Philosophy and Classics

Spencer Klavan is the author of How to Save the West: Ancient Wisdom for 5 Modern Crises and assistant editor of The Claremont Review of Books and The American Mind at the Claremont Institute. With a PhD in Classics, Klavan's literary expertise is aided by his knowledge of many languages, including Ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. As a scholar who enjoys exploring how great works of literature provide valuable insights into today's world, Klavan hosts Young Heretics every Tuesday.

Highlights

* Rational discourse is a team sport, a shared pursuit for the wisdom we both seek about the thing and the effort we make at getting it

* Seeking excellence, moral virtue, and flourishing is the first step, the atomic building block, for living well together—seeking mutual good in the form of community and relationships

* Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 9.8

* Fundamentally, when we form political community, we do so because we collectively agree that there is such a thing as justice

Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Ward Farnsworth is Dean and John Jeffers Research Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. He formerly was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the Boston University Law School. He’s the author of The Socratic Method and The Practicing Stoic.

Highlights

* The Socratic method as an orientation of mind, is different from the orientation of mind that we use by default and therefore challenging. It's a humbler, more inquisitive frame of mind, a path toward intelligence.

* “A life, a good life is a life with pleasure.”

Socrates would ask, “What if a life had a lot of pleasure in it, but it was only obtained by doing horrible things to other people? Would you consider that a good life?”

“Well, no, of course not.”

“Maybe revise what you said.”

* Socrates always finds or suggests contradictions between different things the person believes. This sounds modest and unassuming, this little process, but it has many uses, many payoffs.

* You're really just asking questions about the premises. The major premise behind what people think is in the foreground. And most people are much clearer on what they think in the foreground than they are in the deep reasons for it.

This episode is the final part of the Plato’s Academy Centre course on the Socratic Method. In this lesson, we will be learning about the positive philosophy of Socrates and his use of irony. If you've enjoyed it, please check out these simple ways you can support the Plato's Academy Centre.

Socrates' fellow Athenians were frustrated and fascinated by him in equal measures. Right down to the present day, students of philosophy have shared a similar experience when reading Plato's dialogues. Socrates was a complex character. We'll conclude by discussing one of the enduring puzzles about him: his notorious profession of ignorance, which scholars call "Socratic irony".

Thank you for reading Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Did Socrates Have Two Philosophies?

Socrates was well-known for claiming that he knew nothing, or at least nothing of much importance about the most important things in life.

He used to say that [...] he knew nothing except just the fact of his ignorance. – Diogenes Laertius

This aspect of his philosophy is clearly methodological – it helped Socrates to engage in his question and answer approach more freely. On the other hand, it doesn't seem entirely sincere, or entirely true, for him to say he knows nothing about such matters as wisdom and virtue.

Sometimes he merely hints at these beliefs but at other times he states them quite clearly.

Socrates often seems to have an agenda and to be working toward certain conclusions, which are often quite simple but paradoxical in nature. Sometimes he merely hints at these beliefs but at other times he states them quite clearly. For example:

For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” – Socrates in Plato's Apology, 30b

The Stoics focused on Socrates' positive doctrines about virtue ethics, viewing him as a predecessor of their own school of philosophy in this regard. By contrast, the ancient Greek philosophers known as Skeptics developed a system inspired by Socrates' methodological doubt. Although the Stoics and Skeptics were both influenced by him they chose to focus on different aspects of Socrates' teachings.

Socratic Irony

For the purposes of this short course, we'll focus on Socrates' claim to lack wisdom because it's characteristic of his question and answer style of reasoning. The name "Sophist", Sophistes in Greek, means "expert" or one who claims to possess wisdom. The Sophists claimed to be wise and virtuous, and they charged high fees for teaching wisdom and virtue to others. In contrast, Socrates refused to accept fees, casting himself more in the role of student than teacher.

I share the poverty of my fellow countrymen in this respect, and confess to my shame that I have no knowledge about virtue at all. – Socrates in Plato's Meno, 71b

Through his repeated disavowal of any special knowledge, Socrates is able to focus on asking questions. In a sense, that helps him to keep an open mind, as we would say today.

Plato says that ignorance may be divided into two sorts: "simple ignorance" and "double ignorance". Simple ignorance is less serious. Double ignorance "is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing" (Laws, 863cd). Socrates viewed his method as a cure for double ignorance.

