Lawson provides a comprehensive look at the history of western thought, the evolution of science and its attempts to provide us with a "theory of everything" and an evaluation of the relativist multiple truths.

Perhaps the first non-realist metaphysics, it brings out the play between our desire to build a thoroughly organized and regulated world, and our contrary longing for openness and freedom (Don Cupitt, Emmanuel College Cambridge)

...shows himself to be a latter-day "metaphysician' on a grand scale...a quite astonishing achievement (Alan Montefiore, Balliol College, Oxford)