INTRODUCTION

 

BETWEEN TRUTH AND ILLUSION signifies an attempt by me to return to basics in philosophy and understand the connections and indeed interrelations of antitheses, polarities, opposites, and other such neat philosophical categories in relation to the relativity of everyday life. It is not an express attempt to expound the Truth but, rather, a modest undertaking on my part to comprehend the paradoxes of the world in which we happen to live, and seek to unveil some of the illusions and superstitions which make the pursuit of Truth such a difficult, not to say protracted, task. Hopefully the result of this undertaking is a franker and maturer approach to those very paradoxes which were the inspiration for this work and which led to some of its most striking contentions.

If BETWEEN TRUTH AND ILLUSION cannot, by dint of its paradoxical nature, lay claims to being the Truth, it can at least be seen as the basis for a more realistic appraisal of the terms by which the pursuit of Truth is made possible.

 

John O'Loughlin, London 1977 (Revised 2011)