Despite a perfect ignorance of the works of Hegel, I should hazard the claim that this book is not remotely Hegelian. It may, nevertheless, properly be described as ‘dialectical’. It has written itself by way of advancing a series of positions each of which involves abandoning to some extent the position previously held. The later positions, however, build on the earlier. They would not be readily intelligible to persons who had not first grappled with the earlier positions. The earlier positions are also more simply statable than the later, and it is an advantage to be able to state simply at an early stage a doctrine which is at least a crude version of the doctrine finally arrived at. The later versions of the doctrine are refinements of this crude version. In the interests of accuracy these refinements have to be made. The interests of plausibility may also be served by the refinements, because objections that suggest themselves against the crude version are, it is hoped, replied to in the refining process. But plausibility is also achieved by a short, sharp, easily understood thesis, as that ‘What Percy says is true’ means no more than ‘For some p, both Percy says that p and p’. Falsehood as well as truth may of course be made to look plausible; but if the first version of the thesis is not the whole truth about truth it is still, I believe, a good deal more true than false.