Summary and Analysis

"Sanctity, Eroticism and Solitude" This chapter seems to be the text of a speech, in that the author directly addresses an audience in a way he has not done in any chapter before. Most of the chapter is taken up with a discussion of the nature, value and purpose of philosophy, but at the same time, he reiterates several of his previous points—about the nature of taboo and transgression, about eroticism being a transgression of a taboo, and about eroticism being something different from sexuality. He discusses eroticism in terms of sanctity, which he defines as "the life that the presence of a sacred reality within us informs, a reality that may completely overwhelm us", suggesting that eroticism, because it is a transgression of a taboo, which is, by definition, grounded in sanctity, is unsanctified. Finally, he suggests...