The Socratic Method undermines the intellectual conceit, or double ignorance, of the person being questioned by exposing contradictions in their thinking. At the same time, though, the questioner is modelling awareness of his own ignorance. It's as though the questioner is demonstrating the benefit of having subjected himself to the Socratic Method – he or she now enjoys a kind of intellectual freedom.

Now you've completed the lessons, why not take our quiz on Facebook about the Socratic Method? If you think your friends would appreciate this course please share the link them.

Thank you for reading Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Above is an audiobook excerpt from David Fideler’s Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living. Special thanks to W. W. Norton & Company and Tantor Media & HighBridge Audio.

In Breakfast with Seneca, philosopher David Fideler mines Seneca's classic works in a series of focused chapters, clearly explaining Seneca's ideas without oversimplifying them. Best enjoyed as a daily ritual, like an energizing cup of coffee, Seneca's wisdom provides us with a steady stream of time-tested advice about the human condition - which, as it turns out, hasn't changed much over the past 2,000 years.

The most companionable of the new Stoic books.

—Molly Young, New York Times

David Fideler is an esteemed guest speaker at our upcoming virtual event, On Seneca: Anger, Fear, and Sadness on Saturday, August 19th @ 12 pm EDT. Registration is free or you may donate an amount of your choosing. Your generosity keeps us hosting these events. Donations also go towards funding a PAC on-site location near the original Plato’s Academy in Akadimia Platonos, Athens. No need to worry if you are unavailable on the day. A recording will be sent to all registrants post event.

Also, all attendees are eligible to win a paperback copy of David’s acclaimed Breakfast with Seneca! A form will be sent to registrants post event for entry. Then, three lucky winners will be selected.

This episode is part of the Plato’s Academy Centre course on the Socratic Method. In this lesson, we will be learning about how cognitive therapists spot common cognitive distortions and how these compare to common logical fallacies.

In the previous lesson, we looked at how cognitive therapists use Socratic Questioning today to help clients evaluate their beliefs in terms of evidence and helpfulness. They also help clients examine the "logic" of their beliefs. This is a slightly trickier approach, although closer in some regards to what Socrates and other philosophers were doing.

Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We're talking about informal logic here, i.e., whether our thinking is broadly rational and consistent or not. One of the most direct questions we might ask ourselves is therefore simply: Is that belief logical? People often find that hard to answer, though, without having some examples of ways in which their reasoning might be flawed.

Our thinking is definitely irrational if it is based upon a set of beliefs that contradict one another.

Logical Contradictions

First of all, like Socrates, we might look for contradictions. Our thinking is definitely irrational if it is based upon a set of beliefs that contradict one another. One of the most basic principles of logic, indeed, is called the Law of Noncontradiction. If two statements are contradictory they're not necessarily both false, but at least one of them must be. They cannot both be true, that is, but they could both be false.

Spotting contradictory beliefs can require effort and rigorous honesty but it can also be very powerful because most (but not all) of us do feel a strong urge to change our thinking when forced to admit that our own beliefs are in conflict with one another.

Cognitive Distortions

Beck and other cognitive therapists have often found it's helpful to teach their clients the names of typical "cognitive distortions", colloquially known as "thinking errors". There are many studies showing that different cognitive distortions or biases are more common when people are depressed, anxious, or very angry. The cognitive therapist, David Burns, for instance, has a list of about ten common "thinking errors" in his bestselling book Feeling Good. Other therapists use slightly different lists but they generally have a lot in common. Some basic examples are:

* Overgeneralization, or making sweeping statements that go well beyond the known facts.Example: "Nobody likes me" versus "Some people don't like me."

* Catastrophizing, or exaggerating how severe a threat is likely to be.Example: "What if my wife leaves me? I won't be able to cope!" versus "My wife probably won't leave me and even if she did it might be really bad but not the end of the world; I would survive and carry on."

* Discounting, or trivializing information that should cause us to change our behaviourExample: "Pete said he likes me but he's just being nice" versus "Pete said he likes me, and for all I know he's telling the truth, so I shouldn't dismiss that as if it doesn't count."

* Mind-reading, or assuming what other people think without checking – a problem especially common in severe social anxiety.Example: "Everyone at work thinks I'm an idiot and I don't deserve my job" versus "I don't know what people think until I ask them, so I should find good ways to get feedback from my colleagues."

