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THURSDAY

What is justice? What is virtue? What is good? Of course, smart people like me know the answers to these questions. But Christopher Phillips, founder and director of the Society for Philosophic Inquiry, apparently does not—which surprises me. (Hey, I don’t know everything.) So Phillips traveled across the globe posing these and similar brain-twisters to ordinary people in picturesque locales. The result is Six Questions of Socrates: A Modern-Day Journey of Discovery Through World Philosophy, in which we find the author “in a cozy, sun-drenched room…overlooking the Pacific Ocean,” in Athens’ ancient agora, and in a tea room in historic Seoul. Phillips’ conclusions are open-ended, but one thing is definite: Enlightenment will not be found in Montclair, N.J. Ask Phillips some tricky questions of your own when he speaks at 6 p.m. (see City List for other dates) at the S. Dillon Ripley Center’s Lecture Hall, 1100 Jefferson Drive SW. $15. (202) 357-3030. (Dave Nuttycombe)