This fascinating and highly enjoyable collection of essays from one of the most respected philosophers in Australia ranges across an impressive number of philosophical topics and traditions with unfailing expertise. Deutscher is a beautiful writer with a varied, precise and rigorous use of language. Although the essays are conceptually tight, none of them are overly technical, and the collection is a pleasure to read. Covering nearly four decades of writing, each essay opens a new window onto philosophical questions of method and approach. Together, the essays relate from a fresh perspective the story of the emergence of various fault-lines in contemporary philosophy, and how the discipline has changed and is changing. Deutscher writes from the rare position of someone equally at ease with the technical problems at issue in Ryle and Wittgenstein, as with those driving the projects of Le Doeuff, de Beauvoir and Arendt. This is a model of philosophy sure to appeal to anyone who places a high value on intellectual curiosity and inquiry rather than the affiliations of a school.

Alison Ross, professor of philosophy, Monash University