How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World

by Donald J. Robertson

Where’s the evidence for that? What are the consequences of that way of looking at things? How might other people view that situation differently?

How can we distinguish between appearance and reality in our daily lives?

What Socrates bequeathed to us was not so much a series of answers but rather a method of asking questions, a technique for clarifying our thinking and protecting ourselves from being misled by others, which is known today as the Socratic method.

them. It would, however, be much better for us to learn how to use reason to actively problem-solve and evaluate different strategies rather than depend on other people for stock advice. Before we can even begin to help ourselves, we need, moreover, to figure out what our goal is. Self-help is no help unless we know what it is we’re trying to achieve. First, we need to learn how to focus on the bigger picture and, as Socrates insisted, ask ourselves some difficult questions concerning our values. For instance, should our “self-improvement” be measured in terms of achieving external goals, such as wealth and reputation, or inner ones, such as wisdom and self-mastery? What really constitutes human flourishing or a good life?

Acquiring our beliefs passively, in this way, risks making us dangerously dependent on the opinions of other people, by reducing our ability to think for ourselves.

Wisdom requires knowing how to navigate your own path through life by learning to ask other people, and yourself, the right questions.

Socrates, if anything, was a critic of the Athenian democratic system, particularly the ease with which speakers could sway votes by pandering to the worst tendencies, or vices, of the people. Nevertheless, the ability to reason well and maintain self-awareness, then as now, may be our best defense against the rhetoric of fear and anger that threatens to tear our democracy apart, as it once tore apart that of Athens.

Philosophy, for Socrates, was a practice and a way of life. The Socratic method begins with a negative revelation: the insight that we cannot acquire wisdom from books in the same way that we acquire onions from a greengrocer. Wisdom cannot be purchased, at any price, from the labor of other people. It can only come from our own efforts.

The Socratic method is an active process of thinking. Its constant refrain is “Yes but…,” because it happily seeks out one exception after another to our definitions, assumptions, and other verbal rules. It forces us to think for ourselves by continually placing in question our most important assumptions and values, such as our goals for self-improvement.

When confronted with our own mortality, it often appears obvious, in retrospect, that many of the things we imagined to be important were only of potential value. What matters is how we use them, before our time is up. You don’t need to face execution to find this out. Why? Because Socrates has already done it for you.

Philosophy for Socrates was, first and foremost, a process for improving ourselves by critically examining our deepest values. He believed that the purpose of life itself is to converse daily about virtue, or the improvement of our own character, because “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

His mother, Phaenarete, claimed that as soon as he had learned to speak, Socrates had begun asking questions. He asked questions about the nature of the world around us.

What is knowledge—is it more like having an opinion or a memory?

The question “What is best in life?” is far too important to be entrusted to other people. We each have a duty to answer it for ourselves, by using our own reason.

The first step we’ll take, therefore, consists in focusing squarely on the question of what is best for a human being: What does it mean to live well and flourish?

I call this Socrates’s strategy of “negative definition.” The Greek term apophasis, which means “denial” or “negation,” can be used to describe this approach. We may find it easier to state what something is not before we attempt to explain what it

Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to create two equal columns. Write the word admired at the top of the first column and the word desired at the top of the second. In the first column, list three to five qualities you admire the most in others or look for in an ideal friend. Now imagine moving each of those items from the “admired” column to the “desired” one. Note down what the consequences would be if you were to desire to cultivate those qualities in your own character. What would it be like, in

other words, if you were to become more like the people you admire? How might that benefit your life? Example Diagram: Admired versus Desired

Socrates was leading Chaerecrates toward the therapeutic insight that his anger was caused not by Chaerephon but rather by his own way of thinking. It was not his older brother who upset him, in other words, but rather his opinions about him.

a young man named Euthydemus, known for his good looks and intelligence. Euthydemus prides himself on his personal library, which includes, among many other things, a complete edition of Homer. He has also amassed, and continues to collect, the writings of various wise men, which he is carefully studying in order to improve himself—if he was alive today, we’d call him a typical “self-help junkie.” As far as Socrates is concerned, anyone who immerses himself in books and has attended lectures on self-improvement deserves praise for his desire to learn. Yet Euthydemus would potentially be wasting his own time and money unless he also learns how to think for himself about the “wise” things he has read and heard. Much like learning to play the flute, or any similar skill, this requires daily practice.

Example of Two-Column Exercise: Injustice

Anyone can memorize a definition of wisdom or justice from a book. Self-help books are full of sweeping generalizations about the good life. Folk wisdom likewise contains notoriously contradictory sayings. From “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” to “He who hesitates is lost,” we have many proverbs that offer conflicting advice. The truth, of course, is that sometimes it is good to rush in; other times it is better to pause for thought. We must learn to adapt to circumstances. Wisdom requires being able to identify when a rule no longer holds true, and good advice becomes bad advice.

