After reading through this thread I was struck by how much one can derive from some of Tolkien's works. Not only here, but one has only to look around the Downs to see threads built up out of a phrase or two here and there. With any lengthy work, such as the Middle Earth Legendarium, there are bound to be hidden things, little nods to other things and so on.
Of course, Tolkien wasn't an alien from the planet Zoog, where people have sixty or so faces. The title of this post comes from the Rabbinical traditions of Judaism, some Rabbis used to say (and I belive still do) that
'The Tanakh (the Old testament) is like a gem with seventy faces; each time you turn it, the light refracts differently, giving you a reflection you have not seen before'.
We here on the Downs seem to treat Tolkien similarly; everyone keeps turning the books and seeing something new. In the Rabbinical sense, they also said that even Moses (the recorder of the Torah) didn't understand everything in the books he wrote. Nor did all of the Prophets fully comprehend all that they said. Is it possible then, that Tolkien was not aware of just how many interpretations and arguments would be taken from some of his most innocent phrases (like, 'the
shadow about it stretched forth like two vast wings' 
)?
Tolkien was not a philosopher, of course, and I don't think he ever claimed to be. We all have our own philosophical ideas that we want to get across from time to time (everyone thinks they have the right opinion, otherwise they'd get a new one). Of course, in a work such as Middle Earth where so many mythologies and legends are mixed together, each bringing its own philosophical background and connotations, can we really pin anything down for certain on the professor?