Listen, wisdom is something dared, and what matters beyond all else in philosophy, which is the love of wisdom, is a spirit of inwardness, which you have to cultivate for yourself, a practice of inner silence, even before reflection, which philosophy is thought to start with. Inwardness lets in another possibility, a new position from which what had seemed the very terms of reflection can come to be reflected upon. It is a moment of philosophy, therefore, before analysis, which it then inspires, but if it is absent analysis is sterile.

Philosophy is also a conversation, and what matters beyond all else here is demeanour, how we listen, how we speak or write, not seeking dominance, not indifferent to the well-being of the other, but encouraging inwardness, a friendly, even an ‘erotic’ spirit, and we have to learn when thinking can be shared, when its communication can only be indirect, and when we have to stay silent.

This is a record of conversation and self-inquiry, conversation with teachers and friends, and between a younger and an older self, in which my past has corrected my present, I hope, as much as my present has my past. One may be ashamed of a younger self, but also be shamed by it. I began this piece of writing in 1982, in the midst of a period of personal disarray and a few months before the Falklands/Malvinas conflict. Some may be disconcerted by sudden shifts of temporal location, but I do not apologise for the way in which ideas assert and reassert themselves over long periods of time and in different contexts.