PHILOSOPHY Aims Methods Rationale

PHILOSOPHY – Aims, Methods,
Rationale
ULRICH DE BALBIAN
META-PHILOSOPHY RESEARCH
CENTER
© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

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PREFACE
In this meta-philosophical study I commence with an
investigation of Wisdom. I then continue with an
exploration of the institutionalization of the subject and
the professionalization of those involved in it. This I
contrast with original and creative philosophizing. In then
sows that philosophizing resembles and attempts to do
theorizing. The 9 questions, etc of the Socratic Method
and details of the Philosophical Toolkit occur throughout
different stages of theorizing as one level and one
dimension of it. Linked books are FREE for download.

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CONTENTS
1 Seeking, development and realization

of wisdom 4
2 Institutionalization, Professionalization
of ‘philosophy’ 5
3 Original and Creative Thinking
Philosophizing 37
4 Philosophizing resembles Theorizing
38
(i) Socratic Method 41
(ii) Philosophical Toolkit 145

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1 Seeking, development and realization

of wisdom
This section explores love of wisdom as
the rationale, the aim and objective of
philosophy. The nature of different types
of wisdom and the possibility of their
realization and development are
explored.
https://www.academia.edu/34518881/imi
lar_to_PHILOSOPHY_PHILO_SOPHO
S_LOVE_OF_WISDOM_with_enlarged
_Appendices
https://www.academia.edu/34231431/KN
OWLEDGE_TRUTH_INSIGHT_WISD
OM
https://www.academia.edu/30704161/NO
N-
PHILOSOPHY_OF_THE_ONE_Turnin
g_away_from_Philosophy_of_Being

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2 Institutionalization and
Professionalization of ‘philosophy’
I commence with my own studies and
critique of these topics and finally
present those by the organization ‘against
professional philosophy’.
https://www.academia.edu/32726031/TH
E_INSTITUTIONAL_and_PERSONAL
_NEED_for_PHILOSOPHY
https://www.academia.edu/31487396/_M
eta-Philosophy_Meta-
Cognition_and_Critique_of_Doing_Philo
sophizing
eta-
Philosophy_Philosophers_and_their_lack
_of_Meta-Cognition
http://againstprofphil.org/
l share a deep love of real philosophy. By

real philosophy, we mean synoptic,
systematic, rational reflection on the
individual and collective human

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condition, and on the natural world in

which human and other conscious
animals live, move, and have their being.
Real philosophy fully includes the
knowledge yielded by the natural and
formal sciences; but, as we see it, real
philosophy also goes significantly
beneath and beyond the exact sciences,
and non-reductively incorporates
aesthetic, artistic, affective/emotional,
ethical/moral, and, more generally,
personal and practical insights that
cannot be adequately captured or
explained by the sciences. In a word, real
philosophy is all about the nature,
meaning, and value of individual and
collective human existence in the natural
cosmos, and how it is possible to know
the philosophical limits of science,
without also being anti-science. Finally,
real philosophy is pursued by people
working on individual or collective
writing projects, or teaching projects, in
the context of small, friendly circles of
like-minded philosophers. Like-minded
but not uncritical! Real philosophers read

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both intensively and also widely inside

philosophy, and also widely outside of
philosophy, critically discuss what
they’ve read, write, mutually present and
talk about their work, re-read, re-discuss,
and then re-write, with the primary aim
of producing work of originality and of
the highest possible quality, given their
own individual and collective abilities.
They also seek to disseminate their work,
through publication, teaching, or public
conversation.
In view of this conception of real

philosophy, we also share some serious
worries about contemporary professional
philosophy. More bluntly put, we think
that contemporary professional
philosophy is seriously fucked up in
various ways that, ironically and even
tragically, oppose and undermine the
ongoing project of real philosophy.
The threefold purpose of this co-authored

philosophical diary, then, is, first, to tell
about our own inner and outer lives as
professional philosophers from our four

