Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life

by Agnes Callard

Casi 2500 años después, la figura de Sócrates sigue suscitando interpretaciones encontradas. Considerado el padre de la filosofía occidental, se le recuerda por su humildad intelectual, su disposición al diálogo y su trágico final. Sin embargo, el carácter verdaderamente radical de su pensamiento ha sido, en muchos casos, domesticado o malinterpretado.

En Sócrates al descubierto, Agnes Callard —renombrada filósofa y profesora de la Universidad de Chicago— recupera con brillantez el núcleo subversivo de la práctica socrática. Frente a la imagen de un Sócrates irónico o meramente retórico, Callard propone una lectura en la que el método socrático emerge como una herramienta de transformación personal y colectiva, orientada a la formulación rigurosa de las preguntas fundamentales de la existencia.

Este libro argumenta que el pensamiento filosófico no es exclusivo de especialistas, sino una posibilidad abierta a cualquiera dispuesto a interrogar su vida con honestidad. A través de temas como el amor, la muerte o la acción política, Callard demuestra que el legado de Sócrates no pertenece solo a la historia del pensamiento, sino también al presente como una forma exigente —y necesaria— de vivir.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, History, Biography, Self Help, Audiobook, Sociology

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 14, 2025

About the author

Agnes Callard is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on public philosophy.

Reviews

[Greg Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my first forays into philosophy proper, and it did not disappoint. I often found myself reading a passage, pausing, looking off into the distance, and contemplating whether or not I concurred with the author’s assessment—the marker of a truly thought-provoking book. There may be many points of disagreement between the author and her readers, but the experience of engaging with these ideas is very worthwhile.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely floored by this book. I knew I was interested in philosophy, but I was always letting the next fifteen minutes of my life take precedence. This was a more challenging read for me (I have been reading fantasy/fiction mostly), but it was so worth it. Highly recommend. I’ve been quoting it to friends and family. It’s helped open up discussions that I’ve never had access to beforehand. Super excited to be living a more philosophical life and sharing it with the people close to me.

[Henry 磊磊 · Rating 3 out of 5]

gurl, when did you get so tedious!! I loved aspiration when no one knew who she was but this one is thick with block quotes and delves into totally superfluous sections, for example, with using the Iliad. why?? maybe the new Yorker profile got to her head?

my philosophy professor shared a review that his wrote and RIP: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agnes Callard makes you read and understand a bunch of Socrates. And that’s a very good thing.

At a high level, probably the best (re)introduction to philosophy and philosophical thinking I’ve come across in a very long time.

More specifically, her project of introducing a new ethical framework from the dialogues of Socrates, in the format of a popular philosophy book made for an extremely ambitious project that I think was a resounding success!

[Celine Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible opening—the first 10 pages are a very moving argument for how philosophy can fit into an ordinary life and help you become conscious of, and attempt to answer, the most important questions in life—around meaning, purpose, death. Also a great and touching closing—I loved the passages where she reflects on why the early death of a peer/interlocutor was so heartbreaking to her, and differentiates between FOMO (the fear of missing out on the known pleasures of life) and FONA (the fear of never arriving at some desired destination, such as accomplishing an artistic work or answering a significant philosophical question).

The middle of the book feels less…animated by urgency. I put the book down for 8 months and then came back to finish it. There’s kind of an overarching argument: Socrates is an excellent example of why philosophical inquiry is the most important task in life, and one that must be done with others. But I lost track of it in the middle.

Still a very good book (but I am a committed Agnes Callard defender…I just love her earlier book Aspiration: The Agency of Belonging so much!)

[Nick Klagge]

The premise of the book was really interesting, but I felt Callard ultimately failed to deliver. Her setup is that the great ethical traditions of consequentialism and deontology both trace roots back to Socrates, but don't engage much with the way Socrates reportedly lived his life (she focuses almost entirely on Plato's version of Socrates). She intends to lay out a framework for living a good life based more directly on Socrates.

