Notes on Contributors ix Introduction: Play Well, Philosophize Well! 1Sondra Bacharach and Roy T. Cook Part I LEGO® and Creativity 5 1 Constructing Creativity 7Mary Beth Willard 2 Building Blocks of Thought: LEGO® and the Philosophy of Play 17Tyler Shores 3 LEGO® Formalism in Architecture 27Saul Fisher 4 “That Was My Idea!”: LEGO® Ideas and Intellectual Property 39Michael Gettings Part II LEGO®, Ethics, and Rules 49 5 “You Know the Rules!” What’s Wrong with The Man Upstairs? 51Jon Robson 6 Searching for “The Special”: The LEGO® Movie and the Value of (LEGO®) Persons 59Alexander Quanbeck 7 LEGO® and the Social Blocks of Autonomy 69Eric Chelstrom 8 Building and Dwelling with Heidegger and LEGO® Toys 79Ellen Miller Part III LEGO® and Identity 89 9 Ninjas, Kobe Bryant, and Yellow Plastic: The LEGO® Minifigure and Race 91Roy T. Cook 10 Girl, LEGO® Friends is not your Friend! Does LEGO® Construct Gender Stereotypes? 103Rebecca Gutwald 11 Representation in Plastic and Marketing: The Significance of the LEGO® Women Scientists 113Rhiannon Grant and Ruth Wainman 12 Real Signature Figures: LEGO® Minifigures and the Human Individual 123Robert M. Mentyka Part IV LEGO®, Consumption, and Culture 133 13 LEGO® Values: Image and Reality 135Sondra Bacharach and Ramon Das 14 Small Farms, Big Ideas: LEGO® Farm and Agricultural Idealism 145Craig Van Pelt 15 The Reality of LEGO®: Building the Apocalypse 153David Lueth 16 The American Archipelago: Touring the Nation at Miniland USA 163Samantha J. Boardman Part V LEGO®, Metaphysics, and Math 173 17 The Brick, the Plate, and the Uncarved Block: LEGO® as an Expression of Dao 175Steve Bein 18 LEGO®, Impermanence, and Buddhism 185David Kahn 19 LEGO® and the Building Blocks of Metaphysics 197Stephan Leuenberger 20 What Can You Build? 207Bob Fischer 21 Playing with LEGO® and Proving Theorems 217Fenner Tanswell Glossary 227Alice Leber-Cook and Roy T. Cook Index 233

How profound is a little plastic building block? It turns out the answer is 'very'! Today, LEGO has grown from a toy building block with trans-generational appeal to a multimedia phenomenon encompassing television shows and films, corporate training programs, educational robotics programs, fan conventions, clothing and accessories, and even a named professorship at Cambridge University. Written by a group of esteemed philosophers and LEGO fans, LEGO and Philosophy dives headfirst into the many philosophical ideas raised by the world of LEGO, not least of which is exploring what lies at the heart of what makes LEGO so special. It is a building tool that opens up a new world of possibility for the builder. Suddenly the domain of LEGO covers not only what is in our ordinary world, but a world that ends only at the limits of our own imaginations. Through twenty-two fascinating and stimulating chapters the book explores metaphysical, logical, moral, and conceptual issues. It introduces readers to key areas of philosophy through topics such as creativity and play, conformity and autonomy, consumption and culture, authenticity and identity, architecture, mathematics, business and environmental ethics. Perfect for fans and armchair philosophers alike, LEGO and Philosophy invites the reader to come and join the intellectual play of ideas!