This book is a summa of the attitudes and concepts of the author developed over a 35-year period of creating philosophical books. Since he regards philosophy as a category of artistic expression, little of the apparatus of the scholar is to be found in this work. Yet the individual who writes philosophy is naive if he ever can imagine that his personal expressions are independent of the society in which he lives. The critique of this influence is an essential task of a philosopher. It is futile to delegate it to the armies of scholars who abound everywhere in the materialist, entertainment-oriented, commercial activities that pass for culture in current western societies. Beyond the critique, the author offers his sense of the one reality always needful of attention, the interior state of individual human beings. The absence of philosophy in one’s life leaves an individual defenseless against the onslaughts of a commercial culture. The art of philosophy is the process by which concepts are developed out of one’s life experiences. It is the only means an individual has to protect himself against societal forces that are always threatening to wash away one’s own souI. Specific issues addressed in this book include the nature of the soul, the ultimate metaphysical reality called God, bourgeois and metaphysical reality, and the development of an independent self. A section entitled The Meaning of the Erotic Impulse is an area that has been ignored by academic philosophy. About the Author: Richard Schain is a member of a small but significant group of ‘independent’ philosophers working outside of academic philosophy. I believe that his writings serve as a powerful testimony to the value of the life of the mind, and the perennial urgency of the questions of metaphysics. Geoffrey Klempner, D. Phil. (Oxon)
