In chapter 4 Palmer turns his attention to two concepts: community and great things. Community is the basis for teaching, learning, and knowing: "To teach is to create a space in which the community of truth is practiced." Great things are those subjects around which we form communities.

Community is intertwined with knowledge and reality: "Reality is a web of communal relationships, and we can know reality only by being in community with it." To explain knowing by means of community, Palmer contrasts two models of ways to approach Truth.

The first model, which he rejects, is the Objectivist model. In this model there is an object of knowledge which resides "out there." There are also experts who have been trained to know these objects in a completely non-subjective way. And there are amateurs who depend on experts to tell them the truth about the object. In this model "truth is a set of propositions about objects; education is a system for delivering those propositions to students, and an educated person is one who can remember and repeat the experts' propositions." The model is linear with the object at one end the experts in the middle and amateurs at the other end.

The second model, which he accepts, is the Community model. In this model, there is a subject with which knowers, in community, interrelate. The thing focused on is a subject , thus allowing it to be available for relationships, and the model is circular with all knowers gathered around the subject. The teacher facilitates the group by helping them to learn and use shared rules of observation and interpretation.

In this kind of situation knowers "gather around a common subject and are guided by shared rules of observation and interpretation that require them to approach the subject in the same way." Truth, then, becomes "An eternal conversation about things that matter, conducted with passion and discipline."

According to Palmer the things of the world "call to us, and we are drawn to them" and in the relationship we form with them emerges the truth. These things Palmer calls "the great things," which include everything from "the genes and ecosystems of biology, the symbols and referents of philosophy," to "the materials of engineering with their limits and potentials, and the logic of systems in management." If we grant these great things a life of their own--their own inwardness, identity, and integrity, we can experience their power and learn the truth. Creating relationships with these great things, especially as members of a community that observes and interprets together, is the key to knowing, learning, and teaching.