TEHRAN – A Persian translation of English philosopher Ronald William Hepburn’s “The Reach of the Aesthetic: Collected Essays on Art and Nature” has come into the Iranian bookstores.Masud Olya is the translator of the 2001 book published by Qoqnus.This book focuses on the rich web of interrelations between aesthetics and wider human concerns. Among topics explored are concepts of truth and falsity (within art and aesthetic experience generally), superficiality and depth in aesthetic appreciation of nature, moral beauty and ugliness, the projects of integrating a life, of fashioning a life as a work of art, experiments in the aesthetic re-working of the “sacred”, and the role of imagination within religion and in our attempts to place and identify ourselves within the cosmos. The essays are both interlinked and distinct, allowing them to be read in any order, and providing useful themes for discussion groups and seminars. Hepburn aims to arouse in the reader something of his enjoyment in unraveling the connections of ideas that come into view when one approaches aesthetics in its widest setting.Hepburn was a philosopher whose interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics.Photo: A combination photo shows English philosopher Ronald William Hepburn and the Persian edition of his book “The Reach of the Aesthetic”.MMS/YAW