Philosophy, Callicles insists, is nice enough to engage in when you’re young, “But if one grows up and becomes a man and still continues in the same subject, why, the whole thing becomes ridiculous, Socrates.” Philosophy is unmanly, “skulking in corners, whispering with two or three little lads, never pronouncing any large, liberal or meaningful utterance.” “Such a man,” Callicles goes on, “is one you can slap in the face with impunity.”

Simon Critchley, Tragedy, the Greeks, and Us (2019)