OPEN SOCRATES

How to open one’s mind.

Philosopher Callard proposes a way of thinking and living that “promises to make people freer and more equal; more courageous; and more romantic” by turning to Socratic method and ethics. Socrates, she asserts, leads us to focus on “untimely questions”: questions that are hard to ask because we think we already know the answer. Those answers are not the result of real probing but rather, according to Socrates, are shaped by the “savage commands” of bodily appetites and kinship that affect what we do, think, and feel. The Socratic method transcends these commands by defining inquiry as social and communal, a conversation between individuals, one of whom is pursuing truth, the other trying to avoid error. It’s a method that entails the “back-and-forth of inquisitive refutation.” In addressing issues such as free speech, egalitarianism, and the fight for social justice, which Callard sees as central to liberal ideology, Socratic ethics offers an alternative to three strains of thought: Kantian ethics, in which actions are constrained by respect for humanity; utilitarianism, which aims to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number; and virtue ethics, whose basic principle is to act like a virtuous person. Socratic ethics, on the other hand, is an ethics of inquiry. “The way to be good when you don’t know how to be good,” according to Socrates, “is by learning.” Callard addresses several paradoxes that arise from the Socratic method, as well as how Socratizing helps us to think about politics, love, and death. “The inquiry into untimely questions,” Callard asserts, “is the search for a life that doesn’t need to be shielded from reflection, a life you live by understanding it.”

An illuminating, densely argued philosophical analysis.