In a succession of provocative and wide-ranging chapters, Stanley Fish explores the rational basis of our literary, legal, and psychoanalytic interpretations. He argues that while we can never separate our judgements from the context in which they are made, those judgements are nevertheless authoritative, and in the only way that matters, objective. He explores the implications of his ideas on the nature of professional and institutional culture, on literary theory, the philosophy of law, and the sociology of knowledge, and assesses the place of reason in a rhetorical world.