Agnes Callard

Agnes Callard (Gellen; born 1976) is an 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.

Callard was born on January 6, 1976, in Budapest, Hungary to a Jewish family.

Her mother 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 in Classics from the University of California, Berkeley, leaving that doctorate program without a dissertation, then studied philosophy at Princeton University before returning to Berkeley and completing her PhD in philosophy.

Callard has been a faculty member at the University of Chicago since 2008, becoming an associate professor of philosophy in 2017.

In 2011, Callard divorced her husband, fellow University of Chicago professor Ben Callard.

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.

Her 2022 tweet about throwing out her children's Halloween candy went viral.

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 (not reproduced here):

1. Aspiration is the form of agency directed at the acquisition of values.

It is different from ambition, which is the pursuit of external rewards like money or social status, rather than seeking to acquire new values.

2. Aspiration is a unique kind of rational agency, and requires a unique theoretical approach; it cannot be understood in terms of decision theory.

3. "Proleptic reasons" are practical reasons unique to aspirants.

These reasons are directed at generating wants, rather than satisfying them.

4. A specific form of psychological conflict called "intrinsic conflict" is unique to aspiration.

Aspirants feel torn between their current values and the values they aim to acquire, which makes coming to love or appreciate something difficult.

5. Akrasia is an instance of intrinsic conflict.

Akrasia results from the imperfect grasp of values and the need to make decisions based on our current understanding.

6. Aspiration must be framed as a process in which we are guided by the values of the self which we aspire to be, rather than our current values.

This framing avoids a dilemma where, as Abbé Sieyès might have put it, "if the new values agree with the old, the change is superfluous; if they disagree, the change cannot come from our rational agency."

7. Individuals are praiseworthy for the good valuational condition they attain through aspiration, while they are blameworthy for the culpable failure to aspire to a better condition.

8. The theory of aspiration helps us understand situations of motherhood and infertility, for example, better than other theories that have so far been invented.

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 attributed to that abbot on bicameralism: "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" (after Galen Strawson, who proposed it).

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.

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019.

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.

With L. A. Paul, Callard received the 2020 Lebowitz Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa.