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The Foreword to TAPTOE.
The Structural-Systematic Philosophy (SSP) is a systematic philosophy in progress. Books developing it so far are (in English) STRUCTURE AND BEING (2008), BEING AND GOD (2011), and TOWARD A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF EVERYTHING (TAPTOE; 2014). Podcasts describe the project and present details.
TAPTOE Foreword
Although the book TAPTOE says that its Foreword was written by Lorenz B. Puntel, in fact, I wrote the Foreword, though only having discussed the book with Puntel in detail. And of course he approved it after I wrote it. It reads as follows:
I was delighted to have the opportunity to write this Foreword for TOWARD A PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF EVERYTHING (TAPTOE), a book devoted to what it aptly terms THE STRUCTURAL-SYSTEMATIC RESEARCH PROGRAM IN PHILOSOPHY. I had been working on this program since the late 1970s, and TAPTOE author Alan White has been working on it with me since fall 2003. Our collaboration continues with TAPTOE in that the two of us have discussed the book in its entirety.
What is most important for me to say in this Foreword is the following: TAPTOE succeeds magnificently in accomplishing its two chief goals, that is, in providing a concise and accessible introduction to the structural-systematic research program as a whole, and in making important contributions to the structural-systematic philosophy, the theory to which the research project or program is devoted. It does the latter, particularly in its Chapter 6, which presents a theory of human freedom, and its Chapter 7, which presents us theory of beauty that increases the intelligibility and coherence of the structural systematic philosophy as presented in STRUCTURE AND BEING.
[Digressing from the Foreword:] Perhaps worth noting at this point is that whereas STRUCTURE AND BEING commits the structural systematic philosophy to a robust theory of human freedom, it does not develop that theory in any detail. It does present a theory of beauty, but I was deeply dissatisfied with that theory. Since the first time I read it, it was also the only part of structuring being that punctal never discussed with me. When I tried to discuss it, he said there were other more important things for us to talk about and that he would be visiting a former student of his in dressed in, and she, an expert in aesthetics would be a more appropriate person to discuss it with. I later asked him how that conversation went and he said the former student didn't understand it. When I decided to write TAPTOE, one of my major goals was to improve on that theory, so I read it as extensively as I could in in the philosophical literature. I found almost everything that I read deeply unsatisfying, but I finally hit upon a book written and published in 1974 by Francis J. Kovach called PHILOSOPHY OF BEAUTY. And I thought it got beauty right. I had to change Kovach's theory to fit it into the theoretical framework of the structural-systematic philosophy, the SSP, but I concluded that it fit extremely well. And, as indicated in the Foreword, Puntel agreed. I take the account of being in Chapter 8 of TAPTOE also to be a significant improvement on what is said about being in STRUCTURE AND BEING and in BEING AND GOD. And although Puntel initially agreed with me about that, he came to disagree. I'll have a lot more to say about that in my podcast on chapter eight.