Abstract

One is tempted to dismiss this book as having little or no philosophical content. It consists of three parts—two series of aphorisms separated by a short reportage, ‘Journey from Sharpeville to Selma’, on a human rights manifestation. The aphorisms of Part I, ‘Journey Toward Fidelity’ and Part III, To Limbo and Back: A Latin-American Journey’ range from the pithy and paradoxical to a paragraph or a page that develops an insight. It is dedicated, committed writing, the expression of a saeva indignatio; but it is not a connected whole. If asked to what philosophical category this writing belongs one would have to put it with the Pensées of Pascal or the ‘Diapsalmata’ that make up the first part of Kierkegaard’s Either/or, or even Niezsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra! It is, indeed, possible that the modern world prefers its philosophy so. But how review Pascal, or Kierkegaard or Nietzsche?