In many ways, this book is a response to two best-selling non-fiction books; Edward O. Wilson's Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge, and Deborah Tannen's The Argument Culture, Moving from Debate to Dialogue although it was written before either appeared. Neither Tannan nor Wilson desires a real dialogue because, as their writings reveal, their minds are already unalterably made up on the most basic assumptions. All they really want is for their opponents to shut up and submit. Although the author of Maximum Distrust, the Destiny and Incompleteness of Knowledge reveals a lot of characteristic wishy-washiness and lack of any consistent ideological or philosophical positions, he obviously is not, by temperament, capable of shutting up and submitting to the Wilsons and the Tannens of the world, however numerous and increasingly intolerant of real debate they seem to be becoming.