Agnes Callard


Agnes Callard is a Hungarian-American philosopher and an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on public philosophy.

Early life and education

Callard was born on January 6, 1976, in Budapest, Hungary, to a Jewish family. Her mother, Judit Gellen, was a hematologist and oncologist in the 1980s, specializing in the treatment of AIDS; she also worked as a prison doctor at Riker's Island. Callard's father studied law in Hungary but became a carpet salesman in the US and retired as a steel exporter. Both sets of grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Callard was raised in Budapest until age five. She and her parents later moved to Rome before settling in the New York metropolitan area. She has a sister.
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Chicago, majoring in Fundamentals. She subsequently earned a Master of Arts degree in classics from the University of California, Berkeley, leaving that doctoral program without a dissertation, then studied philosophy at Princeton University before returning to Berkeley and completing her PhD in philosophy.

Career

Academia

Callard has been a faculty member at the University of Chicago since 2008, becoming an associate professor of philosophy in 2017.
With L. A. Paul, Callard received the 2020 Lebowitz Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. In 2017, she received the Quantrell Award.

Public writing and speaking

Callard has published in the Boston Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, and has written a column on public philosophy for The Point magazine. Podcasts that have hosted her include EconTalk, the Elucidations Podcast, and The Ezra Klein Show.
In 2017, she created the Night Owls public debate series in Hyde Park, Chicago, featuring guests such as Tyler Cowen, Chris Blattman, Ezra Klein, and Hollis Robbins, and in November 2018 participated in one with her ex-husband and colleague Ben Callard, on the philosophy of divorce.
She hosts the podcast Minds Almost Meeting together with the economist Robin Hanson.

Theory on aspiration

Agnes Callard's longest book is Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming, which outlines and defends a theory about the process of changes in an individual's values, which she calls "aspiration". A summary of the book which was made by a fan and endorsed by the author divides the book into these core claims and various supporting claims :

Each numbered claim is supposed to be made by the corresponding numbered chapter in the book, with claim 0 made in the introduction section and claim 7 in the conclusion section. The reference to Abbé Sieyès refers to the quote on bicameralism attributed to him: "if a second chamber dissents from the first, it is mischievous; if it agrees it is superfluous." The reference to Sieyès was not made in Callard's book itself, but was made by the summary as a way to explain what the book refers to as "Strawson's Dilemma".
Note that "decision theory" in the book's context refers to a number of philosophical theories about decisions, not to the branch of probability known as decision theory.

Personal life

In 2011, Callard divorced her husband, fellow University of Chicago professor Ben Callard, whom she had married in 2003. She began a relationship with Arnold Brooks, who was a graduate student at the time. After a year of dating, they married. Agnes has two children with Callard and one with Brooks. She resides with both her current husband and her ex-husband.
Callard was diagnosed with autism in her 30s.

Books

  • On Anger was selected as one of The New Yorkers "Best Books We Read in 2020".
  • Question Everything: A Stone Reader. Peter Catapano, Simon Critchley. Liveright, New York..
  • ''Open Socrates''

    ''The New Yorker'' columns

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