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very different points of view; second, to

develop the art of resisting and
subverting contemporary professional
philosophy from the inside, for the sake
of real philosophy, i.e., anarcho-
philosophy; and third, to prepare the way
for the real philosophy of the future by
featuring past or present philosophical
work that is aggressively cosmopolitan
and non-chauvinist, critically challenging
and edgy, daringly generalist and
original, fully humanly meaningful,
slightly weird, and deemed
“unpublishable” in mainstream venues.
Our immediate goal at APP is the same

as Immanuel Kant’s, in the justly famous
opening sentences of “What is
Enlightenment?”—
“Enlightenment is the human being’s

emergence from his own self-incurred
immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to
make use of one’s own understanding
without direction from another. This
immaturity is self-incurred when its
cause lies not in lack of understanding

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but in lack of resolution and courage to

use it without direction from another.
Sapere aude! Have the courage to use
your own understanding! is thus the
motto of Enlightenment.”
In other words, we think that it’s up to all

of us, as lovers of real philosophy, to
dare to think for ourselves against the
conventional wisdom of contemporary
professional philosophy. But that’s only
the beginning. We hope to help
contemporary philosophers (re)discover
their true vocation as rational rebels for
humanity–
“When nature has unwrapped, from

under this hard shell, the seed for which
she cares most tenderly, namely the
propensity and calling to think freely, the
latter gradually works back upon the
mentality of the people (which thereby
gradually becomes capable of freedom in
acting) and eventually even upon the
principles of government, which finds it
profitable to itself to treat the human

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being, who is now more than a machine,

in keeping with [her] dignity.”
Sincerely,
W, X, Y, and Z
1. Think philosophically for yourself.
Everyone in contemporary professional

philosophy knows, but almost no one
ever actually says, that if you dare to
disagree with your MA thesis or PhD
dissertation advisor, or with your MA or
PhD examination committee, or with a
hiring committee, or with your senior
colleagues (especially those who are now
department chairs or higher
administrators), or with leading people in
your philosophical sub-field who are, or
who are likely to be, referees of your
work for journals, academic presses, or
tenure and/or promotion, then you’re in
serious trouble, i.e., you’re in deep shit.
But this is a very bad thing that is
inimical to real philosophy. Therefore,
dare to think for yourself, and to hell
with them.

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2. Criticize professional philosophical

authority.

ever actually says, that certain
philosophical views are deemed
acceptable by a large majority of
philosophers in the leading departments
of philosophy, and other views are
ignored, mocked, rejected out-of-hand, or
otherwise deemed unacceptable by that
same large majority. This fact has now
been objectively confirmed by the recent
2009 PhilPapers survey and follow-up
article by David Bourget and David
Chalmers, “What Do Philosophers
Believe?”.
More accurately, the article could have

been entitled, “What Do Contemporary
Professional Philosophers at the So-
Called Top-Ranked 100 Departments, as
Selected by the Philosophical Gourmet
Report, Believe?” Or most accurately of
all, it could have been entitled, “What

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Should Contemporary Professional

Philosophers Believe, Who Want To Be
Just Like the Large Majority of
Contemporary Professional Philosophers
at the So-Called Top-Ranked 100
Departments, as Selected by the
Philosophical Gourmet Report?
(Graduate Students and/or Unemployed,
Untenured, or Unpromoted Professional
Philosophers, This Means YOU.)” But
this, again, is a very bad thing that
is inimical to real philosophy. Therefore,
dare to criticize professional
philosophical authority, and to hell with
them.
3. Recognize and reject professional

philosophical bullshit.

ever actually says, that if we were to look
back on professional philosophy since
1983 (i.e., over the last thirty years), we
could see four extremely important
trends.