The framework she lays out also seems promising. She grounds it in what she calls "untimely questions," namely, questions about how we should live our lives that are difficult to truly engage with because they relate to foundational decisions we have already made about how to live (for example, what career to pursue, or whether to have a family) and thus are very hard to consider in a disinterested way. Callard focuses on the dialog-based nature of Socrates' practice of philosophy, and argues that this is a fundamental choice of his: that we can only truly "think" by engaging with a second person and dividing the roles of "seek truth" and "avoid falsehood." Callard provocatively argues that what we normally consider "thinking" (i.e., in our own heads) is not really thinking at all, at least as regards untimely questions, because we are too hindered by our own interests.

In the last part of the book, Callard lays out what she sees as applications of this approach to the subjects of politics, love, and death (things that are often the basis of untimely questions, and which Socrates claimed to have expertise in). This was the part of the book that fell off for me. I found her takes on these topics to be pretty uninspiring, which in turn led me to question how much value there really was in the framework she laid out. Very notably, while she gives a number of examples from her own life, Callard does not touch at all on "the" big subject, detailed in a long New Yorker article from 2023, about her decision to leave her husband for another man but to continue living with both of them (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...). This major life choice seems to be the clearest possible example of an application of her approach, and I wish she had discussed it in the book. I don't blame anyone for not wanting to share details of their personal lives, but Callard seemed perfectly happy to talk with the New Yorker reporter about it.

I also think this book would have benefited a lot from engagement with disciplines outside academic philosophy. For example, Callard devotes long sections of the book to discussing the apparent paradoxes relating to changing one's beliefs, and whether it's possible to assert statements such as "I believe X but it isn't true." To me, such apparent paradoxes are easily resolved using the framework of Bayesian reasoning, which expresses beliefs in terms of degrees of credence (expressed as probabilities), and allows new evidence to move our degree of credence in a proposition in one direction or the other. More generally, the modern "rationalist" culture associated with the effective altruism movement (people like Will MacAskill, Julia Galef, institutions like GiveWell or the 80,000 hours podcast) do try to take a critical eye to "untimely questions" and do things like discuss their mistakes very publicly, often centered on a Bayesian approach to reasoning and belief. While that culture certainly has its own weaknesses, I think it would be very interesting to see a more classical philosopher like Callard engage with those ideas and discuss them in relation to Socrates.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is all about how we can only get closer to knowledge through the process of open, inquisitive conversation with others who are willing to refute us and be refuted in turn. Agnes Callard ends the book by acknowledging a paradox she hadn’t yet got round to solving - how to write a book aiming to express ideas that can only be shared in dialogue & live conversation? Somehow, nevertheless, Callard has written one of the most enlivening, inspiring, & transformative books I’ve read in a very very long time.

Full review on my Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/katheri...

[Robert Stevenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book comes across as a study of ethics looking at Kantian, Utilitarianism, Aristole Virtue approaches and savage commands of the body and your kin with philosophical underpinnings then it turns into an interesting philosophical reflection on Socrates and in particular using the Socratic method to understand love, meaning of life and death.

I enjoyed the book as I was reading Timothy Snyder's book "On Freedom" at the same time, but also when contrasting the two, I felt Tim's was more useful and Agnes book was more theoretical, for example Agnes dismisses polarization as Socrates flattery competitions over symbolism. And her coverage of equality as a need for peer recognition of status was limiting as was her analysis of freedom.

Sydner’s book breaks down freedom into sovereignty, factuality, social mobility, solidarity and unpredictability. I think the idea of the Socratic method using unpredictability for explaining paradoxes with inquiry could of have been explored but was not.

But her insight into untimely questions and the pro’s and cons of the Socratic method - Moore, Menon and Gadgly-midwife paradoxes is intriguing. I also like her FONA and FOMO death discussions.

I think the part that overlaps is understanding how the socratic method requires two people.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, I learned a lot about Socrates. I mostly like Callard’s writing style, although periodically I didn’t understand what she was getting at. She uses a few of her own strange phrases, such as “untimely questions” and “savage commands” and while she does define what she means by them, I still felt unsettled by them — I think maybe she could have used better terms, although I’m not sure what would have been better. But overall I enjoyed the book, it certainly provoked thinking, and what could be better in a philosophical book?

