In Plato’s Symposium, a young Alcibiades, loudly drunk, recounts a charming story about our father of Western philosophy. One morning, Alcibiades relates, Socrates became so fixed in thought that he remained standing in one place all day and throughout the night, pondering; it was only the next morning at dawn that he broke from his reverie, offered a prayer, and continued his walk. This image of Socrates embodies the popular—and perhaps misguided—notion of the philosopher’s role: the unique commitment to focused thought, a concentrated reflection which can appear akin to intellectual clairvoyance.