These essays gather together Gellner's thinking on the connection between philosophy and life and they approach the topic from a number of directions including a discussion of individuals including Chomsky, Piaget and Eysenck.

Part 1 Philosophy in general; Chapter 1 The devil in modern philosophy; Chapter 2 The crisis in the humanities and the mainstream of philosophy; Chapter 3 Reflections on philosophy, especially in America; Chapter 4 On being wrong; Chapter 5 Is belief really necessary?; Part 2 On ethics; Chapter 6 Maxims; Chapter 7 Ethics and logic; Chapter 8 Knowing how and validity; Chapter 9 Morality and ‘je ne sais quoi’ concepts; Part 3 Some ancestors; Chapter 10 French eighteenth-century materialism; Part 4 Philosophy in particular; Chapter 11 Thought and time, or the reluctant relativist; Chapter 12 Poker player; Chapter 13 Ayer’s epistle to the Russians; Chapter 14 Ayer on Moore and Russell; Chapter 15 The belief machine; Part 5 Psychologists and others; Chapter 16 The ascent of life; Chapter 17 Man’s picture of his world; Chapter 18 On Freud and Reich; Chapter 19 A genetic psychologist’s confessions; Chapter 20 Eysenck: seeing emperors naked; Chapter 21 On Chomsky;