I also liked that she made frequent reference to Tolstoy’s writing to illustrate points in the book.

A few years ago I tried reading another Callard book, called Aspiration, but I had to abandon it, it was a struggle to get through it. This book is far more readable for a layperson.

[Clayton A. Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A challenging, but well written book that crisply delineates the nature and importance of the Socratic method. After reading this analysis you will totally revamp your style of argument and discussion. Most individuals approach verbal interchanges with friends, colleagues and nemeses with the goal of "winning" an argument. In this sense, winning is tantamount to an audience declaring someone the winner of a debate. But Callard rightly points out this is likely the opposite of the purpose of an open philosophical discussion where the objective of interchange between two individuals is to clarify the issue, to discover an answer and to bring your colleague around to understanding the problem from your perspective (and vice versa). When one truly comprehends this purpose of philosophical discussion, you will never argue the same way in the future.
In this era of intense political polarization, recognizing this goal of discussion is essential to lowering the temperature of arguments, and making progress, if not to a consensus at least a respect for each other. An added bonus are the final chapters discussing Justice, Equality, Love and Death.

Keep in mind that for most of us reading philosophy isn't easy and requires committing the time and effort, which in this case will be rewarded many times over.

[Curt Bobbitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Callard describes Socrates's approach to inquiry as conversation by defining components such as "unseemly questions" and "savage commands." She refers to and quotes Plato's Socratic dialogs to show how the approach develops. Her examples from philosophers and her life since Socrates's life show how the approach applies.

[Maddie Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

i learned a lot about socrates and was definitely very thought provoking. i esp liked the analysis of his beliefs on politics love and death. however sometimes felt a little unclear what her underlying message was: informational overview on his life/beliefs vs instructional guide for how to live.

[saml · Rating 2 out of 5]

one of the problems with scepticism is that it reliably lets dogmatists know that they are dogmatists. this book had this effect on me. i found myself very stubbornly rejecting things which i tend to agree with (for instance, that vengefulness doesn't make much sense), just because the book is hugely annoying. this is surely a good sign for the socratist! simultaneously, there is something utterly unsceptical about the book, in that callard denies the existence of socratic irony, does not countenance platonic irony, and is very uncareful about the difficult technical work of understanding who socrates might have been. sometimes she discards socrates himself in favour of the figure of socrates as a type to which to aspire. but sometimes she doesn't. doing both of these things lets you talk about socrates, who was an ancient greek, without forcing yourself to think terribly hard about the fact that he was an ancient greek. it is precisely because callard doesn't deal in scepticism in this second, cultural sense, that she can make so much hay in the first, horribly literal one. the book exhorts you again and again to ask yourself questions, but, wisely, doesn't tell you how you could tell that you're genuinely asking them, rather than merely pretending to so as to get on. and if you can't tell whether you're inquiring, you can't tell if inquiring is the right thing to do. and so there can be no evidence levied in the case made for a philosophical life. an intrinsic good isn't good in any way but its. perhaps i would recognise this good if i have ever inquired. i suspect not somehow. i am perfectly happy carrying on, and pathologising myself to justify passing the time

[John Seago · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful read for philosophy students of all levels. Callard presents a compelling argument for how we should interpret the Socratic dialogues. However, the most powerful aspect of this book is her argument that her readers should adopt a distinctly Socratic ethic and philosophy to shape our own intellectual and interpersonal lives.

[Rachel Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was... okay, maybe edging into "liked it" because I generally like Agnes Callard. I like the way she interviews, I liked Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming. This was not quite as good.

