Agnes Callard in Coversation with Judith Butler: The Case for a Philosophical Life

Agnes Callard (Philosophy Department, University of Chicago) and Judith Butler (Comparative Literature Department, UC Berkeley) engage in a conversation inspired by Callard's new book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, which explores how the work of Socrates can be used to ask and answer life’s most important questions. Socrates, Callard argues, has been hiding in plain sight. We call him the father of Western philosophy, but what exactly are his philosophical views? He is famous for his humility, but readers often find him arrogant and condescending. We parrot his claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” yet take no steps to live examined ones. In Open Socrates, Callard recovers the radical move at the center of Socrates’s thought, and shows why it is still the way to a good life.