You must, he adds, be able to tell what is true from false appearances, “alert for the false chink of copper beneath the gold.” As we have seen, distinguishing appearance from reality was a central concern for ancient philosophers. He follows this by saying something that echoes the Socratic dialogue we’ve just discussed: Have you settled what to aim for and also what to avoid, marking the former list with chalk and the other with charcoal?

THE PRACTICE OF COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS DURING HIS DIALOGUE WITH PROTAGORAS, Socrates outlined a rational therapy of the passions or, in modern parlance, a form of cognitive psychotherapy. We could also describe it as a philosophical therapy, which aims to replace irrational fears and desires with rational ones.

Socrates anticipated modern psychotherapy by suggesting that both the causes and the cures of our emotional problems may be cognitive in nature. That’s quite remarkable, as these ideas only became established in modern psychotherapy with the so-called cognitive revolution during the 1950s and 1960s. Socrates described a method of “rational measurement” that compared the longer-term consequences of our actions, in terms of the pleasure or pain they are likely to cause, to help decision-making. This weighing of pros and cons is very similar to what cognitive-behavioral therapists call cost-benefit analysis, which is an integral part of a more comprehensive method called “problem-solving therapy” (PST).11 In some form or another, evaluating the consequences of a course of action plays a key role in almost all forms of CBT.

Often a therapist will help clients to reevaluate their coping by asking them to consider the pros and cons of alternative ways of behaving.

Sometimes cognitive therapists teach clients simply to ask themselves, regarding a particular course of action, “What do I have to gain?” and “What do I have to lose?” I think Socrates would have recognized this weighing of pros and cons as an application of the “art of measurement” that he discussed with Protagoras.

Here are some specific techniques that can help to make the long-term consequences of a behavior more salient and therefore more effective in shaping our actions.

Could our desire to appear wise be one of the greatest obstacles to acquiring real wisdom?

love of glory, or philotimia,

“When we falsely believe that we know something, our actions are guided by ignorance, and we make mistakes. If we recognize our ignorance, however, and we are reasonable men, we will seek counsel from experts. If you know that you know nothing about medicine, for example, you will obtain the guidance of a physician.

Someone who falsely assumes that he is a medical expert, though, will behave in a confused manner due to his intellectual conceit. He will contradict himself and may even make dangerous mistakes. If such conceit leads him to advise others, whether in private life or in the Assembly, his ignorance will endanger not only himself but his friends, and perhaps even the entire state.” Alcibiades stared down at his hands, deeply concerned by this remark. “Someone who believes he knows what he does not know will therefore become confused and make errors,” said Socrates, “and those who are confused about the most important things in life will make the most serious errors of all.”

“Indeed, the eye sees itself only when it looks directly into the other’s pupil, the very part capable of vision,” said Socrates. “Likewise, the soul knows itself only when it looks directly into the soul of another, at the part capable of knowledge. When we examine another’s capacity for wisdom, we provide ourselves with the purest mirror available among mortals,” said Socrates. Alcibiades was fascinated. “By this means,” concluded Socrates, “we may best do as the Delphic maxim advises and come to know ourselves.”

AESOP SAID THAT WE’RE BORN with two sacks hanging around our necks: one large sack, right under our noses, containing everyone else’s flaws; and a small one, hidden behind our back, which contains our own flaws.4 Self-knowledge, in other words, is difficult. Our worst character defects, or biases, are visible to others, but we have a blind spot for them ourselves. As the New Testament put it: you can see the tiny fleck of wood in someone else’s eye but not the great beam of wood in your own.5 Without a mirror for our soul, we’re often simply oblivious to ourselves. Blindness to our own errors presents a serious challenge, of course, for anyone concerned with self-improvement.

Most of Gorgias’s young students assumed that it was best to be on the winning side of a debate, and they wondered if Socrates was joking. The goal of philosophical debate, or dialectic, which is about truth and knowledge, is typically at odds with that of rhetorical debate, which is more about “winning” approval from an audience. Socrates believed that, when it comes to philosophical debate, it was better to lose an argument, for the simple reason that the loser is the one who is most likely to benefit by having their errors corrected, and thereby gaining in knowledge.

THE PRACTICE OF COGNITIVE DISTANCING ONE OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE concepts in the field of psychotherapy was introduced by Aaron T. Beck in the 1970s.5 Known as “cognitive distancing,” it refers to our ability to view our own thoughts with greater detachment and objectivity, as if observing the thoughts of another person.

