What Would Socrates Do?

Joel Alden Schlosser has held the Julian Steward Chair in Social Sciences at Deep Springs College, California since July 2010. Previously, he completed his MA and PhD in Political Science at Duke University, North Carolina, and he was a visiting instructor at Carleton College, Minnesota in political theory and constitutional law. This is his first book.

'Drawing on Plato, Aristophanes, and Xenophon, What Would Socrates Do? reconstructs Socrates' philosophy alongside and against Athens's late fifth-century political culture. Sensitive to text and context, it brings to light the ways in which Socrates' engagements with foreigners, women, slaves, and citizens alike challenged the exclusions of Athens's democratic ideology and transformed Athenian practices of accountability, free speech, and freedom in the direction of more democracy. [This book] develops 'a philosophy that lives in the people who practice it together' as a mode of civic engagement that is no less relevant for contemporary democratic culture than it was for fifth-century Athens.' Jill Frank, University of South Carolina

• 1. Introduction: Socrates in democratic times; 2. Beyond 'Socratic citizenship': transforming accountability; 3. Socrates in drag: love beyond the polis; 4. Fearless speech in democracy: radicalizing frank speaking; 5. Midwifing Athens: Socratic associations; 6. Socrates' atopia revisited; 7. Conclusion: what would Socrates do?