This project is comprised of two substantial volumes of maxims entitled 'Maximum Truth' and 'Truthful Maxims', both of which, dating from 1993, extend the philosophy of Social Transcendentalism into new realms of metaphysical insight, including a more comprehensive subatomic theory that owes much to the structural quadruplicities of previous works, including 'Elemental Spectra', by the author. But it is in its departure from anything to do with the 'Clear Light of the Void', to which authors like Aldous Huxley succumbed, that this project stands out as a beacon of evolutionary enlightenment in relation to the 'Holy Spirit of Heaven'.

THE MAXIMUM TRUTH QUARTET combines four books of aphoristic philosophy under one heading, beginning with 'Maximum Truth' and progressing, via 'Truthful Maxims' and 'Informal Maxims', to 'Maximum Informality'. Thus this quartet of books begins with a 'maximum' and ends with one, all of which were written in 1993, and thus demonstrate a stylistic and thematic continuity.

INFORMAL MAXIMS & MAXIMUM INFORMALITY is another of those 'mirror-image' composite projects by John O'Loughlin which takes his wholly aphoristic approach to philosophy a stage or two further along the path of Truth than did its predecessor in the genre,'Maximum Truth & Truthful Maxims' (1993), adding to Social Transcendentalism the concept of Social Theocracy, and thus broadening out the messianic ideology of transcendentalism to include what was destined, in subsequent books, to become the ideological counterpart of Social Democracy and, in that sense, the political as opposed to religious face of the ideology in question.

A TRUTHFUL APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE is not only volume two of John O'Loughlin's 'Collected Essays' but is effectively the reverse of the first volume, 'A Knowledgeable Approach to Truth', insofar as it's less hampered or besotted by physical knowledge and more open to truth as a kind of metaphysical knowledge which, dependent upon certain feelings, is distinct from knowledge per se, being more purely of the mind. It is still, of course, a volume of essays and therefore short of the sort of metaphysical perfection or purism that only comes with aphorisms. But, even so, it signifies an advance on its precursor and should be read with a view to keeping higher possibilities, including the author's aphoristic writings, in mind, since it intimates of them in no uncertain terms!

As John O'Loughlin's mature works became increasingly aphoristic and hence, to his mind, increasingly metaphysical, with what he would regard as truth effectively eclipsing the fumblingly discursive nature of essays and, indeed, knowledge generally, he totally abandoned both the essays (as here) and the dialogues (published in a separate collective volume), together with such early aphoristic material that at least had the merit, so far as he was concerned, of anchoring him in a more genuine approach to philosophy than could ever be found in works of a philosophical nature diluted by prose and, hence, by a discursive want of both logic and system unworthy, in his estimation, of true philosophy. Nonetheless, the reader will be aware that philosophical essays are still distinct from literary prose, all the more so when, as in this volume and various others, the material has been centred, the better to intimate of a sort of metaphysical aloofness from the pedament-slaving world which customarily fights shy, in the angularity of its untransvaluated nature, of anything resembing, no matter how metaphorically, the curvilinear subjectivity of a dome, particularly when intimating, in true religious vein, of transcendental possibility, a possibility very much a part of the best of the essays included in this one-volume presentation, spanning the years 1977–84, of John O'Loughlin's literary output. – A Centretruths Editorial

OCCASIONAL MAXIMS & MAXIMUM OCCASIONS resembles other reverse-title books like 'Informal Maxims & Maximum Informality' (1993) in its basic two-fold design, but differs from them in respect of the kind of thematic shift, resembling a mini-revolution, that takes place in the second book of this metaphysically deep and ideologically radical project, continuing, as before, the quest for philosophical perfection through Social Transcendentalism.

From the riddling song of a bawdy onion that moves between kitchen and bedroom to the thrilling account of Beowulf's battle with a treasure-hoarding dragon, from the heart-rending lament of a lone castaway to the embodied speech of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, from the anxiety of Eve, who carries "a sumptuous secret in her hands / And a tempting truth hidden in her heart," to the trust of Noah who builds "a sea-floater, a wave-walking / Ocean-home with rooms for all creatures," the world of the Anglo-Saxon poets is a place of harshness, beauty, and wonder. Now for the first time, the entire Old English poetic corpus—including poems and fragments discovered only within the past fifty years—is rendered into modern strong-stress, alliterative verse in a masterful translation by Craig Williamson. Accompanied by an introduction by noted medievalist Tom Shippey on the literary scope and vision of these timeless poems and Williamson's own introductions to the individual works and his essay on translating Old English poetry, the texts transport us back to the medieval scriptorium or ancient mead-hall, to share a herdsman's recounting of the story of the world's creation or a people's sorrow at the death of a beloved king, to be present at the clash of battle or to puzzle over the sacred and profane answers to riddles posed over a thousand years ago. This is poetry as stunning in its vitality as it is true to its sources. Were Williamson's idiom not so modern, we might think that the Anglo-Saxon poets had taken up the lyre again and begun to sing once more.

This book collects twenty-five of the author's essays, each of which addresses a descriptive or a foundational issue that arises at the interface between linguistic semantics and pragmatics, on the one hand, and the philosophy of language, on the other. Arranged into three interconnected parts (I. Matters of Meaning and Truth; II. Matters of Meaning and Force; III. Knowledge Matters), the essays suggest that some key topics in the above-mentioned fields have often been approached in ways that considerably underestimate their empirical or conceptual complexity, and attempt to delineate perspectives from which, and conditions under which, an improved understanding of those topics could be sought. The book will be of interest to linguists working in semantics and pragmatics, and to philosophers working in the philosophy of language and in epistemology.

This volume offers novel views on the precise relation between reference to an object by means of a linguistic expression and our mental representation of that object, long a source of debate in the philosophy of language, linguistics, and cognitive science. Chapters in this volume deal with our devices for singular reference and singular representation, with most focusing on linguistic expressions that are used to refer to particular objects, persons, or places. These expressions include proper names such as Mary and John; indexicals such as I and tomorrow; demonstrative pronouns such as this and that; and some definite and indefinite descriptions such as The Queen of England or a medical doctor. Other chapters examine the ways we represent objects in thought, particularly the first-person perspective and the self, and one explores a notion common to reference and representation: salience. The volume includes the latest views on these complex topics from some of the most prominent authors in the field and will be of interest to anyone working on issues of reference and representation in thought and language.