Open Socrates

When I think of public philosophers carrying out Socrates' legacy in their own way, I think of Agnes Callard

Sean Illing, Vox

Agnes Callard has a remarkable gift for making ancient philosophy feel modern, urgent, and electrifyingly alive. In her hands, Socrates and Plato aren’t distant figures but conversation partners pushing us to think through the deepest and most important questions of our lives

Ian Leslie

Why might one think like a philosopher? Or just inject some philosophical thinking into an otherwise ordinary life? Agnes Callard’s radical manifesto, Open Socrates, makes the strongest possible case for inquiry, repeated questioning, and extreme philosophical curiosity. It holds the potential to change everything you think, feel, and do

Tyler Cowen

In this brilliant and probing book, Agnes Callard thinks with and about Socrates, renewing his philosophy for the present by inviting her audience to become philosophical with her. For Callard, to become philosophical is to value intellectual life, to cultivate inquisitiveness, and to be open to arguments that make you rethink what you know, or to think about what you know for the first time… In the place of a Socrates we may associate with perpetual irony and clever domination there emerges a philosopher of love who brings the practice of living and the mindful preparation for dying into a challenging conversation. Callard gives us a Socrates for the present in a book in which openness is its theme and manner. This book delivers the gift of thought as an open and beautiful invitation

Judith Butler

Agnes Callard gives us a brilliant and vivid account of what a truly philosophic life could be. Her Socrates is a magnificent figure: uncompromisingly open, brave enough to live life without foundations and to pursue truth at all costs, yet no loner, but a man convinced that thinking is something we must do together. The book is both a challenge and an inspiration

John Ferrari

Open Socrates will keep you up at night thinking about thinking: what makes it so hard to think about the questions we most deeply care about and how can we make progress? Drawing on thinkers as diverse as Leo Tolstoy and William James and William Clifford to sharpen the difficulties, Agnes Callard describes how Plato’s Socrates practiced a kind of open-to-refutation joint inquiry into questions on which our actions and lives depend, and applies this Socratic approach to questions of politics, love, and death. The resulting discussions are chock-full of surprises and insights. Callard is the Socrates of our times

Rachana Kamtekar

It is un-Socratic to praise a book that teaches us to be skeptical of praise or any settled judgment. Open Socrates is a work of the deepest intellectual integrity. Agnes Callard does not seek our agreement or approval. She encourages us to live life by questioning everything, even -- or especially -- her own words

Merve Emre

Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death

Books to Look Forward to in 2025, Guardian

While we might struggle to emulate Socrates all the time, Callard’s book reminds us that we need more philosophy than ever. The freedom to disagree as equal partners in an on-going collective effort to understand untimely questions must be defended: there are few higher things

Telegraph

Open Socrates — quite the most gripping new philosophical book I've read in years — teems with insights into our world

Stuart Jeffries, Spectator

A spirited introduction to a number of key Socratic positions

The Times

Bracing and brilliant… Socrates offers neither miracle cures nor lifestyle hacks: the road to "epistemological humility", Callard argues, is long and bumpy. Crucially, it’s a journey we embark on together

Guardian

Socrates used to say that he knew nothing other than the fact of his own ignorance... Callard invites us to think alongside her. Open Socrates encourages us to recognise how little we know, and to start thinking

The New York Times

Intellectually challenging and hardly a simple crash course on Socrates, but the payoff is worth the time and effort put into rethinking approaches to philosophy and life

Independent

If you’re a fan of Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy, Agnes Callard’s look at the ancient Greek’s famous Socratic method will be a hit... Callard explains how putting real effort into intellectual dialogues with the people around us can help us figure out modern life, love and even death

Shortlist

Callard speaks directly to what you might call the Fleabag generation... The fear Fleabag expresses — that you’re somehow living your life all wrong — is shared by millennials and Gen X alike, and Callard’s Socratic vision offers a way out that is not glib, that requires more effort than journaling or posting reels, but that might help people change their thinking

Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times

For Callard, philosophy isn’t just her job, or an intellectual exercise. She wants it to be what it was intended as by Socrates: a guide to living a good life

Angus Colwell, Spectator

Brilliant, compulsive

Tim Adams, Guardian