Alan Watts: The Limits of Language

“Tonight at any rate we’ve got to go through some theoretical material so we’re on a head-trip. I don’t know where the trip will end up, it depends on you. But in order to lay the foundation for this, we have to examine ideas that are basic to our common sense. Ideas are very powerful. It is not only emotions that are powerful in human life…”

 

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in England in 1915, Alan was an Episcopalian priest who became the spokesperson for Eastern religions during the late 1950s and tumultuous 60s. His first book, The Spirit of Zen, however, was written in the 30s when Watts was just 20 years old. He went on to write more than twenty other books. He died in 1973.