Reading notes: 'Open Socrates'
Open Socrates is Agnes Callard's new book. The easy part is recommending it, especially in expected-value terms: some readers will get annoyed and give up early, others will find it stimulating, and others will have their lives transformed (probably for the better).
The harder part is saying something useful about it. Here are some scattered reflections:
- On a Socratic/Callardian view, one of the most ethically important questions of the day could be whether chatbots will be able to do proper, inquisitive dialogue with us. If so, we have the best psychic medicine on tap. If not, we risk not only missing the medicine, but missing it while we feel like we're getting it. A Socratic would fear that faux dialogue would do to the soul in mimicking proper dialogue what Strontium-90 does to the body by mimicking calcium.
- The book is absolutely full of interesting arguments. There are people who read some Nietzche or Plato, got excited about philosophy, then read some contemporary philosophy and promptly get unexcited about philosophy. If this is you, you might consider making an exception for Open Socrates, which is lively and provocative (and careful!) throughout.
- There's an extended discussion about philosophy and death, which includes the argument that properly thinking something through is done without regard for the time it takes. This is tough to do for someone trained in a certain kind of rationality. How can one ignore the opportunity cost? Yet this principle rings true to me, both on principle and because the best thinkers really do seem willing to attend to something without regard for the time or anything else.
- This makes me think of the distinction between the first- and third-person perspectives, which Thomas Nagel wrote some good, famous papers about (this is my favorite). I think the papers should be even more famous than they are (but that's another post). The Socratic mandate to think "without an eye on the clock" seems to have something to do with this--but I'm not yet sure what.