The More Details We Learn About The

Altruism Itself Depends On A Recognition Of The Reality Of Other Persons, And On The Equivalent Capacity To Regard Oneself As Merely One Individual Among Many.

We Are An Episode Between Two Oblivions.

Common Sense Doesn't Have The Last Word In Ethics Or Anywhere Else, But It Has, As J. L. Austin Said About Ordinary Language, The First Word: It Should Be Examined Before It Is Discarded.

Once We Have Taken The Backward Step To An Abstract View Of Our Whole System Of Beliefs, Evidence, And Justification, And Seen That It Works Only, Despite Its Pretensions, By Taking The World Largely For Granted, We Are Not In A Position To Contrast All These Appearances With An Alternative Reality. We Cannot Shed Our Ordinary Responses, And If We Could It Would Leave Us With No Means Of Conceiving A Reality Of Any Kind.

The Point Is... To Live One's Life In The Full Complexity Of What One Is, Which Is Something Much Darker, More Contradictory, More Of A Maelstrom Of Impulses And Passions, Of Cruelty, Ecstacy, And Madness, Than Is Apparent To The Civilized Being Who Glides On The Surface And Fits Smoothly Into The World.