Are we living in a “golden age” of public philosophy, as some claim? There sure is a lot of it, as magazines, blogs, podcasts, and Substack newsletters proliferate. Even the New York Times ran a philosophy column for over a decade in which philosophers shared their thoughts on issues “timely and timeless” with the hoi polloi. Is this deluge of wisdom a boon for democratic deliberation or a vanity project for academic philosophers who feel embarrassed to be counting angels on a pin’s head while Rome is burning? A cursory glance at the world provides little evidence that enlightenment is spreading. Yet philosophers do grapple with the most pressing human questions: How should we live? What defines a good society? Does this qualify them to shape public discourse and guide us through tumultuous times? Two strands of public philosophy are on offer today: the grassroots Socratic approach and the elitist, top-down Platonic. Both have limitations: the former is ineffective, the latter is paternalistic. But if we strike the right balance between the two approaches, we can anchor liberal societies in a robust philosophical foundation. Or so I hope! 
At its most ambitious, public philosophy “aspires to liberate the subject from its academic confines” and “offer non-philosophers a way of participating in the activity,” Agnes Callard recently wrote in The Point, a small magazine with a big mission: to create “a society where the examined life is not an abstract ideal but an everyday practice.” The concept of the “examined life” derives from Socrates, of course, who famously declared that “an unexamined life is not worth living” — a radical claim that never fails to baffle my students. Their idea of a fulfilling life is very different from Socrates’s. They want to study medicine, law, engineering, social work, education, and the like to realize their professional ambitions. They also want to find friends, fall in love, and go out and party. Socrates is not exactly telling them to throw their goals overboard. But he is telling them that they have no value whatsoever without relentless self-scrutiny. No wonder that Socrates admonishes his fellow-citizens with evangelical fervor. Their very salvation is at stake: I shall treat in this way anyone I happen to meet, young and old, citizen and stranger…. I think there is no greater blessing for the city than my service to the god. I was placed in this city by the god as on a horse, great and of noble birth, which was sluggish because of its size and needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly. I never cease to stir up each and every one of you, to persuade you and reproach you all day long. Note that Socrates is not offering intellectual stimulation. He seeks nothing less than conversion: I shall not cease…to point out to anyone of you whom I happen to meet: Good Sir, are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation and honors as possible, while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul? Then, if one of you disputes this and says he does care, I shall examine him…, and if I do not think he has attained the goodness that he says he has, I shall reproach him because he attaches little importance to the most important things and greater importance to inferior things. Socrates has immense confidence in the power of reason. Argument, he thinks, can remove false beliefs about what benefits us and then get us to reframe our lives around the truth. Nobody is so dumb to chase things of little value and neglect things of great value once they grasp what really is to their advantage. Liberal-egalitarians will find an ally in Socrates. For one thing, he is inclusive: the gadfly piques everyone. Sure, Socrates is in your face. But he doesn’t force you to change. Nor does he pour wisdom into your head. As an intellectual “midwife” he wants to help you give birth to your own ideas, making sure that they are founded in reason. This might still be too much for the complacent or the self-righteous. But it certainly fits nicely with John Stuart Mill’s brand of liberalism, for example, that champions critical thinking and vigorous debate. Karl Popper celebrated Socrates as the first advocate of the “open society.” The values that we embrace, Socrates argues, guide our choices. Scrutinizing them is crucial. If you really want to be pious, make sure you know what piety is. If you really want to be just, make sure you know what justice is. In short: if you really want to do well and thrive, make sure you know what that means. Who would not rally behind public philosophy if it could steer us to an examined life steeped in virtue and wisdom? The crises piling up around us add urgency to Socratic public philosophy. We need all the help we can get to make good decisions. I was finishing high school in Germany when the Cold War ended. With friends I drove to Berlin to watch thousands of East Germans climb over the Wall. We were mesmerized by what seemed like the triumph of freedom. In the decades that followed the world enjoyed more freedom than ever before. And yet, thirty-five years later, I am scratching my head. What are we doing with it? Liberals hail the freedom to live as we please. We can celebrate Christmas, Diwali, or Gay Pride; donate money to Greenpeace or the National Rifle Association; stay with one partner “till death do us part” or go out with a new one every week. Yet even in a perfect liberal society in which we have freedom, a fair share of resources, and equal opportunities to advance, we still need to learn how to craft worthwhile lives. What liberal societies fail to give us is the tools to deliberate within our freedoms
There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence