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“... Shrinking or expanding the amount that we attribute to Plato does not alter this assumption. Myles Burnyeat’s long Introduction to the Theaetetus belongs in the minority tradition that the anonymous commentator tells us of. It stems from Plato’s school, the Academy, in its sceptical period; and here we must remember that ancient sceptics are not ...”

“... Bernard Williams had a very large mind. To read these three posthumously published collections of essays (there will be a fourth, on opera) is an overwhelming reminder of his incandescent and all-consuming intelligence. He brought philosophical reflection to an opulent array of subjects, with more imagination and with greater cultural and historical understanding than anyone else of his time ...”

“... The concerns of academic philosophy are to some degree the concerns of everybody. At the same time, they often appear to plain pre-philosophical men and women – including those perhaps not so plain persons who are professors of English or History or Physics – as vaguely ludicrous. On the one hand, academic philosophy is centrally concerned with such all-pervasive concepts as those of truth, rationality and goodness: and who, whether in other academic disciplines or in the transactions of everyday life, can disown an implicit commitment, at the very least, to some view of what rational justification consists in, and of what constitutes sound evidence for a belief, and who, consequently, can avoid admitting to a certain vulnerability to the conclusions of professional philosophers on these matters? Yet, on the other hand, the level at which academic philosophers treat these questions often appears to outsiders – including some philosophers themselves in their off-duty moments – as disturbingly abstract and unrealistic ...”

“... collection of essays on ancient and modern scepticism. Many of these essays, as well as Professor Burnyeat’s vision of the multiformity and elasticity of Scepticism, will have a permanent effect on how such issues are discussed. This is not a volume which simply records and codifies the great interest which Scepticism has recently provoked. In addition, it ...”