![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() While his command of the primary and secondary literature is impressive and his philological insights are illuminating, Kingsley is not interested in giving us information: he wants to change us, to draw us into the initiatory spell cast by Parmenides and Empedocles. As Kingsley puts it: “If you want to keep a grip on what you think you already know, you will have to dismiss what I say” (15), and he breaks scholarly convention by arguing that these ancient authors have something critically important to say to us. For if we read it with care Reality will undermine not only our accustomed understanding of Parmenides and Empedocles, it will undermine our habits of rational sensibility, our consensus reality, even our self-identity. Reality is a brilliant and passionately written book that will strike many if not most readers as monstrous, and in the true sense: it is wondrous, portentous, even frightening. Reality is the culmination of Kingsley’s previously published research on both Parmenides and Empedocles, and, to the surprise of no one who is familiar with his work, he holds nothing back. ![]()
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