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First, since 1983 there have been

significant changes and transitions in
what counts as mainstream core
philosophy. (By “the mainstream,” it is
meant: “tenure-track philosophers in the
so-called top-ranked 100 departments.”
By “core,” it is meant: “those areas of
research deemed by the mainstream to be
most central and fundamental to
philosophy.”)
In The Beginning There Was Logical

Empiricism, which held sway in the
mainstream and amongst those working
in the core in the immediate post-World
War II period, from the late 40s and
through the 1950s, until the Quine-led,
post- Empiricist reaction set in during the
50s. Later Wittgenstein’s work was then,
for a brief while, taken seriously. During
the 60s, Ordinary Language Philosophy,
deriving mainly from Oxford, constituted
a kind of philosophical British Invasion,
later to be replaced by a Davidsonic
Boom in the 70s. More generally,
however, during the 60s, 70s, and even

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into the 80s, the core was philosophy of

language and logic, accompanied by a
fairly virulent anti-metaphysical stance,
plus strong anti-realism—both about
science (e.g., work influenced by
Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific
Revolutions) and also about central issues
in metaphysics, epistemology, and the
philosophy of language.
In the 80s, the core gradually switched

over to being the philosophy of
language- and-MIND, and logic, and
EPISTEMOLOGY, with a gradual
softening towards metaphysics, as long
as it was the metaphysics of natural
science. Anti-realism began to wither
away. For a brief moment in the late 70s
and early 80s, anti-realist ideas of a
broadly pragmatist stripe that were also
significantly influenced by the history of
philosophy and Continental (i.e.,
Kantian, Hegelian, post-Kantian
European, neo-Hegelian, existentialist,
Husserlian/Heideggerian
phenomenological, Derridean

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deconstructionist, or Foucauldian post-

structuralist) philosophy, challenged the
hegemony of the core: Richard Rorty’s
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature in
1979. But we all know what happened to
HIM. In the aftermath of the intellectual
firestorm surrounding PMN, Rorty quit
mainstream philosophy, became a
Professor of Humanities and
Comparative Literature, and was never
read or taken seriously again by anyone
in the mainstream or working in the core.
Then in the 90s, the core quietly but

surely changed over and became the
philosophy of mind PERIOD, and logic,
and epistemology, with increasing
interest in metaphysics driven by modal
logic and natural science. The acronym
“M&E,” as shorthand for the core,
mysteriously became widespread. Anti-
realism about science equally
mysteriously turned into its dialectical
opposite, dogmatic realism about
science, especially scientific
essentialism. Also equally mysteriously,

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the philosophy of language in effect

disappeared as a core philosophical
discipline and re-appeared as
empirically-driven, semi-philosophical
linguistics/psycholinguistics.
Finally in the 00s and now into the 10s,

the philosophy of mind was gradually
displaced from the core and demoted to
the periphery, and then, yet again
mysteriously, replaced in the core’s core
by modal metaphysics (a.k.a. “Analytic
metaphysics”), alongside logic and
epistemology—which began gradually to
absorb the philosophy of mind under the
rubric of theories of cognition/mental
representation and content, all driven, as
always, by natural science and its
methods.
To be fair, in the 80s and 90s several

other books also significantly influenced
by the history of philosophy and/or
Continental philosophy also attempted to
challenge the hegemony of the core: e.g.,
John McDowell’s Mind and World,
Hilary Putnam’s Realism and Reason and

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Realism with a Human Face, and Robert

Brandom’s Making It Explicit. And each
of them had its small group of
enthusiastic supporters, hoping against
hope for a break-up of the hegemony of
the core. But, sadly, it just didn’t happen,
and all of them eventually suffered, to
varying degrees, the fate of PMN.
Therefore, it is completely clear that

since 1983, core philosophy has always
included logic, but gradually has become
more and more metaphysical and
scientistic, under the nicely referentially-
flexible acronym “M&E.” Dogmatic
scientific realism, various forms of
materialism, compatibilism, and atheism
became the unquestioned default
positions, quixotically opposed by a
small minority of reactionary
professional philosophers—as it were,
The Official Opposition—clinging to the
core by the skin of their teeth, who still
defended anti- realism, or Cartesian
dualism, or agent-causal libertarian
incompatibilism, and/or theism.