Beck noted the overlap with philosophy when he said that this concept is related to epistemology, or theory of knowledge. Distancing involves being able to make the distinction between “I believe” (an opinion that is subject to validation) and “I know” (an “irrefutable” fact).

The client’s ability to make this distinction, he says, is of “critical importance” in cognitive psychotherapy. Socrates, of course, was one of the pioneers of epistemology, and a similar distinction between opinion and knowledge is central to his philosophy.

Rhetoric, as Gorgias implies, is basically the art of persuading one’s audience to accept certain ideas uncritically. If cognitive therapists teach other people to notice the colored lenses through which they’re looking at life, rhetoric does the opposite.

“Rhetoric is to the mind,” said Socrates, “as confectionery is to the body—both are knacks that their practitioners have developed for pandering to the desires of the ignorant, and neither pays any attention to what is in anyone’s best interests.”

“Even a child could refute you,” said Alcibiades. “Then I would be most grateful to that child,” said Socrates, smiling, “for curing me of my error.”

Socrates summed up his paradoxical claims as follows. First, wickedness and wrongdoing are the greatest evils. Second, punishment is just whenever it cures this evil in us, whereas avoiding such punishment makes the evil permanent. Third, the greatest evil of all must therefore be to commit wrongdoing and yet evade punishment altogether, such that we are never cured of our wrongs. Of course, the mildest and best punishment that can improve our characters would be to have our errors exposed by philosophy, which is what Socrates dedicated his life to doing.

Rhetoric was a double-edged sword that could be used to transform strengths into weaknesses and vice versa. Socrates had repeatedly warned Alcibiades that the Assembly of Athens could be turned against him by skilled orators, appealing to the fears and prejudices of the masses.

“You are not testifying truthfully in the case against me,” said Socrates with a laugh, “because like most Athenians, you still confuse a philosopher, who loves wisdom, with one who claims to possess wisdom!” Socrates explained that it was the Sophist Prodicus, a student of Protagoras, who was the source of these teachings. Socrates did not presume, himself, to know what awaits us in the afterlife.

anything. You cannot suffer because of death while alive, because it does not exist for you, nor can you suffer after death, because you will be no more.” The troubled nobleman solemnly agreed. Socrates went on to explain that when we fear our own death, as if being dead was somehow an event in our life, we behave as if we knew the value of something that neither is nor will ever be. Fearing death is like worrying about dragons, centaurs, or other mythological creatures. Although we can talk about these and other such fantastic creatures, we never actually encounter them during our lives. The experience of own death is no less elusive.

Whatever happens to him after death, if he is conscious at all, and able to think about his situation, he will be able to reason and continue to do philosophy, in death just as in life.” In other words, for a person who is self-sufficient and gains satisfaction entirely from his own conduct, regardless of his environment or other people, any form of afterlife would be a blessing, just as he would be able to prosper in any foreign country. He does not need to know in advance what the place in which he will find himself is like because he already knows that every good he requires comes from within himself.

“You see,” said Socrates, “either death is nothing, an endless sleep, in which case it is not evil but indifferent, or our soul continues to exist, and we have the opportunity to do philosophy, in which case death is something good, or at least no worse than living. Indeed,” he added, “we have reason enough to hope that it may be better than our life on earth, as we will have the opportunity to experience a realm purified of earthly pains and pleasures, in which I like to think we may have the opportunity to converse with the great men of the past, including your famous ancestors, and perhaps even with the gods themselves. Death is therefore either something indifferent or something good,” he said, “and in either case it is something the wise man fears least of all.”

One of the most famous passages in all of classical philosophy comes from the Stoic Handbook of Epictetus: “Men are not disturbed by events but by their opinions about them.” It was quoted by Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, the pioneers of cognitive-behavioral therapy, in order to explain the cognitive model of emotion. This became a slogan, of sorts, taught to many thousands of CBT clients and repeated in countless books on the subject. However, they did not go on to quote the next part of the passage. The complete saying should read as follows:

Men are not disturbed by events but by their opinions about them: for example, death is nothing terrible, because if it were, it would have seemed so to Socrates; for the opinion about death, that it is terrible, is the terrible thing.8 As you can see, Epictetus immediately applied this concept to what he considered the most pressing psychological issue we face. He refers to Socrates’s attitude toward death because, I presume, he is aware that this insight into the psychology of emotions did not originate with Stoicism but goes all the way back to Socrates himself.

THE PRACTICE OF ANGER MANAGEMENT THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR can be viewed, to some extent, as a story about revenge.