Hello again, Hi, TJ. Welcome back to the show.

Hi~

So carry on from last time we were talking about Socrates and three people who famously wrote about him. Aristophanes was someone who was bad mouthing Socrates. And Xenophon was just writing boring accounts that perhaps realistically happened. Who was the 3rd person?

The 3rd person is by far the most famous, and that's Plato.

So Plato, he's Socrates’ student, and he clearly has a very, very high opinion of Socrates. And Socrates in his accounts usually comes across as somebody that goes into conversations and shows how little other people know, and he solves a lot of their misconceptions. Usually Socrates’ opponent is very arrogant, thinks they have all the answers to what a good life is. Socrates slowly deconstruct their positions and shows why they don't have all the answers to the questions they think they have the answers to.

So we have the good, the bad and middle of the road. Interesting! But if I remember correctly, Socrates was sentenced to death, right? He didn't die of a natural cause. He was actually executed.

Right. He was given hemlock, which is a kind of poison. Right, he died. He wasn't very young when he died, but he still died. And this is because he was taken to court for insulting the gods and corrupting the youth were the two charges that he was on trial for.

So he did not protest against it？He just took it？

I mean he did protest against it. So we have several books by Plato that deal with the trial of Socrates. And we think these books are probably quite accurate because when the trial was held, they would have had a jury with hundreds of people that gave a verdict about Socrates. So Plato couldn't just have written down whatever he wanted to. These people probably wouldn't have liked it if he'd have lied. So what we do know is that Socrates said, I haven't committed these crimes. He said, I haven't, all I’ve done is asked some uncomfortable questions.

I've not been telling anybody to do anything that's particularly bad. I've just been asking them to really, really look at their life and say, what should I do? Is this important? And things like if the gods love us, then why do certain things happen in the world?

I guess it was dangerous thought, wasn't it? That what he was spreading back then? It was quite dangerous perhaps why they executed him.

Right. Obviously, it seems dangerous to the social order when you're really questioning the very fabric, these other things that holds societies together, the religions and the shared beliefs and ideas.

When Socrates is saying maybe they're all wrong, you can see why some people …

wouldn’t like that.

Yeah.

So that was about Socrates’ life and also death, but back to his actual influence in his actual philosophy. What was it? Because he didn't leave any written work. It just seems like you're saying that he had a genuine love of wisdom. He went around questioning people, questioning existing beliefs. What was the actual philosophy?

It's hard, like we talked about before, we only know Socrates’ works through other people, mostly Plato. And what Plato did was he started to use Socrates to talk about his own ideas, use him as a character in his books. And the early books we think are quite accurate. But the later books it slowly becomes Plato’s ideas, not Socrates’ ideas. And the key thing that Socrates really gave to the western tradition was this idea of knowing that you don't know, having doubt.

Knowing that you don't know. That's very profound actually. The other day I was talking about some logical fallacies. And it also mentioned this, the power of knowing what you don't know.

Right? So there's a really good story that shows how Socrates uses this kind of wisdom, or comes to this kind of wisdom. So when he's in Athens and there's an oracle, and oracle is a person who knows about the future, has some kind of special mystical knowledge…

And he goes to the oracle at Delphi, Delphi is a place, and says everybody says that I'm wise, but I'm not so sure that I am wise. What do you think? And the oracle says to Socrates, you're the wisest man in Athens, you are the wisest man in our country. And Socrates replies and says that can't be true. I don't really know very much at all. I don't feel like I'm very wise. How can I be the wisest person? He goes back to Athens and he talks to doctors. He talks to lawyers. He goes around asking people questions. And over time he slowly comes to the realization that he is the wisest man in Athens. But the reason he's the wisest man is not because he knows so many things. It's because he knows the limits of his own knowledge. And that is what true wisdom is.

It's kind of like he was the actual wisest man, because he didn't know and didn't believe that he was the wisest man. He still thought there was so much that he did not know.

Right! His modesty and his understanding of his own limitations were the wisdom itself.

And how would you say that Socrates, his thoughts and philosophy and all of these questioning spirit, how would you say that has influenced western way of thinking?

I think you can see this all the way through the western tradition. There was a brief period in the middle ages where that kind of idea wasn't so popular. But from the renaissance onwards, this idea of we have to question everything, we have to do more experiments, we have to validate everything, it’s very western and really starts with Socrates.

Right! I think that would be fair to say. And the same thing when I went to university in my seminars, my professors are always saying, how do you know what about this counter example that I have to your position on all of these things really trying to grill me and push me to understand the limits of what I know and really build a solid foundation for my knowledge.

So that's the way using debate to question what you have said to push you to come up with more evidence, more supporting arguments.

Right! Just like exercise that you need to be pushed, you need to find the limits. And that's the only way you can run faster or lift heavier weights. And the same thing with philosophy is like a muscle that you have to practice.

You know what? I don't think it's just in academic world. It's not just in universities. I'm really into like crime shows and courtroom dramas. If you look at western courtrooms, the cross examination, it's also a bit like that. It's pushing you to try... it keeps questioning you. So I think that it perhaps is a little bit of Socratic tradition there as well.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that example before, but I think you're completely right. So if you wanted to, Lulu, we could try and do a little bit of the Socratic method now.

Okay, I'll be interested. I want to see how that is done. So how should we start?

Usually what Socrates does is ask about a concept. He asks you a question that seems like you would know the answer to, but it's actually quite difficult to answer. I'm gonna say what is love? Well it’s a common kind of Socratic question.

What is love? That's a very, very big question. I don't know. I think love in the big sense is perhaps about an internal desire. Do try to make things better for the world and for other people. That would be my explanation or but my perception.

And then Socrates would give examples counter examples. So you said making the world better for other people. Socrates would say, what about loving yourself? What does that mean? Surely you have to love yourself as well as other people.

I think loving myself because myself being part of the world. I am, in a matter of fact, also making the world a better place.

You said it, so loving things is making things better. So if I change my essay to make it better, that means I love my essay.

Your essay?

Right, if I write an article or write something down, and I want to make it better, if love is just making things better, then every time I make something better, does that mean I love that thing?

Um, I don't think love is necessarily directed at the thing that you want to improve. It's through this improvement. I think love in this sense is quite vague. It doesn't have to be so specific as in your love for the essay. Okay, I get it. I get it TJ, it does feel like I'm being grilled and it does feel like I'm being put at the stand and trying to justify myself.

I do think that's one thing. Sometimes I have lived in China for more than a few years now, I do sometimes think the collaborative way. So there's a Chinese TV show called Roundtable. They talk about things and they tried not to be rude to each other. They try to work together to solve the answer. So I do think that sometimes the Socratic method can be a little bit too direct.

Too confrontational.

Too intense. Yeah, it can be sometimes.

Yeah. But it could be probably there will be a balance or at least a mixture, but I definitely would think that Socratic method, is very good for critical thinking.

Right. And I think it's very good if you have a teacher and a student, it's very good for the teacher if they really want to push the student to think and justify themselves. There is a very good tool, but it's not one you want to use all the time with your friends and family otherwise it might be trouble.

Because then you would just be difficult.

Right.

Thank you so much for coming to the show. I've definitely learned so much about Socrates and hopefully in the future you come to the show more often tell us about your perspective, especially some more interesting stories about western philosophy.

My pleasure, any opportunity I get to talk about philosophy I usually take.

Thank you TJ, thank you very much. We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye~

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