I little thought, throughout my middle to late teens--when I was reading (besides a great deal of history, art history and science fiction) Ayers, Carnap, Hume, Wittgenstein and, before and above all, Bertrand Russell--

that I was acquiring a cast of mind, and a predisposition to think of myself and the universe in the light of a rather focused, perhaps even somewhat narrow, rational and scientific empiricism.  I allow that it might seem somewhat narrow, or perhaps, let us say, captiously dismissive of the claims of metaphysics, idealism or existential philosophy--or even, by the squoogy, subjectivist non-standards of neo-Marxist Postmodernist Continental non-philosophy, that it must seem so.  Being steeped, as it were, in Lord Russell's sublimely clear and sensible world-view (particularly in his History of Western Philosophy, which I virtually memorized, and in his wonderfully lucid explications of modern science and especially of Einstein's theory of Relativity) I have never troubled myself to anatomize or systematize my own personal philosophy. Which is not to say that I have not regularly, and as the occasion warranted it, scrupulously and carefully examined my conscience, and paid heed to it as the voice and presence of the Eternal (which is my inmost Self) in all my thoughts and deeds; but that I have always been confident of my thusfar-acquired understanding of the universe, and of its workings, and of my place in it; and confident, moreover, that what I do not know yet (for I am finite and knowledge is infinite), I will always be able to apprehend, hopefully in timely fashion and as the occasion requires.  And of course. it goes without saying, that I consider it my chief duty (and pleasure) in life--so long as I draw mortal breath--to go on learning, and never, ever, to miss a chance to learn something.

And thus, without much thinking about it, I view Objective Truth of the External World--the world/universe outside ourselves--as the province of Reason and Empirical Reality, whose nearest approximation is to be found in faithful representation(s) of it by Science--and madness or insensate vanity were it to seek to attain Objective Truth (the truths of the World/Universe outside ourselves) by any other means.  Of Inner Truth--Subjective Truths, Psychology, the Truths of Music, Harmony, Aesthetics, "Categorical Imperatives," Sexuality, Language Acquisition, Conscience and Reason itself--I will speak more anon; but I note, for now, that those with the least understanding or knowledge of it, and who have therefore least right to speak of it, are, invariably, those who have most to say about it, and who, in speaking of it, sully it unspeakably:  e.g., Emmanuel Kant in his 'Lectures on Ethics.'