Mary Midgley is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Philosophy, Newcastle University, UK. One of the leading moral philosophers of the 20th century, Midgley has written extensively on human nature, science, ethics, animals, and the environment. Her books include Beast and Man, Heart and Mind, Animals and Why They Matter, Are You an Illusion? and Wickedness.

This was the last book by a major philosopher and was, as such, a publishing event for Bloomsbury

Part 1. The Search for Signposts

Chapter 1. Directions
Chapter 2. Do Ideas Get Out Of Date?
Chapter 3. What is Research?
Chapter 4. Clashes of Method
Chapter 5. What is Matter?
Chapter 6. Quantum Queries
Chapter 7. What is Progress?
Chapter 8. Perspectives and Paradoxes: Rousseau And His Intellectual Explosives
Chapter 9. Mill And The Different Kinds Of Freedom
Chapter 10. Making Sense Of Toleration

PART 2. Tempting Visions of Science

Chapter 11. The Force of World-Pictures
Chapter 12. The Past Does Not Die
Chapter 13. Scientism; The New Sedative

PART 3. Mindlessness and Machine Worship

Chapter 14. The Power-Struggle
Chapter 15. Missing Persons
Chapter 16. Oracles

PART 4. Singularities and the Cosmos

Chapter 17. What Kind of Singularity?
Chapter 18. Can Intelligence be Measured?
Chapter 19. What is Materialism?
Chapter 20. The Cult of Impersonality
Chapter 21. Matter and Reality
Chapter 22. The Mystique of Scientism
Chapter 23. The Strange World-Picture

Conclusion: One World but Many Window