Molly says:

Instead of its primary title being “Harry Potter and Philosophy”, the book might better be called “Introduction to Philosophy (with Harry Potter)”

‘Bout sums it up.

Sounds like yet another thing they can stick Harry’s name on to try to get sales. The book actually sounds interesting, but since, as you said, it makes half-assed arguments, I think I’ll pass.

While the books do have their flaws (length being one) I do get a lot out of them. But I’ve never been a part of the whole fandom, nor do I care to be. What I get from them is what I get, I don’t need to be involved in discussions over it or be analyzing it to death. Philosophy is interesting on its own, I’ll give it that.

Also, the second movie WAS pretty lame. Saw it in the theater, bought it, watched half of it once, never again, it got stolen, actually they all did… and I haven’t bothered to replace them. The movies just don’t do it for me. They’re just… semi-fun entertainment. I hear the fourth one’s the best of all of them but I haven’t seen it yet.

Wes says:

Well, admittedly, this book had its work cut out for it with me as a reviewer, given that I a) don’t like Harry Potter and b) graduated with distinction in philosophy — so while I agree that perhaps a Potter fan would be less irritated by the Potter references, the philosophical aspects of the book are probably better evaluated by someone with some degree of familiarity with the subject. And it’s too bad that I’d returned the book by the time I got around to writing the article, because there are several notable instances of the “blah blah blah, therefore, clearly” phenomenon that I mentioned in the review that certainly would’ve helped to support my criticisms.

However, to address your comment, while not all of the topics in the book are pretty standard intro philosophy questions, the vast majority of them are — which may not be all that bad, since I guess the book wasn’t written for people who are already familiar with philosophy. But therein lies the problem, as the book contains some pretty poor presentations of the issues (given the problem mentioned above) and in contrast to the comments you note in the introduction, is clearly written as if it neatly sums up these issues (which, of course, it does not). Moreover, while reading philosophy can be interesting in itself, the true value of philosophy comes from exploring issues and utilizing the experience to improve one’s critical thinking skills in general — which I do not think that this book encourages its readers to do at all.

So if you swing by again, Chip, do tell me if, after reading the book, you sat down to discuss any of the topics therein with your friends or thought about the problem of evil as you sat in church or read the latest news concerning the situation in the Middle East. Or, in watching the media’s decidedly unfavorable depiction of minorities and the allegations of racism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, did you connect the teachings of the article about the disenfranchisement of the house elves with these current events? I’m genuinely curious.

Thanks for commenting!