This book explores human possibility at the end of the twentieth century. It takes the form of discussion between an eminent philosopher and a skilled journalist about "the human measure" as it engages false absolutes and their accompanying utopias. The book proposes a "third way" between capitalism and socialism, and it concludes with comments on end-of-century phenomena, including democracy, intellectuals, and terrorism.

This book establishes that the ancient Greeks had a prevailing method of doing philosophy which was rooted in philosophical realism. Through extensive historical and philosophical analysis, it demonstrates that this method was challenged in ancient times by an apocryphal notion of philosophy which eventually became confused with philosophical reasoning, and was passed on to posterity through the work of Christian theologians until it was called into question by leading thinkers of the thirteenth century. It shows how this thirteenth-century challenge influenced the growth of the Renaissance...