Angus Colwell has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Agnes Callard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago and she lives with her current husband and her ex-husband. At the same time, yes. They raised the kids together as well (two from her first marriage, now 21 and 16, then one from her second, now 11).
I mention this not as gossip, but because her approach to her marriage is an example of how she lives philosophically. Her latest book, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life, is an argument about how we shouldn’t take cultural norms and rote-learned advice for granted. Instead, we need to talk with others, regularly, about the reasons for our actions.
Callard was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1976, but grew up mostly in New York. She has taught at Chicago since 2008 and has become as much of a public philosopher as you can be in an age where their stock is low. Her first book, Aspiration, is about how people grow into who they want to be. Yet she’s also known for her provocative essays, especially one that made ‘the case against travel’ (‘Learn how to do nothing!’ she argues).
Her fame beyond academia came two years ago, when the New Yorker published a profile about her marriage. In 2011 she was a married woman, teaching in Chicago, and was handing out end-of-term cookies to her students. Arnold (27-year-old grad student) looked at Agnes (35-year-old teacher) weirdly as he ate the cookie. ‘I think I’m a little bit in love with you,’ he said.
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