For more than three decades the incomparable voice of Raimond Gaita has been summoning us to new conversations that deepen our understanding of what matters most to human life and awaken the sense of our common humanity. For Gaita, we are never more fully alive than when we are fully present to one another in conversation. In a time when modes of communication tend to superficiality and self-promotion, when political debates are increasingly inured to lies and even violence, and the moral demands of dialogue give way to a torrent of competing monologues, Gaita's invitation to rediscover what genuine conversation requires of us could not be more timely.

Scott Stephens is the ABC’ s Religion and Ethics online editor and the co-host (with Waleed Aly) of The Minefield on ABC Radio National. He has published widely on moral philosophy and theological ethics, and co-edited (with Rex Butler) and translated two volumes of the selected writings of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Ž iž ek, Interrogating the Real and The Universal Exception. With Waleed Aly, he is the co-author of Quarterly Essay 87, Uncivil Wars: How Contempt is Corroding Democracy. Raimond Gaita is honorary professorial fellow in the Melbourne Law School and emeritus professor of Moral Philosophy at King's College London. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. The University of Antwerp awarded him the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa ‘ for his exceptional contribution to contemporary moral philosophy and for his singular contribution to the role of the intellectual in today’ s academic world’ .