The initiation into the mysteries of philosophy can only be accomplished orally, and thus I have realized it with my limited abilities in the lectures presented here.

Now, their summary through the means of writing aims to preserve traces of this initiation, with a written discourse that inevitably fossilizes the oral nature of speech. Only in this way do I finalize the shape of the lectures, giving them their definitive form at the moment I embalm the living discourse of speech in the mummy of writing.

The perfect tradition is the dead tradition; it is not the living flame of speech, but the radiator of the book. It is not the continuously renewing speech, but the final testament, a bequest, a collateral of the book.

Thus, with this book, my own mummy, a self-embalming of the multiple introductions to philosophy during my academic career, I strive to secure my own transition to the other world of Valhalla, the ideal commonwealth of philosophers. Ultimately, it seems that even my own introduction is carried out under the shadow of Plato.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]