We develop an approach to Goodwillie's calculus of functors using the
techniques of higher topos theory. Central to our method is the introduction of
the notion of fiberwise orthogonality, a strengthening of ordinary
orthogonality which allows us to give a number of useful characterizations of
the class of n-excisive maps. We use these results to show that the pushout
product of a Pn-equivalence with a Pm-equivalence is a
Pm+n+1-equivalence. Then, building on our previous work, we prove a
Blakers-Massey type theorem for the Goodwillie tower. We show how to use the
resulting techniques to rederive some foundational theorems in the subject,
such as delooping of homogeneous functors.Comment: 40 pages, (a slightly modified version of) this paper is accepted for
publication by the Journal of Topolog