[1][2] His theory of "closure"[3] puts forward a non-realist metaphysics arguing that people close the openness of the world with thought and language.
[20][21] Initially influenced by postmodernism at the outset of his career, Lawson contributed to and co-edited the collection of essays Dismantling Truth: Reality in the Post-Modern World, which explored the philosophical core of the theory.
[22][23] He also published the pamphlet After Truth - A Post Modern Manifesto, written in collaboration with Hugh Tomlinson, a translator of Deleuze.
[24] The influence of a postmodern approach continued in his collaborations with the American philosopher Richard Rorty, who contributed to Lawson's BBC film Science...Fiction?
[27] These works demonstrate Lawson’s long-standing scepticism of realism, apparent in the last decade from his exchange of articles with Timothy Williamson[28][29][30] and debates with analytic philosophers John Searle,[31] Simon Blackburn,[32] and others.
[33][34] Despite accepting the basic postmodernist claims about the unrealistic nature of an objective truth, Lawson emphasises the need for “post-realism”.
The main body of the book describes the process of closure and the means by which people can intervene in the world and seemingly understand it.
[54][55][56] In doing so it seeks to demonstrate that meaning and understanding are not dependent on notions of reference and truth, arguing that although there is nothing in common between closure and openness this does not limit the ability to intervene successfully in the world.
[71] Now Revisited, performed at Shunt, London in 2009, was a video painting installation in five acts in which the audience found themselves the subject of the work.