Part 1 Autobiographical: Trotsky and the wild orchids. Part 2 Hope in place of knowledge - a version of pragmatism: truth without correspondence to reality; a world without substances or essences; ethics without principles. Part 3 Some applications of pragmatism: the banality of pragmatism and the poetry of justice; pragmatism and law - a response to David Luban; education as socialization and as individualization; the humanistic intellectual - eleven theses; the pragmatist's progress - Umberto Eco on interpretation; religious faith, intellectual responsibility and romance; religion as conversation-stopper; Thomas Kuhn, rocks and the laws of physics; on Hiedegger's Nazism. Part 4 Politics: failed prophecies, glorious hopes; a spectre is haunting the intellectuals - Derrida on Marx; love and money; globalization, the politics and identity and social hope. Part 5 Contemporary America: looking backwards from the year 2096; the unpatriotic academy; back to class politics.