In fact, I almost DNFed it because so many of her examples didn't land with me at all; one of the hallmarks of Socrates' thinking, and maybe Callard's too, is the insistence that people are (and must be) self-consistent as though there is only one functioning agent within us, and, similarly, the insistence that something must be the same amount of good or bad over time. To illustrate: actually, if two of my well-regarded friends give me different financial planning advice, I do conclude that they are often talking about different kinds of money in some way (one might be most focused on high gains for investments, while another is focused on secure investments and yet another is interested in maximizing income). In fact, those differences are where it gets interesting. And to go at another example, yes, of course a doughnut can be judged as an overall "good" by an agent who is very hungry, and later judged differently when that person has much higher blood sugar -- and may be considered a different agent.

At any rate, I slogged through those parts, set down the book and picked it up again. It got better near the end, when actually discussing Socrates himself (what if he wasn't -- only -- a jerk? What if what we read now as irony really was intense vulnerability and openness?). Lastly, the book finishes with the best discussion of FONA vs FOMO that I've ever read, which was valuable in and of itself. I've now identified one of my own fears more as the Fear Of Not Arriving style, and that's worth a star for this book.

I'll continue to track this author, but won't buy her next book reflexively either.

[Micah Huegel · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF. I tried but the depth of the concepts were hard to follow. Did this with the audiobook and think it would require reading a hard copy to digest the material in a better way.

[Cory Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, an enjoyable book that looks to breakdown and explain Socrates's method of inquiry and construct a basis for ethics over it. Callard does an excellent job explaining things in an easy-to-understand way. I never felt lost or bogged down while reading this; it clips along at a fairly even pace and was fairly informative.

The premise, at least from what I gathered, is taking what Callard calls "untimely questions", questions we are already in the act of answering (e.g. How does one live a good life?), and attempting to work towards an answer and understanding of the answer. This, as is hit upon throughout the book, requires another person. Someone to inquire and refute, while the other attempts to persuade; in theory you are both working towards an answer to your inquiry and come out the better for it at the end. This is essentially the Socratic method. Callard provides examples of how this can be applied to different aspects of life, and also gives new perspectives (new to me, at least) on how it is the basis for equality and also love.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in philosophy but still an overall novice (like myself). It's still a bit dry to read at times considering the subject matter, but it's easy to digest and can serve as a good introduction.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ouch!, this could have been an excellent opportunity to make Socrates known and understood by the general public but the author fails miserably; Callard slovenly ploughs through the works (by Aristophanes, Xenophon and most notably Plato) describing the man, his life and philosophy but nowhere produces a useful synthesis or original insight; in addition the audible format narrated by the author is chalkboard-screechingly unbearable; for a more general introduction to the lives of the big three of classical Greece, be sure to read The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this challenging to get into or to engage with. There were elements that were interesting but a slog to get to them. It seems many of the arguments or points could have been said more succinctly, but the author seemed to enjoy seeing herself write it down. Another reviewer used the word tedious. I’d agree but add smugly to describe the tedium.

I suspect a well done review could pull out the salient points and save others the effort. I don’t have the energy or interest to read through it again to prepare such a review.

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many words not much content.

I knew it wasn’t going well when she characterized the Stoics as being motivated by “the group.” Huh? They are a virtue ethics.

[Neko~chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. interesting read! finished on the way to and from the whitney biennial. (interesting 2026 american art exhibit, not sure how much i love it though; i'm increasingly unsure about the role of art in shaping the moral direction of a society, like whether it's effective and whether we even want that at all.) agnes callard is edgy in a number of ways, but she's really unafraid to level criticisms at imprecise political thinking. i do think she has a tendency of making sweeping claims ("we" do this, "we" do that) that i'm not sure completely holds. i also feel like i'm reading a work of philosophy grounded in a fundamentally liberal democratic way of looking at things which is that people are rational actors in an increasingly plutocratic era run by thieves and idiots, which in this ironypoisoned LLM-driven world i am not sure is true anymore. i suppose for myself, it's worth seeking truth and beauty.

the book is divided roughly into a "why should we care about socrates"/"how does this apply to our lives" apologia and then "what is the socratic method" and then goes into three areas of inquiry: politics, love, and death. the politics part gave me the most food for thought. overall, i think i agree with her take that the seeking of "equality" really just means a seeking of a fragile mutual recognition that can be destroyed out of ignorance.

