Phl 361K

Fall ’03

Questions for Reflections and Discussion: Mt. Doom (Nov. 18 & 20)

ROTK, Book VI, 1-5

1. How does Sam's song of defiance reflect the power of music and poetry? Why is it significant that he begins with "old childish tunes from the Shire" and Bilbo's verses? What accounts for Sam's ability to compose poetry on the spot? (p. 226)

2. Why is it important that orcs must eat and drink? (p. 233) "The Shadow can only mock, it cannot make… I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined and twisted them."

3. Is there any "luck" in Mordor? (p. 252)

4. Why does the "death" of hope turn to new strength in Sam? (p. 259)

5. Why does the potency of lembas increase as one relied upon it alone? (262)

6. Is Frodo's betrayal of the quest at the end understandable? Excusable? Does he act with free will? With knowledge of what he's doing? (274)

7. What does the narrator mean by "regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness"? (286) Why is this associated with a song recapitulating Frodo's adventure?

8. Tolkien himself was troubled by a recurring dream of a great flood wave. Does his incorporation of this feature into Faramir enrich the story? Does it suggest a special connection between Tolkien and Faramir? (297)

9. What does Faramir's opposition of "the reason of my waking mind" and "my heart" suggest about the relationship between faith and reason? (p. 297) (Compare Pascal's dictum, "The heart has its reasons, which reason cannot understand.")

That Hideous Strength, 271-358

1. Compare Frost and Wither's mistake about the vagrant with the blindness of Sauron and Saruman in the LOTR. Do they have a common, Boethian explanation?

2. Dimble: "good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse." (282) What does this mean? Is it true? Does something like it hold true in Tolkien's world as well?

3. Compare Merlin/Belbury and Gandalf/Saruman. Is the magic of Merlin comparable to that of Gandalf and Galadriel? (Connect to Lewis's discussion of magic in The Abolition of Man.)

4. Why does Ransom reject Merlin's offer to invoke his power over nature? (288) Why has magic, once innocent, become illicit? Is a similar change underway in Middle-Earth?

5. How did Belbury bring about its own downfall? Did something similar happen to Morgoth and Sauron (in Numenor)? (290)

6. What does Ransom mean by "The passion was brewed in these West lands but it has spit itself everywhere by now… The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus"? (293)

7. How does Frost exemplify the attitude of the Conditioners in Lewis's The Abolition of Man? Why does he dismiss moral judgment as "emotive" and "subjective epiphenomena"? as "merely hypostasizing elements in the experience of an Iron-Age agricultural community"? (295-6)

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8. Why does Frost's brainwashing technique backfire? Where does Studdock's knowledge of the "Normal" come from? What does the "Normal" mean? (299, 310)
9. Does Mr. Bultitude the bear illustrate Barfield's theory of ancient semantic unity? Does Lewis carry the theory farther than Barfield would, by extending it to the level of non-human animal consciousness?

10. What does Lewis mean by the distinction between the male and the masculine? (316) Is the male/masculine a Barfieldian unity? What are the similarities and differences between the treatment of the relation of the sexes in That Hideous Strength and Tolkien's fiction?

11. Does Mark's reaction to the crucifix reflect the "Northern view of courage"? (336) Does Lewis's use of the crucifixion create a bridge between pagan and Christian thought?

12. Consider Wither as a paradigm of evil. (352-3) Is Lewis's description of Wither consistent with a Boethian theory of evil or a Thomistic account of the will? Does it require a Scotistic theory of freedom? Compare Wither with Melkor, Saruman and Sauron.

Sayers, The Mind of the Maker

1. Must the author really "be",in some sense, each of his characters? (51-2)

2. Why is it a mistake to seek to know the author through his work? What should we be seeking instead? (57)

3. What account of free will is Sayers assuming? (Note, free will = "developing in conformity with their proper nature". (67)

4. If the mind of the author is not passive, if nothing like automatic writing is involved, how can the characters truly be autonomous?

