ELEGANCE AND SUBTLETY are the hallmarks of Bernard Williams's philosophical style, both in the quality of his thought and the manner of his prose. His contributions have enriched philosophical debate for decades, and as this absorbing book about truth and the vocations of truth shows, they continue to do so.

A consistent theme in Williams's thinking about ethics that our ethical lives should be robust in the face of that criticism which uses our general reflective knowledge - what he calls our 'social knowledge', including a knowledge of history - to test them. Submitting our ethical views to examination demands