In the Absence of Human Beauty

Subtitled 'philosophical fragments' – an apt description of the episodic and at times gnomic content - this book sounds rather like Wittgenstein in opening with the sentence that 'It is not that our search was satisfaction has its limits, but that satisfaction is itself a limit.' Later on the same page we have 'that which is now no longer exists. It never did.' Neither of these two fragments have an accompanying commentary, which is the case with many of the others, and mystics would certainly disagree with the second statement. In the course of these explorations, many of which are devoted to the theme of the Other, the author engages with Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Levinas, Nietzsche and others. In bridging the gap (p. 38), Ray feels that non-conceptual experience or feeling is more important than knowledge; and between the philosophical musings are other fragments of the life of a couple wrestling with some of the same issues, as well as with language. There are many stimulating lines of thought for philosophically minded readers.