Bøger af Richard Schain

The Introduction to Writings from a Literary Ugly Duckling describes the situation of the author Richard Schain (apologies to the memory of Hans Christian Andersen). He is a total isolate as a writer, ignored by critics and public alike. The various reasons for this state of affairs are summarized. Nevertheless, Schain asserts that the situation has benefitted him greatly as a writer and as a human being. Writing for himself has made him into an independent personality, has chiseled out his spirit, and formed his soul, which is the one thing truly worth doing in this increasingly technological and spiritless society.There are eleven essays following the Introduction that represent the range of Schain's philosophical and political interests. (He often rereads his own writings when the mundane nature of his societal life weighs too heavily upon him.) Some of the essays express Schain's intuitions about the reality of the human soul, its metaphysical fate, and its role as the 'workshop' of Divinity. Others are devoted to Jesus the Jew (Yeshua ben Yosef), the never-ending relevance of Friedrich Nietzsche, the single human cause of the tragedy of the American Civil War (Abraham Lincoln), and the necessary future breakup of the global American empire.A final section is a narrative story in verse (Ivan Carter), modeled after Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. It deals with the suppressed but ubiquitous 'erotic impulse' and its effects on conventional social life

LANDESMAN'S LEGACY: The Abandoned Writings (2018) is the sequel to LANDESMAN'S JOURNAL: Meditations of a Forest Philosopher (2016) Paragon House, St. Paul, Minn. Leon Landesman was an unsuccessful academic philosopher who had retreated to a solitary life at the edge of a national forest. He kept a personal notebook, mailing it shortly before his death to Schain, his only friend, who published it under the title LANDESMAN'S JOURNAL. The current work has a very different history. Sometime after Leon's demise, Schain was visiting his deceased friend's cabin and decided to investigate a decrepit shed in the back. There he came across a steamer style trunk, which required much effort to open. It was filled with many pages of writings that Landesman seemed to have set aside. Leafing through them, Schain recognized that these were no mere jotting down of random notes but were a significant deepening of this forest philosopher's concepts about life, extending from his own life to American life and to human life in general. The expression was far more forceful and encompassing than the relatively restrained style of the Journal. After spending many hours deciphering the barely legible handwriting, Schain came to realize that these were Landesman's true legacy, representing a gift to readers in search of developing themselves and interested in knowing an individual such as Leon Landesman, who had dedicated his life to developing his soul.

This book is a summa of the attitudes and concepts of the author developed over a 35-year period of creating philosophical books. Since he regards philosophy as a category of artistic expression, little of the apparatus of the scholar is to be found in this work. Yet the individual who writes philosophy is naïve if he ever can imagine that his personal expressions are independent of the society in which he lives. The critique of this influence is an essential task of a philosopher. It is futile to delegate it to the armies of scholars who abound everywhere in the materialist, entertainment-oriented, commercial activities that pass for culture in current western societies. Beyond the critique, the author offers his sense of the one reality always needful of attention, the interior state of individual human beings. The absence of philosophy in one's life leaves an individual defenseless against the onslaughts of a commercial culture. The art of philosophy is the process by which concepts are developed out of one's life experiences. It is the only means an individual has to protect himself against societal forces that are always threatening to wash away one's own souI. Specific issues addressed in this book include the nature of the soul, the ultimate metaphysical reality called God, bourgeois and metaphysical reality, and the development of an independent self. A section entitled "The Meaning of the Erotic Impulse" is an area that has been ignored by academic philosophy. About the Author: "Richard Schain is a member of a small but significant group of 'independent' philosophers working outside of academic philosophy. I believe that his writings serve as a powerful testimony to the value of the life of the mind, and the perennial urgency of the questions of metaphysics." Geoffrey Klempner, D. Phil. (Oxon)

Philosophical Potpourri is a group of writings expressing the author's thoughts on the perennial problems of philosophy: the self, the world, and God. At the conclusion of the section entitled Metaphysical Night Thoughts, Schain summarizes his intuitions by stating that an evolving God "augments" his own Being through the higher consciousness of individual human beings. To some, this might seem to be a blasphemous idea, but it is the settled conviction of the author. Other sections are entitled Confession of Faith of a Misanthropic Philosopher, Metaphysics of the Literary Impulse, Poor America, and a long poem The Last Transport.

"The noble soul has reverence for itself." - Friedrich NietzscheThe purpose of these spiritual notebooks is to express and clarify the writer's consciousness of the relationships between his self (soul), Divinity (God), and the material world. A key intuition finally expressed is that God 'augments' his own Being through incorporating into Himself the consciousness of individual human beings. Each notebook builds on the previous ones, but also contains new insights of the writer. The project was essential for his well-being. What it reveals, however, may be of interest to other seekers of a spiritual dimension in their lives.

In Love With Eternity presents a project of philosophic thought. It is composed of a group of essays and fragments concerned with the creation of one's self, which self is the substance of reality for every human being. The nature of philosophy, however, has become blurred by the advancement of the sciences in the past two centuries, leading to a situation where philosophers consider themselves to be scientists--many would like to wear white coats if they could. Nevertheless, philosophy is not science but is metaphysics and is the consequence of the long recognized "metaphysical need" of homo sapiens. A central concept in these essays is that of the relationship of 'eternity' to time; one can regard with dismay the passage of time but love one's position in eternity. The concept of the "pointillist canvas of eternity" is presented as a new philosophical world view.Knowledge of the history of thought is essential for philosophical development and in this project, ideas of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Berdyaev are given special emphasis. The essay entitled "Philosophy: Rigorous Science or Intuitive Thought" asserts the primacy of the mysteriously rational, mysteriously intuitive human mind over the object world of science.

In this unique exploration of Nietzsche's life and behavior, Dr. Richard Schain challenges the widely held view that this important philosopher's actions and erratic writings were due to general paresis, or syphilis of the brain.