People are generally averse to deceiving one another, but if you look at where we are willing to bend the rules, it is surprising how frequently these exceptions involve maintaining the appearance of equality. The defensive practices we use to guard the conversational equilibrium, which range from tactful nondisclosure to downright deception, suggest that what we are guarding is, at most, the appearance of equality.

I think libs/part of the left are particularly unwilling to acknowledge this - as TB said, the libs are "team 'pick a team'".

If we thought that conversational status-seeking always aimed at domination, we would be puzzled by how readily its participants gesture at how powerless or oppressed or overwhelmed they are. These self-lowering gestures can be reconciled with status-seeking if we see them both as part of the quest for an elevated equality: we are trying to be high up, and equal to one another.

and on ambition:

Pulling yourself up above the level of the person dominating you looks like an achievement only so long as they are above you.

as for love, the main thing i got is that socrates is a sapiosexual. haha! callard makes the argument that eros and philia are the same concept for socrates, which sexually confused a lot of the younger men who misread romance in his mentorship. (history just keeps repeating itself...) for death, there are a lot of beautiful quotes of phaedo so i might as well go reread that directly, but callard insists that philosophy is a way to confront death. it is a particular way of life, i guess, to be paid to think about thinking all day.

really need to get out to the history of philosophy more just to see how our current rhetoric/discourse, which can feel totalizing, is really just a moment in time and place. also need to read more about athens in socrates's time because we kind of are in this situation: war, democracy falls to oligarchy, and democracy is reinstated toward the end.

overall i think this is probably a good book as a way to pique interest in socrates. i don't feel that "the case for a philosophical life" is convincing; i think i already wanted to live a philosophical life, and was just seeking justification, which is why i read this book.

i really was too young to try to read the life and death of socrates at seventeen in ap lit.

[Mishehu · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thoughtful and thought-provoking book. And a sharp piece of pop philosophy. The exposition is a bit convoluted in places — not for lack of rigor but for heavy use of newly minted concepts. I can’t fault the author for that. She defines them well and uses them consistently. And it’s standard practice in philosophical writing to do this sort of thing. I just found it trying at times to encounter these instances. At the end of the day, I’m richer for having read this book. It got me thinking (as the author, channeling Socrates, would hope). I have greater insight into, and respect for, Socrates for having read it. And I’m even more convinced than I was before of the relevance, for our times, of classical philosophy. What more could I ask of this book?

[Brian Caster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philosophy is one of my weak points when it comes to reading/learning. I have read many of the source texts, and even taking college-level classes on the subject, but much of the nuance continues to elude me. What I enjoyed about this book is the clarity it provided on specific subjects, relying not just on the philosophies of the ancients but also more modern thinkers (Tolstoy) and even the author's own experience (the death of a fellow philosopher in the final chapter). If after reading it, I were required to state what is meant by living a philosophical life, it would be that which one continues to question what we know, or think we know, testing our assumptions and ideas, not out of dissatisfaction or cynicism, but in a search for further clarity. Maybe we don't know and cannot know the answers to what we think are the most important questions (and maybe they are not actually the most important questions), but we can strive to learn.

[Alec Zhang · Rating 5 out of 5]

hard one to review because i feel more confused after reading it, but that's also the point of the book. we know nothing! admitting we know nothing and beginning a lifelong inquiry towards knowing things is the way to live life (according to socrates).

i really enjoyed reading the work of a socrates stan. callard LOOOOVES socrates, and it really shows. she is out here doing my man justice, defending him from the haters. overall i find her take on him convincing, but i'm by no means an expert. i'll easily admit that i fell into the category of 'people who think socrates is as jerk' after my first exposure to him, but callard has won me over.

to be honest though, i did find that this book kind of strayed from the introduction at times, which presented it as more of a 'pop philosophy' book that would be more directly related to how we live our lives currently. it ended up being quite a lot more than that, and i also think it might have strayed from its mission at times to deliver 2000-year-late justice for my boy. but at the end of the day, i found this pretty accessible and interesting.

dunno if i'll ever find anyone that wants to be my interlocutor fighting for the truth. i guess that's what claude is for!

