the Man Who Asked Why: Socrates and Modern Man's Guide to Cutting Through Bullshit

This is not a history of philosophy. It is not a defense of Socrates against his critics. It is not an introduction to Plato. There are good books for each of those purposes. This is a manual.Part 1 gives you the man, fast. Seven short chapters covering Athens at the time he lived, who he was, how he was different from the Sophists who were his apparent rivals, what his method actually was, what happened at his trial, how he died, and who carried his teaching forward after his death. You need this background so the practice has a source. A method works better when you know whose method it is, and why it cost him his life.Part 2 is the engine. Seven tools drawn from the Socratic practice. The unexamined life. Socratic ignorance. The question. Inspecting definitions. Following the argument. Virtue is knowledge. Care for the soul. Each is a working tool you can use this week.Part 3 is application. The same five fields the other books in this series cover - career, marriage, body, sons, the inevitable approach of death - but viewed through the Socratic lens of examination and questioning. The fields look different from this angle than they did from the Stoic angle. That is the point. Different methods produce different leverage on the same situations.Three appendices follow. A thirty-day practice plan that walks you through a focused month of Socratic examination. A list of quotations from Socrates (as preserved by his students) that are worth holding in your head. A recommended reading list, ordered by what you should pick up next depending on which direction calls you.Read this book slowly. Stop and argue with it. If a passage seems wrong to you, take the time to articulate exactly why. The act of articulating is half the practice. You will discover that some of your objections, when examined, do not hold up. You will discover that some of mine, when you push on them, also do not hold up. This is fine. The point is the examination, not my being right and your being wrong, or the reverse.