Links to the files of
which follow the introductory remarks below:–
My main
philosophical project of 1983 combines dialogues and essays with aphorisms and
maxims in a four-part 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 emotion 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 Part One, while
Part Two, not surprisingly, enlarges upon many of the subjects first broached
in the dialogues, as well as introduces a number of new 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 modern music; the
distinction between philosophy and pseudo-philosophy; and the nature of
ultimate music.Originally intended as a
sort of sequel to the above, Parts Three and Four move us on and up from the
phenomenal realm of dialogues and essays to what I like 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 highly 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
gender.Although The Will to Truth,
standing at opus 30 in a 122-opus oeuvre mostly dedicated to works of an
aphoristic philosophical nature, should not be taken for the Truth, meaning, I suppose,
total metaphysical insight, it signifies a significant stage on the road to my
achievement, in due course, of greater degrees of philosophical truth, and is
arguably more radical than anything preceding it in this field! – John O’Loughlin.
John O’Loughlin was born in Salthill, Galway, the Republic
of Ireland,
of Irish- and British-born parents in 1952. Following a parental split partly due to his mother's Aldershot origins (her father, a Presbyterian from Donegal, had served in the British Army),
he was brought to England by his mother and grandmother (who upon the death of her husband had initially returned to Ireland after a lengthy marital absence from Athenry) in the mid-50s and, having had the benefit of private tuition from a Catholic priest, subsequently attended St. Joseph's and St. George's RC schools in Aldershot, Hants, and, with an enforced change of
denomination from Catholic to Protestant in consequence of having been sent to a children's home
by his mother upon the death and repatriation of his ethnically-protective grandmother, he went on to attend first Barrow Hedges Primary School in Carshalton Beeches, Surrey, and then Carshalton High School for Boys. Upon leaving the latter in pre-GCSE era 1970 with an
assortment of CSEs
(Certificate of Secondary Education) and GCEs
(General Certificate of Education), including history and music, he moved to London and went on, via two short-lived
jobs, to work at the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music in Bedford
Square, where, with some prior experience himself of having sat and passed (with merit) an ABRSM Gd.4 piano exam, he eventually became responsible for booking examination venues throughout Britain and Ireland.
After a brief flirtation with further education at Redhill Technical College back in Surrey, where he had enrolled to do English and History A Levels, he returned to his former job in the West End
but, due to a combination of personal factors, quit the Associated Board in 1976 and began to pursue a literary vocation which,
despite a brief spell as a computer tutor at Hornsey Management Agency (Hornsey YMCA) in the late '80s and
early '90s, he has steadfastly continued with ever since. His novels include Changing Worlds (1976), An Interview
Reviewed (1979), Secret
Exchanges (1980), Sublimated
Relations(1981), and False Pretences (1982). Since the mid-80s John O'Loughlin has dedicated himself almost exclusively to
philosophy, which he regards as his true literary vocation, and has penned several titles of a
philosophical nature, including Devil and
God (1985–6), Towards
the Supernoumenon(1987), Elemental Spectra (1988–9), Philosophical Truth (1991–2) and,
more recently, The Best
of All Possible Worlds (2008), The Centre of Truth
(2009), Insane but not Mad (2011) and Philosophic Flights of Poetic Fancy (2012).
