Richard Dawson has held teaching positions in economics, law, and politics and published work on the economic role of government, on colonization, and on literary dimensions of law.

• Foreword by Gary Watt, Acknowledgements, Table of Cases, PROLOGUE, Attunement to Attunement, To a General Reader, When a Lawyer Writes a Complaint: Herbert A. Eastman, INTRODUCTION, Attunement to and from James Boyd White: Hearing the Hearing, Connecting Readers, An Alphabetical Lexicon, A Guide for Confusion: Composition and Literary Criticism at Amherst College, Quotations: Political Listening, Pronouns, ACTIVITY, ‘Questions of a Certain Sort’: Michael Oakeshott, 'Now I Know How to Go On’: Ludwig Wittgenstein, ALIENATION, The ‘Alienation Effect’: Bertolt Brecht, 'The Art of Placing Action at a Distance’: Milner S. Ball, ATTENTION, The Love Rule: Simone Weil, ‘A Certain Negro Woman’: Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Economizing on Attention: Arjo Klamer, ATTUNEMENT, ‘When One Learns a Distant Language’: A. L. Becker, ‘Learning as Attunement’: Frances Trix, CHARACTER, ‘Prejudices’: Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, ‘Integrity’: Jane Austen’s Persuasion, ‘Rational Fools’ and Homo Economicus: Amartya Sen, CONSTITUTION, ‘An Entailed Inheritance’: Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ and McCulloch v. Maryland, Reimagining South Africa’s ‘Transformative Constitution’, CONVERSATION, ‘A Game with Hard Rules’: David Tracy, ‘The Power of Conversation’: Jane Austen’s Persuasion, ‘The Longer Conversation’: The Waitangi Tribunal, ‘By Challenging Your View of Economics’: Peter E. Earl, CULTURE, ‘Talking Past Each Other’: Joan Metge, ‘The Tribe of Economics’: Arjo Klamer, EQUALITY, ‘Economic Power’: John R. Commons and Holden v Hardy, Speaking Truth to Power: Nelson Mandela, Socratic Questioning: Clark D. Cunningham, EXPERIENCE, ‘Beyond Our Own Circle’: Jane Austen’s Persuasion, ‘Every Freshman a Phoenix’: Amherst Composition and Literary Criticism, ‘Genuine Limit-Situations’: David Tracy, ‘I Jettisoned Chicago Economics’: Leonard Rapping, IMAGINATION, ‘In One Person Many People’: William Shakespeare’s King Richard II, ‘Maps of Sovereignty’: Perry Dane on the Cherokee Nation, Images of Images: Kenneth Boulding’s The Image, INTEGRATION, ‘An Integral Reality’: Lon Fuller’s Jurisprudence, Modern Constitutional Diversity: James Tully’s Strange Multiplicity, JUDGEMENT, ‘When We Think About New Cases’: Linda Ross Meyer, ‘The Source of This Court’s Authority’: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, JUSTICE, ‘The Sole Arbiter of Its Own Justice’: Wi Parata v. Bishop of Wellington, ‘The Just Man Justices’: Gerard Manley Hopkins, ‘When the Laws Themselves Become Immoral’: Bram Fischer, ‘A Coalescence between Law and Justice’: Ismail Mahomed, LANGUAGE, ‘It Most Froze Me to Hear such Talk’: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, When a Law Student Reads Huckleberry Finn: Elizabeth Perry Hodges, When an Economist Drafts Legislation: John R. Commons, ‘The Legal-Economic Nexus’: Warren J. Samuels, LISTENING, ‘Am I Understanding You Well?’: Harville Hendrix, ‘Listening Modes’: Mark Weisberg and Jean Koh Peters, METAPHOR, ‘The Whole of Thinking’: Composition and Literary Criticism at Amherst, ‘The Negotiation of Meaning’: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, ‘The Economy of Intellect’: D.N. McCloskey, METHOD, The Case Method of Law: Anthony Kronman, ‘A New Horizon’: Bernard Lonergan’s ‘Transcendental Method’, MOVEMENT, ‘Transcending Our Own Competitive Particularity’: C.S. Lewis, ‘Stuck’: Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, ‘Constitutional Transformation’ in South Africa: A. J. van der Walt, PERFORMANCE, ‘The Performing Self’: Composition and Literary Criticism at Amherst, Authority and Communication: Charles Bingham, PLAY, ‘Your Getting Lost’: Robert Frost, A ‘True Question’: Hans-Georg Gadamer, QUESTIONING, ‘The Edge of an Abyss’: Composition and Literary Criticism at Amherst, ‘The Socrates within Us’: R. G. Collingwood, READING, ‘Ear Training’: Composition and Literary Criticism at Amherst, ‘Good Reading’: J. Hillis Miller, RHETORIC, ‘To Rediscover Rhetorical Elements’: Kenneth Burke, ‘Probing for Common Ground’: Wayne Booth’s Rhetorology, SILENCE, Nelson Mandela’s Speech from the Dock, ‘A Silent Professor’: Mark Weisberg, UNDERSTANDING, ‘The Contents of this Treaty’: Waitangi, ‘Now I Know How to Go On’: Ludwig Wittgenstein, ‘Fusion of Horizons’: Hans-Georg Gadamer, VOICE, ‘Officialese’: Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem, ‘At Once Serious and Conversational’: Lani Guinier’s Demosprudence, BIBLIOGRAPHY

"In all this, it is a very human book, nothing if not sincere, heartfelt, and personal. Whatever flaws it may seem to have are flaws born of the author’s courage in writing it: reflections of the complexities of a mind trying to be honest with itself. It is also brilliant."- Jack L. Sammons, Mercer University School of Law for Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice (number 11, 2014)