Agnes Callard

Agnes Callard is a Hungarian-born American philosopher at the University of Chicago who works on ancient philosophy, ethics and the philosophy of action. She writes widely for general readers and runs a public debate series, Night Owls. Aspiration (2018) asks how a person can rationally work towards caring about something they do not yet value, such as a music lover in the making or a new parent, and calls this process aspiration. Open Socrates (2025) argues that the Socratic method of open inquiry is a way of living, not only a technique.

Key ideas

• Aspiration is the rational, gradual process by which we come to acquire new values.
• Aspirants act on proleptic reasons: they grasp the value they pursue only partly and in anticipation.
• Standard decision theory cannot explain this kind of self-transformation, since the agent's values change along the way.
• Socratic inquiry treats our beliefs as open questions to be tested together with others.

Major works

• Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming (2018)
• Open Socrates (2025)
• On Anger (editor, 2020)

In the Book corner

• Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming 2018 · Advanced
  A work of philosophy of action about how people come to care about things they do not yet value. Callard calls this…

In the conversation

No topics yet. Start one about this thinker.