The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook Hardcover – October 5, 2021 by Ward Farnsworth

Description

Author: Farnsworth Ward

Package Dimensions: 0x231x788

Number Of Pages: 264

Release Date: 05-10-2021

Details: Product 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. “A wonderful book.”―Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex. 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.

Review

Praise for Ward Farnsworth:The Practicing Stoic: A Philosophical User’s Manual:“As befits a good Stoic, Farnsworth’s expository prose exhibits both clarity and an unflappable calm… Throughout The Practicing Stoic, Farnsworth beautifully integrates his own observations with scores of quotations from Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and others. As a result, this isn’t just a book to read―it’s a book to return to, a book that will provide perspective and consolation at times of heartbreak or calamity.”― Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“It is reported that upon Seneca’s tomb are written the words, Who’s Minding the Stoa? He would be pleased to know the answer is Ward Farnsworth.”―David Mamet“This is a book any thoughtful person will be glad to have along as a companion for an extended weekend or, indeed, for that protracted journey we call life.”―The New Criterion“This sturdy and engaging introductory text consists mostly of excerpts from the ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers, especially Seneca, Epictetus through his student Arrian, and Marcus Aurelius as well as that trio’s philosophical confreres, from the earlier Hellenic Stoics and Cicero to such contemporaries as Plutarch to moderns, including Montaigne, Adam Smith, and Schopenhauer… A philosophy to live by, Stoicism may remind many of Buddhism and Quakerism, for it asks of practitioners something very similar to what those disciplines call mindfulness.”―BooklistFarnsworth’s Classical English Style:“Mr. Farnsworth has written an original and absorbing guide to English style. Get it if you can.”―Wall Street Journal“For writers aspiring to master the craft, Farnsworth shows how it’s done. For lovers of language, he provides waves of sheer pleasure.”―Steven Pinker“An eloquent study of the very mechanisms of eloquence.”―Henry Hitchings“A great and edifying pleasure.”―Mark Helprin“A storehouse of effective writing, showing the techniques you may freely adapt to make music of your own.” ―The Baltimore SunFarnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric:“I must refrain from shouting what a brilliant work this is (præteritio). Farnsworth has written the book as he ought to have written it – and as only he could have written it (symploce). Buy it and read it – buy it and rea