A thinking person’s guide to a better life. Ward Farnsworth explains what the Socratic method is, how it works, and why it matters more than ever in our time. Easy to grasp yet challenging to master, the method will change the way you think about life’s big questions. “A wonderful book.”—Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex.
About 2,500 years ago, Plato wrote a set of dialogues that depict Socrates in conversation. The way Socrates asks questions, and the reasons why, amount to a whole way of thinking. This is the Socratic method—one of humanity’s great achievements. More than a technique, the method is an ethic of patience, inquiry, humility, and doubt. It is an aid to better thinking, and a remedy for bad habits of mind, whether in law, politics, the classroom, or tackling life’s big questions at the kitchen table.
Drawing on hundreds of quotations, this book explains what the Socratic method is and how to use it. Chapters include Socratic Ethics, Ignorance, Testing Principles, and Socrates and the Stoics. Socratic philosophy is still startling after all these years because it is an approach to asking hard questions and chasing after them. It is a route to wisdom and a way of thinking about wisdom. With Farnsworth as your guide, the ideas of Socrates are easier to understand than ever and accessible to anyone.
As Farnsworth achieved with The Practicing Stoic and the Farnsworth’s Classical English series, ideas of old are made new and vital again. This book is for those coming to philosophy the way Socrates did—as the everyday activity of making sense out of life and how to live it—and for anyone who wants to know what he said about doing that better.
Of course, it's not the belief that gets us in trouble, it's believing it's true when that just ain't so. Our stupidity blocks us from recognizing our own stupidity. Exhibit A: anti-vaxxer carnage from Covid.
The good news: there is a patch for this bug and it's been available for 2,500 years. Applying the patch takes some skill and Ward Farnsworth does a wonderful job of breaking this down in this insightful and compelling work.
This book is timely. Divisiveness and hate has never been more rife. According to the latest Pew survey, 90% of Republicans believe the Democrats are destroying the country AND VICA VERSA! Meanwhile, civitas is circling the drain from lead-pipe internet poisoning.
There are many ways to combat irrationality and idiocy. Socratic method is no more complex than Bayseian reasoning, deep canvassing, perspective taking or any of the other persuasion methodology. Practiced properly, not only will it move us a little closer to the truth, but it will render a rare virtue required to move our species forward - humility.
Thanks Ward for this user manual.
I'm as guilty as the next person of engaging in muddled thinking. It's an easy habit to fall into, or perhaps I should say it's a hard natural state to emerge from. I've found regularly asking myself hard questions allows me to see past the tangle of contradictions that's inside most of us. I've long done this as a part of a Stoic philosophical practice, journaling inner dialogues, but this book has helped me take things to the next level.
The book is about turning the Socratic Method on yourself. Given the limited opportunities to engage with others using Socratic dialogue, and the likelihood of pissing people off when you constantly ask them to examine their definitions and assumptions, Farnsworth argues that we should target ourselves with these ancient Socratic techniques.
He gives an overview of the Socratic process and how to question your own assumption. I highly recommend it.
Two quotes from the book:
"The Socratic method means, among other things, asking and receiving questions fearlessly; it means saying what you think, and not getting hot when others say what they think; it means loving the truth and staying humble about whether you know it. In other words, it’s about all the good things that have been vanishing from our culture of discourse."
"What is the Socratic method for? It lets us see something else more clearly: the workings and failings of the mind and its productions. How Mill put it: The Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus..."
Farnsworth does that well but has a way with words to make you "see" that perspective that we think we think we understand. It is a delight and relief to read someone who knows how to write well.
I've used his book "the practicing stoic" for reference since it's release and look forward to coming back to this one as well.
Thank your for writing on this well deserved project.