Philosopher and University of Chicago Professor Agnes Callard reveals why the key to modern life lies in questions humanity first asked itself 2500 years ago in the time of Socrates.
How should we manage romantic love? What is the right way to think about one’s own death? What form should our politics take? These were the most intractable questions in ancient Greece, and they remain no less relevant in the 21stcentury.
Taking us deeper into the thought of Socrates and his method than any other modern writer, Agnes Callard joins us to reveal that the true ambition of the 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 own questions and challenge your own answers.
Callard will show us how Socrates’ method allows us to make progress in answering questions about identity, free speech and inequality; about how to love and how to die; and, in the process, gives us nothing less than a new ethics to live by.
Tickets to this online event are free for members of How To +.
Praise for Agnes Callard’s Open Socrates:
“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
“brilliant and probing … In the place of a Socrates we 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… This book delivers the gift of thought as an open and beautiful invitation.” – Judith Butler
