
5.1. Death
5.2. Romance
5.3. The perilous status of selfhood; the flexibility of the self
5.4. Sehnsucht, longing (especially for the sea)
6. Epistemology
6.1. Knowledge is not always good
6.2. Knowledge by intuition
6.3. Knowledge by faith (trust)
6.4. Truth
7. Philosophy of History
7.1. Teleology, story, purpose, “road”
7.2. Tradition, collective memory, legends
7.3. The freedom and unpredictability of history
7.4. Devolution, pessimism
7.5. Eucatastrophe, optimism
8. Aesthetics
8.1. Formality, “glory,” height
8.2. Beauty and goodness
9. Philosophy of Language
9.1. Names and language in general
9.2. Proper names
9.3. The magical power of words
9.4. Music
10. Political Philosophy
10.1. Populism, “small is beautiful”
10.2. Peace and war
11. Ethics
11.1. Spiritual warfare
11.2. The power of evil and the evil of power
11.3. The weakness of evil
11.4. The strategy of evil; the mechanism of temptation (especially the Ring)
12. Ethics: The Hard Virtues
12.1. Duty versus utility
12.2. Courage
12.3. Hope versus despair
12.4. Obedience to authority
12.5. Honesty, truthfulness, keeping promises
13. Ethics: The Soft Virtues
13.1. Friendship, fellowship
13.2. Humility, “hobbitry”
13.3. Gifts
13.4. Pity
13.5. Charity; the gift of self
14. The Fulfillment of All the Points: Christ
