METAPHYSICAL REALITY

My latest book (almost certainly my last), Metaphysical Reality, has just come out. The book challenges mainstream views on the nature and function of philosophy. To regain for philosophy her rightful vital role in human life we have to go back to Socrates and Plato. Socrates saw that philosophy has nothing to do with the investigation of the natural world, her sole concern being to make us look inwards to examine our ideas, ideals, and values to understand ourselves. Plato knew that the insight given us by philosophy into our inner reality cannot be encapsulated in definitive formulations but has to be conveyed in ever-renewed parables, metaphors, and myths. Philosophy is more akin to poetry than to science. A genuine philosopher does not seek to attain any objective knowledge or final truth but to philosophize and to live philosophically. This is a collection of philosophical papers, beginning with three major essays: “Plato’s Examination of Knowledge”, “Whitehead’s Real World”, and “Russell’s Dilemma”, followed by some twenty short pieces, all turning round or touching on the question “What is real?” In fact the book is something of a supplement to Quest of Reality (2013). Its primary aim is not so much to answer the question “What is real?” as to render the question alive, urgent, biting, since our matter-of-fact acquiescence in the common notion of reality swamps us in unreality. The author does not ask the reader to accept the views offered in these essays but to enter into dialogue with these views to develop her or his own position, for the true worth of a philosophical work is to prod the reader to philosophize.