There are many more cognitive biases and distortions. As we'll see, they often resemble what philosophers call informal logical fallacies. For example, the cognitive distortion which psychologists call "overgeneralization" is basically the same as the informal fallacy philosophers refer to as making a "faulty generalization".

Informal Fallacies

Logical fallacies are arguments that are generally understood to be illogical – they're "wrong moves" in reasoning. Often people simply use them by mistake. Rhetoricians throughout the ages, though, have also used them quite deliberately to manipulate their audiences by "cheating" in an argument. Today, as you'll notice, some of these fallacies are extremely common in the media and in online discussions.

Ad Hominem fallacy. For instance, a very common informal fallacy is traditionally known as the argumentum ad hominem. This involves criticizing a person in order to discredit what they're saying. Politicians do this an awful lot, and now it's increasingly common on social media. For example, "This scientific claim can't be true because the people saying it are [conservatives / liberals] and everything they say is a lie!" Of course, nobody lies all the time, and if we're going to think for ourselves we need to learn to judge statements on their own merits rather than leaping to conclusions based on our political prejudices, and so on. Socrates, you may notice, is careful to avoid attacking others. In fact, he may do the opposite, and praise the character of those whose beliefs he is nevertheless questioning.

Straw Man fallacy. You'll also find many examples of the Straw Man fallacy online. This consists in falsely attributing an easily-refutable position to someone in order to discredit them. It's a straw man they're attacking when they do that, a fake opponent that they've manufactured to make an easy target, not the real person. For example, someone might say "Cognitive therapists believe that all emotional problems can be solved by reasoning and that's clearly not true." That, however, is not a claim that any real cognitive therapist has ever made – it's just a caricature of their theory. Attacking a straw man is a way of cheating in a debate, to make it look as if you've refuted your opponent when really you're just refuting something they never said.

Causal fallacies. Scientists are trained, from the outset, to avoid these fallacies. When people who are not educated in research methods quote scientific studies, though, they often fall into errors of reasoning about causation. Causal fallacies take several forms. One of the most common is the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy or "after the event therefore because of the event." For instance, someone might drop dead after taking a specific type of medicine. You'll often find people arguing "He dropped dead right after he took those pills therefore they killed him!" That does not prove a causal connection. (For all we know, he may have been dying anyway and didn't take enough of the medicine to cure himself.) A more general error of the same kind is known in science as the fallacy of confusing correlation and causation. Every researcher knows to avoid this methodological mistake. Many studies measure statistical correlations. It might be easy to show, for instance, that severity of depression is highly-correlated with frequency of negative thoughts. Nevertheless, it does not logically follow from this correlation that negative thoughts actually cause depression – it could be the other way around.

These are just a few examples of logical fallacies. There are many more. Learning to spot them helps protect us against bad reasoning or "sophistry", which is, sadly, very common in politics and the media, and extremely prevalent in debates on social media.

If you're interested in discussing online you can join our Substack Note thread about "How can we best define wisdom?" and subscribe to the Plato’s Academy Centre on Substack.

Thank you for reading Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

Dr. Sean Lyons is Professor of Leadership and Management and Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies at the Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics at the University of Guelph. Dr. Lyons’s main area of research concerns intergenerational differences and their impacts on workplace dynamics and managing people. He is co-author of the book Generational Career Shifts: How Matures, Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials View Work and co-editor of Managing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millennial Generation.

His research on generations has been featured in a number of media outlets, including Time Magazine, the Globe & Mail, the National Post, the Daily Mirror (UK), Macleans magazine, as well as on CBC’s The National, CTV News Channel, the Business News Network and CBC Radio’s The Current. Dr. Lyons works frequently with private and public sector organizations to identify and address inter-generational issues.

Highlights

* “Unlike heroic theories of leadership that focus on the leader as a heroic figure—who are somehow gifted with unique traits or skills—modern leadership focus on leadership as interpersonal processes that unfold within a group that focus on the leader as an symbol to help them find the right motivation and meaning in their own actions.”

