Examined Lives

Almost all works of philosophy are addressed to a skeptic, but Agnes Callard’s new book, Open Socrates, is addressed to a particular kind: the skeptic of philosophical life. It’s a book that seeks to convince its readers to abandon the ways in which we avoid thinking about or questioning life, thus reducing it to everyday activities of need and survival, and to instead live an examined life—one of courage and curiosity that, she argues, is modeled after Socrates and his approach to relentless questioning and open-ended philosophical conversations. Reviewing Open Socrates for the Spring Books issue, fellow philosopher Olúfémi O. Táíwò admires its ambition: He, too, insists that we need “to live more philosophically.” And yet he finds that the book’s vision for an examined life does not feel all that examined, limiting the philosophical life to one primarily defined by a set of “conversational roles.” Instead, as Socrates once did, Táíwò contends that to “truly live a philosophical life requires examining social structures well beyond how they show up in conversation. To truly have a philosophical conversation requires, after all, the right environment.” Read “Agnes Callard and the Examined Life”

A Man About Town

Murray Kempton never saw an underdog with whom he did not sympathize. Vivian Gornick was a personal witness to this kindness and candor: After her 1977 oral history The Romance of American Communism was roundly denounced by intellectuals on the left and the right, Kempton insisted on accompanying her to a panel at which she was slated to discuss the book. In reviewing a new collection of his writing for Spring Books, Gornick finds that it was this spirit of generosity, solidarity, and political commitment that shaped nearly all of Kempton’s prolific career as a journalist. He was, Gornick notes, “the only Cold War liberal” she knew who “had the courage to apologize.” For him, journalism was all about “fairness and decency.” Read “The Rebellions of Murray Kempton”