Contemporary scientific advances have placed many traditional philosophical concepts under great stress. In this book, the philosopher Robert Nozick rethinks and transforms the concepts of truth, objectivity, necessity, contingency, consciousness, and ethics.

Thomas Nagel presents a sustained defence of reason against the attacks of subjectivism, delivering systematic rebuttals of relativistic claims with respect to language, logic, science and ethics.

Arguments are examined, re-examined, challenged, and honoured in this lively dialogue on relativism and objectivity. Topics considered include whether truth and goodness are matters determined by individual opinion; whether they are defined by cultures; whether a nondogmatic form of relativism is viable; whether the objectivity of science escapes relativism; and pragmaticsm as an alterbative to ..

Essays discuss relativism, knowledge, creativity, progress, Aristotle, Galileo, cultural pluralism, and reason.