* Leadership is a process of influencing others to achieve a common goal. (Northouse, 2022; 6)

* Virtuous Leadership is distinguishing right from wrong in one’s leadership role, taking steps to ensure justice and honesty, influencing and enabling others to pursue righteous and moral goals. …and helping others connect to a higher purpose. (Pearce et al., 2006; 62)

* Practical Wisdom (phronesis)—seeing the naked truth and knowing what is good, not good, and indifferent

* The Disciplines of Desire, Action, and Assent

In this episode, Donald discusses the life and philosophy of Diogenes the Cynic with Jean-Manuel Roubineau, associate professor of ancient history at Rennes 2 University. Prof. Roubineau specializes in Greek antiquity, the historical anthropology of sport, and the history of social inequalities. He is the author of several books, including The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic.

Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Highlights

* Prof. Roubineau’s background and research on Greek society and athletics  

* The main misconceptions that people have about Diogenes the Cynic    

* How does Diogenes differ from other Greek philosophers such as Plato?

* How does Diogenes fit into the succession of Greek philosophers, and his relationship with the Socratics and the Stoics?

* What Diogenes thought it meant to be a philosopher 

* To what extent, do you think Diogenes was “cynical” about religion?

* What led Diogenes to say that he was a citizen of the cosmos

* Final Question: “Is comfort an expression of success?”

Links

* The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic

* The Big Think

Diane Kalen-Sukra is the founder of Kalen Academy, an interactive online school for civic leaders and engaged citizens, which she launched after retiring as a city manager. She is also an acclaimed author, speaker and coach. Diane’s most popular book “Save Your City: How Toxic Culture Kills Community & What To Do About It”  takes readers on a successful journey from Bullyville to Sustainaville, which includes a visit to classical antiquity, calling for a renaissance of civic values and civic education as vital to fostering the type of culture that can sustain us, our democracy and our planet.

Highlights

* A city that’s governed well is governed in accordance with reason; because we’re human beings with the capacity to reason and organize together. This is through rational discourse, not through factualism, ad hominin attacks, or rage-farming—which are mistaken by our society as rational strategies.

* 81% of local government US officials have experienced everything from death threats to vandalization of their homes and other forms of abuse. This is the level of government that is closest to the people. So, that very proximity that we need, in a toxic environment, has the capacity to do enormous harm.

* Aristotle would challenge the view that local government exists to provide city services (or some quality affordable civic services). He would say that civic leadership must be people-centered, namely to achieve eudaimonia as a collective.

* “Educate the people or endure them.” —Marcus Aurelius

Prof. Nancy Sherman is a New York Times Notable Author and Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

Her most recent book is Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience (2021). Other books include Afterwar, The Untold War (a NYT editors’ pick), Stoic Warriors, Making a Necessity of Virtue, and The Fabric of Character. Sherman lectures internationally on ancient philosophy, military ethics, moral injury, and the emotions. 

Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience was rereleased in paperback June 1st and is now available. (Oxford University Press)

Highlights

* We’re part of a larger humanity, the Stoics view this as a cosmos.

* There exists within us a profound sense of resilience, a belief that we can be invincible, impervious to any challenge that comes our way. However, the true essence behind the Stoics penning their wisdom lies in their understanding of our inherent vulnerability.

* “The Stoics give us amazing resources for being able to ask ‘Was my judgement of what happened out there and my emotional response to it—anger, fear, desire, distress—grounded? Was I attached to the correct values?’”

* Fast thinking, when not used for survival, can be caused out of habits of personal bias that we’re not even aware of.

PAC would like to extend their deepest gratitude to Adam Piercey of Modern Stoicism for hosting, conducting, and providing this interview.

This episode is part of the Plato’s Academy Centre course on the Socratic Method. In this lesson, we will be learning about modern applications of Socratic Questioning. We’ll begin by looking at the main Socratic technique of cognitive psychotherapy, and then at some helpful variations.

Socrates' method of questioning has influenced many different educational approaches, and been used in fields as diverse as law and medicine.

What is Socratic Questioning?

The Socratic Method has influenced countless thinkers throughout the centuries, all the way down to the present age. Of course, its most obvious impact has been in academic philosophy. Socrates' method of questioning, though, has influenced many different educational approaches, and been used in fields as diverse as law and medicine. Speaking of his use of the term “Socratic Questioning”, Aaron T. Beck, one of the pioneers of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) said in an interview:

I came across the notion of Socratic Dialogue when I read about it in my college philosophy course – I believe it was in Plato’s Republic.

Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Beck's early methods of Socratic Questioning led to many subsequent variations, which became central to all cognitive psychotherapy. All of these approaches use the term "Socratic" very loosely, often just to refer to the notion of teaching by asking questions as opposed to lecturing didactically. As we've shown, hopefully, there was a lot more to the original Socratic Method than just asking lots of questions. Nevertheless, we can learn from the types of questions that have been developed by modern practitioners, especially in the counselling and psychotherapy fields. Some of these are perhaps even questions that Socrates himself would have found helpful.

Questioning Evidence

It has often been said that the basic question used in early cognitive therapy, by Beck and his colleagues, was simply: Where is the evidence for that? This is a great question. Researchers and clinicians in psychology, medicine, and other fields, are in the habit of asking this question at conferences about the claims being made by their peers. It's part of the scientific method.

Clients undergoing cognitive therapy or counselling are also asked the same question with regard to beliefs that may be contributing to their emotional or behavioural problems. For example, a depressed client may believe that nobody likes them and that they are worthless. The therapist, after some initial trust-building and assessment, will often encourage the client to ask where the evidence is for those sort of beliefs. (It's really the client who should be doing the questioning, ultimately, although at first the therapist models this behaviour.)

This can be taken a step further by, like Socrates did, drawing up two-columns, although today we usually use the trusty flipchart or whiteboard. One column contains evidence supporting the belief in question ("Nobody likes me") and the other column contains evidence against it being true. Sometimes clients may need to carry out "empirical" tests, or "behavioural experiments", in order to gather information. For instance, they might even survey their friends asking them for their honest opinions about how likeable they are.

Someone who worries anxiously might think "What if something catastrophic happens? I won't be able to cope!" They could question whether or not that's true but we know today that it's often more helpful to target the underlying assumptions. For instance, worriers often assume that thinking like this could be helpful or that their worries in general are realistic. We can check the evidence for that on a flipchart retrospectively, based on past experience, by asking “How many of the things you worried about actually happened?” We could also check it prospectively by actually keeping track of how often their worries turn out to be false over the following weeks. If you're creative, you can probably think up many other ways the evidence for and against troubling beliefs could be questioned or tested out in our experience.

Questioning Helpfulness

A different approach consists in asking how helpful our beliefs are in practice. Arguably this is further away from Socratic philosophy because Socrates was mainly concerned with how true beliefs are, regardless of whether or not they're helpful. Nevertheless, it often makes sense for clients in therapy to examine the consequences of holding different attitudes and, in reality, this often motivates them to reconsider the truth of their problematic assumptions. For example, you might believe that smoking cigarettes calms your nerves. In reality, cigarettes are neurostimulants, although people temporarily relax when they smoke, their heart rate will go up higher than normal shortly afterwards – smoking cigarettes causes stress in other words. The belief that they help smokers relax is something of an illusion as they only do this short-term but make them far less relaxed in the longer-term.

The simplest version of this type of questioning is to ask yourself: How helpful is that belief? We can ask the same question about our behaviour as well. If you wanted to take the same line of questioning further you might ask about the consequences of some attitude or way of thinking. Therapists often like to ask the magic question: "How's that working out for you?"

Delving deeper, if we have the time and inclination, we might ask what the pros and cons (advantages and disadvantages) are of holding some belief. We can even distinguish the short-term pros and cons from the longer term ones. For instance, smoking may help you feel relaxed in the short term (pro) only to raise your heart rate and causes more stress in the long-term (con). Once again, we can, of course, draw a two-column diagram, if we like, with one side headed pros and the other cons.

Generally we consider the personal consequences or pros and cons. Sometimes, though, you might also want to consider the consequences of a troubling attitude or behaviour for your loved ones, or for different aspects of your life such as relationships, work, physical health, mental health, etc. Dividing the consequences up into various domains of life often helps us to evaluate the wider impact of our thinking and behaviour.

In addition to questioning the evidence for and the helpfulness of our beliefs, cognitive therapists use a strategy described as questioning the logic of our reasoning. We'll be examining that more in the next lesson, where we'll discuss how it compares to the way philosophers learn to spot common logical fallacies.

If you're interested in discussing online you can join our Substack Note thread about "How can we best define wisdom?" and subscribe to the Plato’s Academy Centre on Substack.

Regards,

Donald Robertson

President of The Plato's Academy Centre

Thank you for reading Plato's Academy Centre Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.