Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life

We all know something about Socrates, though we often reduce him to a paragon of mere "critical thinking." We think we understand his remark that "the unexamined life is not worth living." But in Open Socrates, Agnes Callard--who has emerged as one of our most dazzling and provocative public intellectuals--shows that in fact we understand almost nothing about the Socratic project. Socrates' radical aim was to force us to confront the assumptions that prop up our lives and our worldviews, and to ask whether those assumptions are correct--or whether they hold us back. Teasing out the profound insights of the father of modern philosophy, Callard reveals that what we usually think of as "thinking" is in fact anything but. True thinking can only happen in a dialogue with another person; only through conversation can we inquire into the fundamental questions of our lives. And only by following Socrates' model, she demonstrates, can we truly understand politics, love, death, and everything else that matters.