Irrtum und Verlust unearths and exposes a fundamental assumption deeply buried both in common thought and in materialist philosophy: that reason transcends its evolutionary pedigree, allowing us to speak coherently of a reality divorced from all experience. As we have moved from a religious to a scientific explanation of our cosmos, this error has led directly to a terrible loss – the disenchantment that pervades our age. Yet when we dare to stare the error in the face, all variants of materialism self-destruct, and the world we live in, the world of trees and rocks and stars and animals and other human beings, gets its once unquestioned magic back.

Irrtum und Verlust is a philosophical work of play, parable, and paradox, a detective story that uncovers what has deadened our connection to our universe, and then offers both restoration and a reconciliation with the thought of ages past.