At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

What counts as rational argumentation is as historically determined and as context-dependent, as what counts as good French.

All human relations untouched by love take place in the dark

The most important advance that the West has yet made is to develop a secularist moral tradition

A talent for speaking differently, rather than for arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change.

Truthfulness under oath is, by now, a matter of our civic religion, our relation to our fellow citizens rather than our relation to a nonhuman power.

Academic disciplines are subject to being overtaken by attacks of "knowingness"- a state of mind and soul that prevents shudders of awe and makes one immune to enthusiasm.