The Socratic Method

• Definition: Attacking an idea by attacking the holder of it.
• Insight: Ad hominem arguments have no place in Socratic discourse, although some describe Socratic questioning as ad hominem. Socrates wanted to test the holder of a claim as well as the claim itself.

• Definition: Tranquillity and freedom from distress.
• Insight: The goal of the Pyrrhonian Skeptics (founder Pyrrho of Elis) was ataraxia, which they believed came from suspending judgement.

• Insight: Incompetence prevents you from being aware of your own incompetence. Ignornace makes us unconcious of our ignorance.
• Reference: From the Roman poet Ovid: ignoti nulla cupido (there is no desire of the unknown). This is often our barrier to progress in wisdom.

• Definition: The tendency of people to value something more highly once they own it.
• Insight: The endowment effect applies to truth. We can be very attached to our truths, but not as motivated to gain more.
• Insight: Taking the time to think about how much we value what we have (including truth) can motivate us to add to it.

Biography: Born in the region we know now as Turkey. Lived from about 55 to 135 AD. Born a slave and freed as a young adult. Suffered throughout his life from a leg injury obtained during slavery. Spent much of his early life in Rome, moved to Greece when philosophers were banished from Rome by emperor Domitian.

Biography: Epictetus had no writings of his own that were published, but one of his students Arrian published class notes, known as the Discourses of Epictetus, and the Enchiridion (handbook).

"The beginning of philosophy — at least for those who take hold of it in the right way, and through the front door—is an awareness of one's own weakness and incapacity when it comes to the most important things."

- Epictetus, Discourses 2.11.1

Insight: Epictetus viewed an understanding of how little one knows as the starting point of Stoicism.

"What is the first business of one who studies philosophy? To part with self-conceit."

- Epictetus, Discourses 2.17.1

"There are two things that must be rooted out from human beings: presumption and lack of confidence. Presumption lies in supposing that there is nothing more that one needs... As regards presumption, that can be removed by cross-examination, and Socrates was the first to do that."

- Epictetus, Discourses 2.14.8

Insight: Epictetus believed in the Socratic question and answer method for wiping out falsehoods.

"Since [Socrates] couldn't always have someone at his side to subject his judgments to examination, or to be cross- examined by him in turn, he used to subject himself to examination, and test himself out, and was always trying out the practical application of some specific preconception."

- Epictetus, Discourses 2.1.32

Insight: We can apply the habit of Socratic questioning internally.

"Is health good, and disease evil?” No, you can do better than that. “What then?” To use health well is good, to use it badly is evil."

- Epictetus, Discourses 30.20.4

Insight: Our circumstances in themselves cannot be judged, rather our actions given our circumstances.

"Men are disturbed not by the things that happen but by their opinions about those things."

- Epictetus, Enchiridion 5

Insight: Stoicism starts by suggesting that what might be considered problems can often be reinterpreted as problems in your thinking.

• Definition: Well-being or living well.
• Insight: Socratic philosophy treats eudaimonia as the final goal.
• Insight: We tend to think of happiness as subjective. But eudaimonia has an objective aspect: it includes the judgement from outside of whether one is living a good or virtuous life.

• Bio: Studied under Polemo, and Cynic philosopher Crates. Cleanthes and Chrysippus followed as heads of the Stoic school. None of Zeno's writing has survived.
• Insight: Stoicism got its name because Zeno of Citium did his teaching in a public porch, or stoa, in the agora of Athens.