Criticizes the utopian tendency to put a high value on consensus in discussions of truth, rationality, and socio-political justice. The text advocates the approach of pluralism: society should accept its differences, rather than constrain agreement in matters of opinion, valuation, and choice.

Nicholas Rescher presents a critical reaction against two currently influential tendencies of thought. On the one hand, he rejects the facile relativism that pervades contemporary social and academic life. On the other hand, he opposes the rationalism inherent in neo-contractarian theory - both in the idealized communicative-contract version promoted in continental European political philosophy by Juergen Habermas, and in the idealized social-contract version of the theory of political justice promoted in the Anglo-American context by John Rawls. Against such tendencies, Professor Rescher's pluralist approach takes a more realistic and pragmatic line, eschewing the convenient recourse of idealization in cognitive and practical matters. Instead of a utopianism that looks to a uniquely perfect order that would prevail under ideal conditions, he advocates incremental improvements within the framework of arrangements that none will deem perfect but that all "can live with". Such an approach replaces the yearning for an unattainable consensus with the institution of pragmatic arrangements in which the community will acquiesce - not through agreeing on their optimality, but through a shared recognition among the dissonant parties that the available options are even worse.