[Lisa Keuss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book that would have been better if I had read and discussed it alongside someone else. Callard writes, "In the presence of others, something becomes possible that isn't possible when you are alone." Socrates, I think, would have agreed.

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book answers the question why the unexamined life is not worth living. Of Socrates, Tolstoy, Elena Ferrante, Philip Larkin and more.

[Jim Beatty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I measure my life in coffee spoons. ts Elliott

[Nico Romano · Rating 1 out of 5]

Struggled to get through this book. A few interesting chapters but really this is written for adept philosophy students and not for the common enthusiast. Language and arguments are difficult to read and follow

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

يستطيع المرء أن يتجنب أزمة تولستوي (سؤاله عن معنى حياته) بوضع قدم واحدة تلو الأخرى، والاهتمام إما بأي شيء يعتبره أعظم خطر ـ سواء كان جسدياً أو أخلاقياً ـ ينبغي تجنبه، أو بدلاً من ذلك، أعظم مصدر للمتعة أو الترفيه الذي ينبغي السعي إليه. وسواء نظرنا إلى الحياة، بتشاؤم، باعتبارها أزمة مستمرة تتخللها فترات من الراحة، أو بتفاؤل أكبر، باعتبارها مصدراً مستمراً للمتعة تتخلله بعض الأزمات، فسوف نجدها مليئة بالأسباب التي تدفعنا إلى تأجيل البحث الفلسفي. وإذا ما أجلنا الأمر إلى ما يكفي من الوقت، فإن الموت سوف ينقذنا من الاضطرار إلى التصالح مع عدم معنى الحياة.
.
Agnes Callard
Open Socrates
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[David Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What I don’t advise is that we remain as we are.” — Laches
The above quote from Socrates, the final one in Agnes Callard’s remarkable new study of the Socratic way, could well serve as a working title for her project. Callard presents Socrates not as an ancient thinker, but as a presenting a practice of ethics that demands constant growth—growth achieved through open disputations—toward a fuller understanding of the world. Thus, the “openness” referenced in the book’s title takes on many meanings. The book opens Socrates to a new generation, encourages openness to having your core beliefs refuted, and insists on openness to continual discovery—a process done in pairs, not alone.
The Socratic way (my term, not Callard’s) begins with the admonition that we don’t know what we don’t know. Callard argues we go through life thinking we know the answers to life’s most challenging questions. When confronted with what she calls “untimely questions”—questions like, what is my purpose? Has my life been worthwhile?—we give overconfident answers. But these questions are “untimely” because they come too late; we are already living our lives, we’ve already married by the time we ask them. Thus, we offer quick answers that don’t survive scrutiny (just ask Socrates’ interlocutors). We then waver, making up even more excuses, or we fall into despair (the “Tolstoy” problem).
Yet Socrates presents another way—"between the acknowledgment of one's own ignorance, and the ideally knowledgeable life." Instead, Socrates offered an “ethics of inquiry: the way to be good when you don't know how to be good is by learning. You should do everything in such a way as to be learning what the right thing is to do in. This means getting other people to show you when you are wrong. Instead of implementing a principle… you should inquire.” That’s why “there is no greater benefit [one] could receive from another person than being shown why he was wrong, and that the only way to treat another human being with respect is to either answer their questions or question their answers.”
If this implies a social aspect to the Socratic way, Callard would agree. Strike that image of the “armchair philosophizing” or solitary, introspective thinker. Those tropes came later, based on Kantian or utilitarian ethics, which led people to believe they could just figure it out alone. Instead, the Socratic way is dynamic and social. Our thinking cannot be clarified in isolation; it must occur in dialogue. Socrates suggests that we construct thoughts with other people. This means we have to accept that the annoying “gadfly” Socrates must coexist with the “midwife” Socrates—the one who helps give birth to knowledge, even without possessing knowledge themself. This social aspect of the Socratic method is often overlooked, but for Callard, it is an indispensable part of Socrates’ philosophy, both in method and substance. It is also her answer to the most challenging questions around love and death, which she presents in the final third of the book.
