Description
Book SynopsisHarry Potter has put a spell on millions of readers, and they all want to find out more about the deeper meaning of his adventures. In Harry Potter and Philosophy, 17 experts in the field of philosophy unlock some of Hogwarts'' secret panels, uncovering surprising insights that are enlightening both for wizards and for the most discerning muggles. Individual chapters look at such topics as life revealed in the Mirror of Erised; the ethics of magic; Moaning Myrtle, Nearly Headless Nick, and the relation of the mind to the brain; and the character of Hermione as a case of sublimated feminism. Also examined in this witty collection are how Aristotle would have run a school for wizards; whether the Potter stories undermine religion and morality; how to tell good people from evil ones through the characters in these novels; and what dementors and boggarts can teach readers about happiness, fear, and the soul.
Table of ContentsI. Wizards, Witches, and Muggles: The Inhabitants of Potter's World; 1. Becoming Harry Potter: An Orphan's Search for Identity; 2. Sublimated Feminism: Hermione Granger and the Women of the Wizard World; 3. Averting the Eyes: Self-Deception and the Self-Image; 4. The Taste of Love in Harry Potter; II. Choices, not Abilities: Virtue and Morality in Harry Potter; 5. If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts; 6. The Mirror of Erised: What is the Best Life; 7. The Question Concerning Magic; 8. Moral Imagination and the Apologist's Paradox; III. Knockturn Alley: Evil and the Dark Arts; 9. Is Ambition a Virtue? The Moral Significance of Slytherin House; 10. Harry Potter and the Guises of Evil; 11. Voldermort, Boethius, and the Destructive Effects of Evil; 12. Dark Creatures at Hogwarts: A Platonic Perspective; 13. Harry Potter on the Meaning of Life and Death, Good and Evil; IV. Every-Flavored Essay; 14. Heaven, Hell, and Harry Potter; 15. Wherein 9 3/4? Space, Time, And Magic in the Potter Universe; 16. Ghosts and the Possibility of Disembodied Existence; 17. Normalizing the Paranormal