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But why, since at least 1983, has there

never been any serious mainstream
consideration of views that don’t fit
either the core or The Official
Opposition? The answer is that they’re
all simply off the grid for those working
in the core or still clinging to the core. Or
otherwise put, they’re the third rail of
mainstream philosophy: touch it, and you
die professionally, i.e., no one in the
mainstream or working in or near the
core ever reads your work or takes you
seriously again. That this is undeniably
so was recently fully confirmed by the
extremely instructive intellectual
controversy surrounding Thomas Nagel’s
Mind and Cosmos.
“Poor old Nagel—I haven’t actually read

Mind and Cosmos, but he’s gone crazy,
hasn’t he?” Je vous dis, merde.
Second, since 1983 everyone else in

mainstream philosophy but not working
in the core has allowed themselves to be
slotted into one or another of three non-
M&E areas of specialization, a.k.a.

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AOS—as it were, the client states of the

core—listed here in diminishing order of
greatest-to-least importance and
professional status, relative to the core:
(1) Values (i.e., ethics, social-and-
political philosophy, and aesthetics), (2)
History of Philosophy, and, lowliest of
all, (3) Continental Philosophy. Together
with M&E, let us call these The Four
Horsemen of the AOS. Two conditions
must be implicitly satisfied in order to
ride in the same saddle with one or
another of The Four Horsemen of the
AOS: (i) full acceptance of the
hegemony of the core, M&E, and (ii) full
acceptance of the mysterious
establishment, within that AOS, of a
core-like structure that effectively
controls patterns of research and
publication for people officially working
in that area. Otherwise, you die
professionally.
Graduate student, non-tenure track

professional philosopher, or pre-tenured
professional philosopher: “But why can’t

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I work on topics that fall fully outside of

The Four Horsemen of the AOS? Or why
can’t I devise an original area of research
and publication for myself that, e.g., fully
fuses some basic issues and problems in
so-called M&E with some in so-called
Values and some in so-called Continental
Philosophy? The whole system doesn’t
make any sense to me.” Mainstream
professional philosopher with tenure:
“Well, I’m sorry but you can’t—unless
of course you want to die professionally.
I didn’t make the the rules. That’s just
the way it is.” Je vous dis, merde!
Third, there has been an emergence and

flourishing of highly influential online
professional philosophy rankings of all
kinds, profession-related blogs, etc.;
and finally, at least in part, as a
consequence of this emergence and
flourishing, the by- now almost complete
dominance of practices of hyper-
professionalization and hyper-
specialization in the mainstream and
amongst those working in the core. The

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primary or sole function of graduate

programs in philosophy at mainstream
departments is to produce, within six
years or less, new PhDs who can
compete well in the current job-market.
To be sure, mainstream departments are
ranked and punished/rewarded by their
universities and also by the profession at
large, for their time-to-PhD numbers and
their placement records. Nevertheless it
is a shining example of how, as per
James C. Scott’s crisp phrase, “a measure
colonizes behavior” (Two Cheers for
Anarchism, p. 114), and real philosophy
is thereby colonized out of existence.
Fourth and finally, perhaps the most

striking thing about the whole period
since 1983 is that almost no one ever
talks about, or critically questions, the
huge, obvious changes that have
happened, or even seems to notice them
as they change—they simply go over to
the latest things as if they’ve been there
ever since Socrates.

