The Socratic Method : A Practitioners Handbook
4.3 (177 ratings by Goodreads)
Hardback English
By (author) Ward Farnsworth


A thinking persons 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 lifes 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 humanitys 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 lifes 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 Farnsworths 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.


Product details

Format Hardback | 264 pages
Dimensions 157 x 231 x 30.48mm | 544.31g
Publication date 18 Nov 2021
Publisher David R. Godine Publisher Inc
Publication City/Country Lincoln, United States
Language English
ISBN10 1567926851
ISBN13 9781567926859
Bestsellers rank 267,771