Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life - Hardcover

by Agnes Callard (Author)

Socrates has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that "the unexamined life is not worth living," yet take no steps to live examined ones. We know that he was tried, convicted, and executed for "corrupting the youth," but freely assign Socratic dialogues to today's youths, to introduce them to philosophy. We've lost sight of what made him so dangerous. In Open Socrates, acclaimed philosopher Agnes Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates' thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life.

Callard draws our attention to Socrates' startling discovery that we don't know how to ask ourselves the most important questions--about how we should live, and how we might change. Before a person even has a chance to reflect, their bodily desires or the forces of social conformity have already answered on their behalf. To ask the most important questions, we need help. Callard argues that the true ambition of the famous "Socratic method" is to reveal what one human being can be to another. You can use another person in many ways--for survival, for pleasure, for comfort--but you are engaging them to the fullest when you call on them to help answer your questions and challenge your answers.

Callard shows that Socrates' method allows us to make progress in thinking about how to manage romantic love, how to confront one's own death, and how to approach politics. In the process, she gives us nothing less than a new ethics to live by.

Back Jacket

There are important questions about your life that you are avoiding, right now, as you read this. You tell yourself that now is not the moment to attempt an answer. Like other people you know, you are taking life fifteen minutes at a time, distracting yourself with work, with TV shows, with anything that will allow you to move forward. Everyone quietly reassures everyone else: this is fine, we are all doing it, we can keep going on like this until each of us dies.

Nearly 2,500 years ago, a man said, "this is not fine." The reaction was mixed. Some people were intrigued by the possibility of asking such important questions, and by the conversations that only he seemed able to have. Others were outraged, and demanded a return to the kinds of conversations everyone used to have before he came along. Eventually, the second group won out, and he was put to death.

The man, whose name was Socrates, predicted that his objection would live on, and it did, in certain circles--though it was dulled, softened, quieted. Socrates believed that a life devoted to open inquiry was the right course, not only for self-styled "intellectuals," but for everyone. Taking Socrates as a guide, this book steers directly into the fundamental questions, and shows that we need not avoid them--and how we can make progress toward answering them.