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But this is all a very bad thing that is

inimical to real philosophy. Therefore,
recognize and reject professional
philosophical bullshit, and to hell with
them.
4. Treat everyone else with at least

minimal moral respect, but never allow
yourself to be tyrannized by the
professional majority.

ever actually says, that if you do not
conform to the dominant professional
institutional culture of your department,
college, university, or the American
Philosophical Association (let’s call
these, collectively, The Professional
Academic State), they will find a way to
reprimand you, fire you, or otherwise
kick you out of the profession, whether
you publish a lot or not. In fact, “publish
or perish” is a myth. Many professional
philosophers in the mainstream publish
very little, yet achieve significant

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professional success precisely because

they conform to the dominant
professional culture (as measured by,
e.g., citation indexes or other online
professional rankings); contrariwise,
other professional philosophers publish a
great deal, yet still are denied jobs,
tenure, and/or promotion—either on the
putative grounds that their publications
are not sufficiently substantive or
worthy, or on the putative grounds of
inadequate teaching, or on the putative
grounds of blah-blah-blah. Whatever
they say by way of rationalization,
however, this is usually nothing but rigor
mortis masquerading as “professional
academic rigor.” So the plain truth is,
that if you don’t conform, The
Professional Academic State will find a
way to get you: it’s really conform or
perish. But, yet again, this is all a very
bad thing that is inimical to real
philosophy. Therefore, treat everyone
else with at least minimal moral respect,
but never allow yourself to be tyrannized

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by the professional majority , and to hell

with them.
5. Take philosophical responsibility for

creating the real philosophy of the future.
In view of 1-4, as a real philosopher, you

have only two options: (i) quit
professional philosophy and do
something else with your life that really
matters to you, for the sake of real
philosophy, or else (ii) stay in
professional philosophy but develop the
art of resisting and subverting it from the
inside, for the sake of real philosophy,
i.e., anarcho-philosophy. Therefore, one
way or the other, dare to take
philosophical responsibility for creating
the real philosophy of the future, and to
hell with them.
And another way to resist the

Professional Academic State and support
real philosophy is to write something for
the S.Ph. journal, which strives to
provide a home for academically-

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informed non-academic creative

philosophizing.
https://www.quora.com/search?q=Curt+
Doolittle
Who is the most influential living
philosopher?
Curt Doolittle, Philosopher: Truth,

Natural Law, Economics, Politics, War
Answered Sep 13
Interesting question. Good answers. Let’s

look at how we can ask this question. ;)
Technical Innovation <-> Practical

Utility <------> Popular Influence
Successful Technical
Hard to argue that the Russel-Frege-
Kripke chain didn’t provide answers but
it’s also hard to argue that they weren’t
wasting their time. Because Babbage-
Cantor-Goedel-Turing produced superior
methods and answers.

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Failed Technical
The failure of Brouwer(Physics),
Bridgman(mathematics), Mises
(economics), Hayek(Law), and
Popper(Philosophy) to understand that
the ‘ideal’ disciplines had failed to
include operations as a test of possibility,
operational grammar to prevent pretense
of knowledge,
Influential and Contributory:

Searle(cognition), Jonathan
Haidt(morality), Daniel
Kahneman(cognition), Nassim Taleb
(probability and cognitive biases).
Unfortunately we can’t list Popper(via
negativa), Hayek(Social Science = Law),
Keynes(Monetary Marxism), Turing, and
Rawls who are demonstrably
Popular Influence But Otherwise

Meaningless:
Dennet et all.
1. Categorical
Construction:

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2. Scientific <----------------> Ideal <-

----------------> Experiential
3. Descriptive Causality
Experiential Causality
4. Scientific Categories Normative
Categories Arbitrary
Categories
5. Operational Analytic Literary
Conflationary Continental
6. Aristotle Plato
(many)
7.
8. Tends to Result In:
9. Truth Utility
Preference
10.Markets, Regulation
Command
11.Nash Equality Pareto
Equality Command Equality
12.Natural Hierarchy Political
Hierarchy Bureaucratic
Hierarchy
13.Classical Liberalism Social
Democracy Socialism

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14.Rapid Adaptation Windfall

