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

I beseech you,” wrote Oliver Cromwell, in his letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, “in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” Cromwell’s pungent entreaty is often cited in conversations about the importance of self‑enquiry and the perils of overconfidence. It’s an odd but telling choice, given that he was asking others to question their assumptions, while leaving his own unexamined. He had just purged parliament, overseen the execution of Charles I, and was in Scotland leading an army in a pre-emptive strike. Naturally, he wanted the Scottish forces massing for battle to think again. The obvious retort is: “No. You.”

This is one of several thorny problems philosopher Agnes Callard tackles in Open Socrates, an exploration of Socrates’ “substantive ethics of enquiry”; an approach to knowledge that, she argues, can’t merely be tossed into our usual repertoire of rhetorical flourishes, but rather detonates the bedrock on which we claim to stand: “People will announce, ‘Question everything!’ without noticing they have just uttered not a question, but a command.” The Socratic method is an approach with “colossal ambitions” and not just some antiquated curio we might repurpose to get an edge in business meetings. In fact, its power is so great that we must wield it with great care.