Mr O’Loughlin’s main philosophical project of 1983 combines dialogues and essays with aphorisms and maxims in a so-called multigenre volume of which essays form by far the greater proportion. However, nine dialogues is no mean undertaking, and they range from subjects as diverse - albeit interrelated - as the freeing of art from mundane attachments as it evolves from pagan to transcendental times; the distinction between Jews and Israelis; the development of awareness at the expense of feeling in art; the moral implications of sexual sublimation; the evolutionary struggle from gravity to curved space; the development of religion from the personal to the universal; the nature of petty-bourgeois art; the possibility of denominational progress in Western religion; and the apotheosis of the 'universal man'. Such, then, is the scope of the opening section, while the ensuing section not surprisingly enlarges on many of the subjects touched upon in the dialogues, as well as introduces a number of fresh ones, including the main distinction between Christianity and Transcendentalism; the psychology of swearers; the irrelevance of punishment to a transcendental society; architectural and sartorial relationships to gravity both upwards and downwards; understanding jazz in relation to other types of contemporary music; the distinction between philosophy and pseudo-philosophy; and the nature of ultimate music. Originally intended as a sort of sequel to the above, the concluding sections move us on and up from the phenomenal realm of dialogues and essays to what Mr O’Loughlin likes to think of as the noumenal realm of aphorisms and maxims, in which the will is at one with the truth it strives to convey through the most concise means and is if not Truth itself then at any rate certainly truthful! Subjects treated here include the relation between sexuality and dress; the nature of the self; the significance of Israel; the role and nature of worship in popular religion; poetry verses philosophy; the evolution of the arts; the metaphysics of modern music; the psyche; God; ideology; and, last but by no means least, gender. Although The Will to Truth should not be taken for the Truth, meaning, I suppose, total metaphysical insight, it nonetheless signifies a significant stage on the road to John O’Loughlin’s achievement, in due course, of greater degrees of philosophical truth, and is arguably more radical than anything preceding it in this field! - A Centretruths editorial.
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