PREFACE
This text is largely
composed of what I am wont to call philosophical supernotes
- a sort of cross between essays and aphorisms - and is not written in the
usual linear fashion of a straightforward progression from idea to idea, but
follows a spiralling course towards a kind of ideological summit which is both
an ending and a beginning, an achievement and an aspiration. In such fashion, ideas are not stated and
abandoned, as in the linear mode of writing, but are introduced on one level of
the spiral and taken-up again on another, higher level later on, where they are
re-worked in more detail or clarified and consummated, as the case may be. Sometimes a particular idea, or theme, will
pass through three or more turns of the ascending spiral before finally being
abandoned; one might argue that such an idea is major rather than minor and
forms a kind of leitmotiv
to the work as a whole, appearing first in one way, then in another, modified
by changing perspectives as much as by position in the literary edifice. For why should one confine oneself merely to
a single point of view? Or expect the
reader to recall everything stated on an earlier page when he is over half-way
through the work? Re-statement enhances
the idea's credibility, lends it extra weight, and keeps it fresh in the
mind. I have never despised repetition,
nor contradiction, or what may appear as such.
An idea tentatively expressed lower down the literary edifice may be but
an introduction, an exploration of unknown and, by its peculiar nature,
hazardous or controversial material.
Re-expressed in slightly different and firmer terms higher up the
spiralling edifice, such an idea acquires the mantle of conviction, of
ideological certitude. In such fashion,
philosophical progress is made. And the
reader, mindful of the contrast between the earlier and later perspectives, is
left in no doubt of it! He becomes the
chief witness of the unfolding and maturation of higher truth - what I am wont
to call Supertruth, which is above and beyond all
illusion.
John
O'Loughlin, London 1986 (Revised 2011)
