Get the latest tech news

Open Socrates by Agnes Callard review – a design for life

A bracing conteporary account of the philosopher’s age-old prescription for living

Callard largely sidesteps the matter of how accurately writers such as Plato and Xenophon represent what Socrates actually said (given he left no directly authored texts), or how we might resolve apparent contradictions between accounts. Callard tells us that Socrates was criticised for being repetitive – something he deftly reframed as consistency, scolding his inconstant opponent: “you never say the same things about the same subjects” – and, in this, she proves a rather too literal adherent to the fragrant Athenian. Thus, when highlighting Socrates’ talent for exposing intellectual hypocrisy – what Callard calls “wavering” – she cites Bertrand Russell’s famous illustration of weaselly “emotional conjugation”: “ I have reconsidered the matter, you have changed your mind, he has gone back on his words.”

Get the Android app