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The Socratic Method
A Practitioner's Handbook
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Brief Description
A thinking person's 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 life's...
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Description
A thinking person's 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 life's big questions.
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 humanity's 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 life's 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 Farnsworth's 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.
'A wonderful book.' Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781567928464
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher Inc
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 06 November 2025
Country: United States
Imprint: David R. Godine Publisher Inc
Illustration: Illustrations
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 25.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 228.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 264
About the Author
Ward Farnsworth is Professor and W. Page Keeton Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. He is author of The Socratic Method, The Practicing Stoic, and the Farnsworth Classical English series which includes Argument, Rhetoric, Metaphor, and Style all published by Godine.
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The Practicing Stoic
See more clearly, live more wisely, and bear the burdens of this life with greater ease. Here are the greatest insights of the Stoics, in their own words. Presented in twelve lessons, Ward Farnsworth systematically presents the heart of Stoic philosophy accompanied by commentary that is clear and concise. A foundational idea to Stoicism is that we appear to go...Hardback$7300Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
The Practicing Stoic
See more clearly, live more wisely, and bear the burdens of this life with greater easeβhere are the greatest insights of the Stoics, in their own words. Presented in twelve lessons, Ward Farnsworth systematically presents the heart of Stoic philosophy accompanied by commentary that is clear and concise. A foundational idea to Stoicism is that we appear to go through...Paperback$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
The Socratic Method
A thinking person's 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 life's big questions. "A wonderful book."-Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex. About 2,500...Hardback$5999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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βInstructive and entertaining.β β Wall Street Journal Learn how to argue from the masters. This book is a complete course on the art of argument, taught by the greatest practitioners of it: Churchill, Lincoln, and hundreds of others from the golden age of debate in England and America. The book's concise chapters provide lessons in all aspects of give and...Hardback$6499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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