Open Socrates by Agnes Callard review – a design for life
12 comments
·January 22, 2025kitd
smokel
This doesn't seem to work for me. I'm slightly convinced that when I'm an hour away from dying, I won't have to care about anything anymore very soon.
It just seems to make me care even less. I wouldn't be surprised if the new techno-oligarchs have similar or even worse wiring.
lordleft
Big fan of Agnes Callard, and ofc, Socrates. I know many people dislike philosophy because they consider it to be a form of intellectual gymnastics, but at its best it's almost spiritual activity, a concern with the whole purpose of life, a desire to not live as an unthinking automaton, impelled by instinct or social pressure. Socrates is the ultimate and prototypical embodiment of this, a refusal to take anything at its word, a man who interrogated the deepest things and pointed us to the abundant fruits of a life of inquiry.
oersted
I do think that philosophy fundamentally is intellectual gymnastics, in the sense that it is a game or an art that shouldn't be expected to have any "productive/practical/useful" output.
I also think that philosophy is an extremely valuable human activity worthy of lots of respect, likewise generally with any kind of gymnastics (sports), games or art.
Productivity is not the only reason to live for humans, and many productive people are not driven by productivity. Most scientists and engineers are much more driven by curiosity, mastery, morality or aesthetics (not just visual, but intellectual beauty and elegance). It's generally the same with most ambitious people, sure they may be superficially driven by power or money, but I think it's much more about realizing a certain aesthetic vision of who you want to be as a person.
All of these activities lead to productive outcomes as side-effects. Games are not qualitatively much different, they may just be quantitatively less efficient. And, even if it shouldn't be expected (shouldn't be the reason to do them), they do tend to have some great productive output now-and-then.
oersted
I suppose that this has a parallel cynical interpretation:
- Humans tend to be selfish, in the sense that they tend to prioritize activities that develop their ego. Well generally activities that have pleasurable outcomes, and developing one's ego tends to be pleasurable due the heuristics evolution has baked into us. I guess that those that get more pleasure out of developing their ego are called ambitious.
- Productivity is fundamentally about being selfless: doing things that are useful for others.
- These aims align to different degrees for different activities, and I suppose that they align less for things that we call games, and I think that philosophy is closer to this category than otherwise.
- The most obvious and consistent productive side-effect of games might be as entertainment for expectators. I honestly think that the main value of philosophy is that it is just engaging and entretaining to read, which is also worthy of respect. Games and philosophy also tend to have other more substantive productive outputs, but much less frequently.
I'm not a big fan of this perspective, but I do think that it is somewhat equivalent to my thoughts above.
mfro
I agree wholeheartedly. I think many readers here will be among the type to feel that philosophy is not 'practical' enough, myself included. But there is something to be said for humoring (some) philosophy from time to time, it really does engage the mind in a way you wouldn't find elsewhere.
short_sells_poo
If we set up a ladder of abstraction, going from the most practical to the most abstract discipline, I think we'll arrive to something like: Engineering -> Physics -> Math -> Philosophy
We progressively move from the How to the Why, Philosophy being the ultimate Why?
Then again, I'm but a humble engineer so why would my opinion matter :D
currymj
i like to think about how the influences flow in all directions.
for example at one time there were a bunch of weirdos arguing over some abstruse philosophical question about the fundamental nature of true logical statements, and one of them came up with the “Turing machine”.
then once it was actually built (by engineers, by way of physical and mathematical advances), it started to cause all kinds of confusion in philosophy of mind and other areas.
mfro
Absolutely. It's difficult as someone on the former end of that scale to reorient your mind short term and enjoy philosophy, I think we get grounded into practicality / do things / get results mode, and it's a great exercise to try and engage wonder / analyze / enquiry mode.
bhouston
I had to do a double take, I thought this was a side project of the head of Amnesty International, but no, just similar names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnès_Callamard
fallinditch
A good reminder that philosophy can be enjoyable. Shout out to Stephen West and his wonderfully dense and thought provoking Philosophize This! podcasts. The Socrates episode is number 3 and he was still working things out, but excellent nonetheless.
https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/socrates-98cdl?rq=S...
5cott0
wonder what socrates would think about dating his students - oh wait
http://web.archive.org/web/20250111022130/https://www.newyor...
The "Tolstoy Problem" is an interesting experience that occurs to me from time to time.
Paraphrased, if I know I am close to death, maybe an hour away, and I know there's no time left to change things, how will I feel about my legacy or total outcome of my existence?
I find it a useful exercise that a few people (world leaders) could do with IMHO.
It's easy for one's subconscious to feed the line that, yes, I'll sort it all out tomorrow. But it's the "no time left" constraint that focuses the mind.