Richard Lara was born in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Huntington Beach, where the Pacific Ocean was his

playground, and he attended public schools. He took his first philosophy course at Orange Coast College, and  he soon

thereafter transferred to UCI where he earned his BA in philosophy and history. After working in the private sector at an

investment firm, he attended Indiana University, Bloomington where he earned MA degrees in philosophy and history. While 

there, he won a DAAD scholarship that paid him to study German in Leipzig, Germany. He later won an Indiana University

Graduate Exchange Fellowship that paid  him to conduct research in Berlin, Germany for a year. He stayed on in Berlin to

earn his Ph.D. in German philosophy from the Freie Universitat zu Berlin. His doctoral dissertation, "Reason, Values and

the Cultivation of Body and Life: A New Philosophical Paradigm Introduced through a Kantian Reading of Nietzsche's

'Zarathustra,'" examines Nietzsche's views on reason as they relate to the philosophy of Kant, Plato and to various

themes in the Western Philosophical tradition. He has been a guest columnist for the Orange County Register, and he has

written a book manuscript on Kant and Nietzsche that is currently under review at a respected university press. Dr. Lara

has a broad background in philosophy and history. His current studies focus on the philosophical and historical origins

of the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution, and his research has taught him a deep respect for these pillars of

American Democracy.