The Radical Metaphysics
of Richard Schain

   

Who I Am

 

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The event of overriding importance in my life occurred when I chose to leave the scientific world for a vocation of independent philosophy. I have never regretted this change. There have been three major literary influences in my philosophic life: 1. Friedrich Nietzsche who showed me how to write with my "blood." 2. Nicolai Berdyaev who taught me how philosophy differed from science. 3. Fernando Pessoa who revealed that it was possible to write meaningfully without regard to fame or fortune.

Independent philosophy, as I conceive it to be, is the art of philosophical self-expression. It exists outside of academic philosophy, which for a long time has been devoted to analyses of cognition or to critiques of eminent philosophers. My view of philosophy, however, is that it is a form of creative non-fiction seeking out the truth of things. Thus it belongs to the world of the arts and not that of science.

Brief Biographical Data

1930

Born in New York City

1950

A.B. (philosophy) — New York University

1954

M.D. — New York University

1957 - 1962

Training in neurology — Yale-New Haven Medical Center

1962 - 1980

Professor of neurology & psychiatry at the University of Nebraska, Emory University and UCLA

1979 -

Joined lives with Melanie Dreisbach

1980 - Independent philosopher
1980 - 2006 Consultant neurologist at Sonoma State Hospital, California
1993 - 1994 Physician, Navajo Reservation, Arizona

2006 - 2021

Emigration to Mexico

2013 - 2022

Part-time residence in Sonoita, AZ

2022 -

Residence in Memphis, TN