5. Why is it problematic for an author to give unbridled development of free will in the characters? (70) What is the solution? Does this shed light on Tolkien's writing?

6. What is the unity of character and situation that guarantees the harmonious development of each "according to its proper nature"? (75) By "proper" nature, does Sayers mean "unique" or "true"?

7. Why are miracles generally unsatisfying in literature? (Consider Dickens's Micawber, 78-9. ) Does this imply anything about the suitability of miracles in real life? Are any of Tolkien's eucatastrophes Micawber-like? When are "conversion or coincidence" permissible in a story? (82) Why is there more coincidence than conversion in Tolkien's stories?

8. Is Berdyaev right in thinking that primordial nothingness is the root of human freedom? (99)

9. Is Sayers convincing in her argument that non-being depends for its reality on being? (100-1)

10. What does Sayers mean by "the Good, by merely occurring, automatically and inevitably creates its corresponding Evil"? (102) Is she right?

11. What is "positive" evil? How does it come about? Why is matter, although not evil in itself, the only medium in which active evil is experienced?

12. God knows evil by pure intelligence, but Man can know it only by experience. Is this helpful in explaining the possibility of the Fall? (103)

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Chesterton, Saint Thomas Aquinas

1. What is the difference between being classified and merely being labelled? (174)

2. How is a "moderate Realist" different from a Platonist? (174, 178)

3. Is Chesterton convincing in his argument that all improvement presupposes that "the best exists, somewhere, both before and after the change"? (175-6)

John E. Joseph, Limiting the Arbitrary

1. What is meant by "physis" and "nomos"? (14-5) What are the linguistic theories of Hermogenes and Cratylus?

2. How does Plato distinguish Hermogenes' conventionalist theory of language from Protagoras's metaphysical relativism? (22-3)

3. Why is it critical that language (speaking) be an activity with a purpose? (26) How does this purposiveness put a constraint on linguistic arbitrariness? (28) What is the purpose of a word?

4. Why must the word-maker (nomothetes) look to the ideal form of the word? What is this ideal form? (33-4)

5. How does Plato transform the concept of nature (nomos)? How does his thesis (that the ideal word is attached by nature to each thing) different from Cratylus's theory?

6. Does the prototype theory of Rosch and Marr have any connection to Plato's theory of the ideal word? (195)

Farrer, Faith and Speculation

1. Why does the inconceivability of divine action threaten to make the very idea of a First Cause meaningless? (62-3)

2. How useful is Farrer's analogy of recognizing a Rembrandt and recognizing divine action? (63-4)

3. Why does the "causal joint" between infinite and finite action play no role in our practical concern with God and his will? How does recognizing this lead to a solution of the problem of free will and predestination? (66)

4. How can there be two agents for an identical actions? (104) What are the two palliatives (logical and pragmatic) for this paradox? (105)

5. Why must the actions and intentions of God be understood analogically? (106-7)

6. What is God's immediate and particular will? His wider and ulterior will? How does Farrer explain the apparent conflict between the two? (108-110) Why is the "inexhaustible patience of God" essential to his solution?

7. Does Farrer presuppose a Scotistic theory of free will and good & evil when says, "We have the ability to overrule our mere nature in the interest of larger purposes; yet we abuse that ability or fail to use it." (110) What does he mean by "mere" nature? Is he presupposing something like an affectio commodi and affecti iustitiae?

8. "God wills no fulfilment of human good otherwise than by attracting men's free decision." What does "attracting" mean here? Is this a mechanistic model, like magnetic attraction?

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Koons, "A Thomistic Account of Providence…"

1. Could my account of dual agency be used to shed any light on the relation between the action of an author and his characters? If so, can this be used to illuminate the creator/creature relation?

2. Does the introduction of chance into the created order provide an adequate basis for real freedom, or must individual human beings be independent sources of wilfulness, potentially in conflict (in every way) with the divine will?