SOURCE: An introduction to his Effluences from the Sacred Caves: More Selected Essays and Reviews, The University of Michigan Press, 1983, pp. 1-7.

In the following excerpt from his introduction to his Effluences from the Sacred Caves, Carruth reflects on philosophy and literature and discusses his approach to writing.

By heritage and inclination, I am not a Platonist. That is clear. I am forced to say it thus negatively, however, because I can define myself—to the extent possible at all—only against the Platonic and Romantic aspirations that still hold out to me a powerful, though I think false, allure.

I come from the western and northern hills of New England. Not the sunny arbors of Concord, the salons of Cambridge, nor even the dark, briny, death-haunted dockside of Ishmael's New Bedford; all unknown to me. My hills are sparse and rocky ground. John Dewey came from a...