The confrontational conversational style of Socrates can put people on the defensive and leave them feeling resentful. Motivational interviewing is a welcome alternative.

Socrates died in 399 B.C., and it’s not as if there’s a shortage of writing about him or his thought. But Callard says that Socrates has too often been “diluted”: treated like a “sauce ...

Socrates met young men who found themselves in a very similar predicament. Although they may occasionally feel better as a result of all the advice they consume, they’re not actually getting better.

The Republic (c. 375 BCE), featuring Plato’s teacher Socrates in dialogue with several friends, is unquestionably central to ...

From Plato’s admiration to Aristophanes’ mockery, this animated explainer uncovers who Socrates really was, if he existed at ...

Ad Policy Illustration by Liam Eisenberg. This article appears in the May 2025 issue. Agnes Callard’s Open Socrates is like many works of philosophy: It is addressed to a certain kind of skeptic ...

All of us at the News-Review send good wishes and hopes that each 2025 graduate will forge a life of fulfillment on the path ...

Contractors give a spring cleaning to Robert Aitken's 1935 statue of Socrates, near the National Archives, in 2017. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) Philosopher Agnes Callard revels in ...

Socrates was remarkably full-blooded for an ascetic philosopher. In Xenophon’s Symposium, he says, “For myself I cannot name the time at which I have not been in love with someone.” By all ...