Translated by Bencivenga from the original Italian of his philosophical best-seller, this dialogue provides a comprehensive statement on the role of freedom in the realms of morality, psychology, metaphysics, and aesthetics. Bencivenga lets his four characters embrace a wide range of topics in their eclectic discussion, including considerations of quantum physics and deconstruction, the Gothic novel and detective stories, the structure of desire and the mathematics of infinity, penetrating comments on Freud, Raymond Chandler, and Wertverlufe, and a reasonable explanation of why Kants first Critique is longer than both the second and the third.

What results is less a systematic account than a composite picture for the student of philosophy to piece together.