In many ways, this book is a response to two best-selling non-fiction books, Edward O. Wilson's Consilience, the Unity of Knowledge, and Deborah Tannen's The Argument Culture, Moving from Debate to Dialogue although it was written before either appeared. Neither Tannen nor Wilson desire a real dialogue because, as their writing reveals, their minds are already inalterably made up on the most basic assumptions. All they really want is for their opponents to shut up and submit.
Although the author of Maximum Distrust, the Disunity and Incompleteness of Knowledge reveals a lot of characteristic wishy-washiness and lack of any consistent ideological or philosophical positions, he obviously is not, by temperament, capable of shutting up and submitting to the Wilsons and the Tannens of the world, however numerous and increasingly intolerant of real debate they seem to be becoming.
Even though Maximum Distrust frequently contradicts itself and vacillates between philosophical positions like a drunken, whimsical sailor lurching down a street full of beautiful girls, there are some propositions that author Cook suggests will always be rather more true than not.