An interesting question
Hookbill, but an odd one.
Odd, because it posits the idea of a “philosopher” without really engaging what is meant by that. This is probably coy, but just what is a philosopher, anyway? The only people whose primary occupation these days is philosophy are Professors of Philosophy at Universities. Come to think of it, nobody has ever really
been a philosopher, they
did philosophy in the course of their lives (even Aristotle had a day job as a teacher and tutor – to Alexander the Great, no less – but I digress. . .) If we allow for a definition of philosopher that is descriptive (that is, one who philosophises is a philosopher) rather than prescriptive (that is, one whose ‘job’ it is to philosophise is a philosopher) then I cannot see how we cannot give the honour of that title to Tolkien. I have been struck time and again by the depth, subtly and intelligence of Tolkien’s engagement with truly profound matters, particularly in his Letters and
LotR.
But this is really just a semantic argument.
SaucepanMan has already anticipated me in shifting focus away from the question/status of Tolkien as philosopher to his works – in particular,
LotR – as philosophical texts. Yes, the tale was meant to entertain, and it is a narrative-fiction with applicability rather than an allegorical treatise (like, say,
The Consolation of Philosophy or Dante’s
Divine Comedy), but it is not alone among works that pursue overtly philosophical questions in this manner – off the top of my head I can think of several: the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, the Gospels), the
Aenied, the
Illiad, and two works that were very near and dear to Professor Tolkien’s heart,
Beowulf and
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Nor do I think that we have to look “deeply into”
LotR to see its moral philosophy (sense of right and wrong), its exploration of hermeneutics (how things or human actions become or are rendered meaningful), its phenomenological concerns (how things or human actions gain meaning within a human-social context) or its eschatology (exploration of the meaning that accrues to the mortal time of human existence with reference to the eternity that comes at the ‘end’ of time). This idea of “looking deeply” is also an odd one to me: beneath the text there is only the blank white paper of the page; between the lines there is nothing. Everying that the text ‘is’ or contains is right there in black and white before us. The sense of moving “into” the text is really a projection of our own inner exploration that the text is both catalyst for and partner in.
Tolkien was not a philosopher (in the sense that he worked as one in his professional life) but a philologist – so it would only make sense that his pursuit and examination of philosophical issues would come about through his interest in language. When we start to look at the names that he creates for his heroes, I think it is impossible
not to acknowledge not only the scope of his philosophical interests, but their potential profundity as well.
As has been acknowledged elsewhere in the
forum Frodo’s name comes from the Old German word ‘frodá’ meaning ‘wise by experience’. Frodo’s journey is very much a journey from innocence into wisdom, which is precisely what philosophy (which is Greek for “love of wisdom”) is all about! The fact that this journey to wisdom is painful and arduous I think only re-enforces the deeply philosophical interest and impetus of the text, for who but a philosopher would know better the difficulty (impossibility?) of achieving true wisdom within the time of human history and experience.
The names of Aragorn and Arwen also point to equally weighty philosophical concerns:
• ‘Ar’ is Old English (the language that Professor Tolkien devoted his professional life to studying and teaching) and has several meanings. When applied to a person it denotes a messenger, in particular a servant or herald of God (angel or apostle). When presented as a quality it means glory, honour, reverence, dignity, grace, favour or pity.
• ‘agorn’ (in OE) means to have or possess, or to deliver and restore; it can also mean to come forth, grow, or approach.
Aragorn’s name therefore has been very carefully chosen by Tolkien to mean the possession, approach and restoration of all that ‘ar’ denotes. This is not allegory (in which case Aragorn’s name would be something like Truth and Sauron’s would be Falsehood), but it demonstrates the philosophical nature of the text from the very groundwork out of which it was built (the names that Tolkien constructed). But this philosophical pattern goes even further when we consider the implications of Arwen’s name. We’ve got ‘ar’ again, but with ‘wen’ a whole new slew of connotations enters the text:
• ‘wenn’ means belief, hope, expectation, and is a form of ‘wenan’ which means to believe in, expect or hope and fear for an outcome
• ‘wyn’ means joy, rapture or delight.
Arwen’s name them means variously the delight or joy of ‘ar’ (so it makes perfect sense that she would love Aragorn)
and belief and hope in, expectation of the fulfilment or arrival or ‘ar’ (so it makes perfect sense that Aragorn’s journey is concluded only when he marries Arwen).
The names of these two characters points the way to a whole series of what I think are explicitly philosophical explorations of the manner in which ‘ar’ is brought about, found, hoped for, nourished and realised in human history. This is far more than a simple fairy-tale love story between a hero and his lady – the relationship of Aragorn and Arwen is a dynamic and important part of the overall fabric, which explores the nature of Aragorn’s revelation of his innate wisdom, in relation to Frodo’s slow and painful growth into wisdom.
Postscript – Thanks to
H-I for clearing those questions up for me. But still: what if the falling tree is an Ent who yells out as he falls (“who put that stone there?”)? Or, is the “cl” sound of the left hand clapping, while the right sounds like “ap”?