Nozick analyzes fundamental issues, such as the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the foundations of ethics, and the meaning of life.

Geoffrey Hawthorn has written a substantial conclusion for the second edition of his widely acclaimed critical history of social theory in England, France, Germany and the USA from the eighteenth century onwards. Hawthorn begins with the 'prehistory' of the subject and traces, particularly in the thought of Rousseau, Kant and Hegel, the emergence of certain fundamental distinctions and assumptions whose existence is often overlooked in studies of the traditional 'founding-fathers' of sociology like Marx, Durkheim and Weber.