Throughout, Callard uses opposites to show the unique contribution Socrates made to ethics. For example, common sense distinguishes between what justice demands and what is personally advantageous: although it is valuable to do what is just and it is valuable to do what benefits oneself, everyday intuition says that these two do not always overlap.
Kantian thought, for instance, solves for the savage question of kinship—we have a common obligation to everyone in the kinship. Kantians command you to constrain your actions to those that are consistent with respect for humanity in your own person and in others. Utilitarians prioritize the production of good outcomes for everyone (“calculating”), while proponents of virtue ethics simply tell you to be a decent, kind, fair, brave person. If there is an apparent conflict between what we want and what is good for society, each system does not solve those problems internally; it simply claims there is a lack of knowledge, pointing to the flawed reasoning of the other systems. Socrates charges that all of these views create a false ceiling; what they are calling knowledge is not yet knowledge. There is a higher knowledge possible: if you actually knew what to do, you would do it. We get there through inquiry and argument. This is not a means to an end, but the end in itself.
One of my favorite sections is her Socratic take on the William James versus Clifford dispute, outlined in James’s brilliant essay “Will to Believe.” James makes a distinction between a skepticism about truth and its attainment, and what he calls "dogmatism": "that truth exists, and that our minds can find it." Concerning dogmatism, James states that it has two forms; that there is an "absolutist way" and an "empiricist way" of believing in truth. James states: "The absolutists in this matter say that we not only can attain to knowing truth, but we can know when we have attained to knowing it, while the empiricists think that although we may attain it, we cannot infallibly know when." James then goes on to state that "the empiricist tendency has largely prevailed in science, while in philosophy the absolutist tendency has had everything its own way." "The greatest empiricists among us are only empiricists on reflection: when left to their instincts, they dogmatize like infallible popes.” Instead, James sees seeking truth and certainty as different objects. “We must know the truth; and we must avoid error—these are our first and great commandments as would-be knowers; but they are not two ways of stating an identical commandment, they are two separable laws.” James is most useful when the outcome requires belief. Something like: I wonder if she likes me. If we don’t believe it, we won’t act in a way that makes it true.
Socrates solves this division. In dialogue, two people each take a role, working together to find the truth. One person thinking to themself has to choose between James and Clifford, but two people working together can do both. It is not an adversarial division of labor, but a productive one. This section on the James/Clifford dispute shows Callard’s strengths and weaknesses. She draws in the ideas in a way that is accessible and creative, but her Socratic solution—“philosophize together”—seems a bit thin, and it’s one she employs throughout.

This section on the James/Clifford dispute highlights both Callard’s strengths and weaknesses. She presents ideas clearly and creatively, but her Socratic solution to "philosophize together" feels thin and is used throughout the book to solve any tough issue.
Callard’s reputation as a public philosopher is well-earned. Her chatty, energetic writing style is a more disciplined, fleshed-out version of her speaking style, which has made her one of the most accessible scholarly thinkers of our day. Open Socrates serves as a fantastic introduction to Socrates for novices and a fresh take for those familiar with his work. Unfortunately, I found the first third the weakest. Like any good philosophy, Callard starts with grounding principles, but I felt these could have been summarized in a single chapter. I hope readers don’t get discouraged, because Open Socrates gains momentum as it addresses the paradoxes inherent in Socratic thought. The book’s final third, when she deals with justice, equality, love, and death, is especially compelling. The last two sections, in particular, left me weeping at times—in the best possible way. (The section on her recently passed philosopher friend Steve shows the power of Socrates/Callard’s thought in action, both intellectually rich and deeply emotional.) By the end, my first impulse was to pick up any of Plato’s books I have around and keep reading—and to find someone to read with! And my sense is that’s exactly what Callard would want.