John O'Loughlin's main philosophical project of 1983 combines dialogues and essays with aphorisms and maxims in a kind of multigenre project in which essays form by far the greater proportion. However, nine dialogues is no mean undertaking, and they range from subjects as diverse - albeit interrelated - as the freeing of art from mundane attachments as it evolves from pagan to transcendental times; the distinction between Jews and Israelis; the development...