Consumption Redirected
Consumption
15.Hyper Competitive Competitive
in Windfalls Competitive when
Behind
I would make the following observations:
1) The continental (German) program has

been a failed attempt, since the time of
Kant (through Heidegger), to produce a
secular, rational, version of Christianity.
The French program (Rousseau through
Derrida) has been a demonstrably
successful program but a devastatingly
destructive one. The Abrahamic
program’s second revision (Marx, Freud,
Boaz, Cantor, Mises, Rothbard, Strauss)
has been catastrophic. And between the
French Literary, Continental Rational,
and Abrahamic Pseudoscientific
movements, the attempt to restore the
Aristotelian(scientific)/
Stoic(Mindfulness) / Roman(Law) /
Heroic(Truth, Excellence, Beauty)
program responsible for human progress

29
in the ancient and modern world has been

nearly defeated.
2) The analytic program was exhausted

with Kripke, and in retrospect the
analytic attempt to produce both formal
logic of language, and a science of
language will be considered a failure. For
example, there is nothing in analytic
philosophy that is not better provided by
Turing.
3) The principle function of academic

philosophy today appears consist of the
self correction of existing errors prior to
exhaustion of the philosophical program
(termination of the discipline) in the
same way that the analytic program
exhausted itself. (If you list philosophers
and their innovations this is what appears
to be occurring. The discipline is
exhausting itself as a dead end).
4) The principal influences on

intellectual history are being provided by
the sciences. In particular they are
eliminating the last refuge of philosophy:

30
the mind. And science is doing so via-

negativa: through the incremental
definition and measurement of cognitive
biases (errors).
5) Science, if understood as an organized

attempt to produce deflationary truthful
(descriptive) speech, and the use of
scientific categories (necessary and
universal), will continue to displace the
discipline of philosophy, and the use of
philosophical categories, terminology
and concepts. And (assuming I am
correct), what remains of the discipline
of philosophy will be reducible to the
continuous refinements of the scientific
method’s production of constant
descriptive categories, terminology, and
operational grammar. And the cross
disciplinary adaptation of local
categories into universal categories.
6) Science is less vulnerable to error ,

bias, suggestion and deceit, in no small
part because the common problems of
philosophy: suggestion, loading, framing,
obscurantism, overloading, and the

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Fictionalisms (pseudoscience, pseudo-

rationalism, and pseudo-
mythology(theology)) are prohibited by
the demand for Operational language,
declared limits, and full accounting of
consequences. It certainly appears that
since the beginning of the 20th century
we have been far busier eliminating
errors of philosophy than philosophers
have been busy discovering innovations.
7) Greek philosophy arose out of the

common law of torts. Roman philosophy
explicitly functioned on the common law
of Torts. The Abrahamic Dark Age
(conflating idealism, law, and religion)
followed, but we were rescued by the
reconstruction of north sea trade and the
English common law of Torts (Bacon).
And as far as I can determine,
8) As we have seen with continental and

political philosophy, just as we saw with
theology, and especially Abrahamic
theology, the principle purpose of
unscientific speech has been deception,
propaganda, the propagation of

32
ignorance, and the conduct of rule, and

the expansion of warfare. With
theologians and philosophers responsible
for more deaths than generals and
plagues. Between Zoroaster,
Muhammed, and Marx, we have more
deaths than all but the great diseases
including malaria and the black plague.
Philosophers and theologians have done
more harm than good, largely
functioning as a middle class opposition
to the current form of rule.
9) Philosophical language then is a dead

language, and perhaps an immoral one -
and rationalism a dead technology. And
they will be incrementally combined
institutionally and normatively into
theology, with Literary Philosophy(Plato
and his heirs), merely representing it’s
position on the spectrum of
Aristotelian/Stoic/Roman/English Law
(science), Confucian Reason, French
Literary Idealism, Platonic Rational
Idealism, Continental and Augustinian

33
Fictionalism, and Abrahamic and

Zoroastrian Fictionalism.
10) The use of non philosophical

categories to construct *moral literature*
in the French and Italian model will
persist forever. Although largely as a
means of resistance against the sciences,
and the status social, economic, and
political status quo.
In this context we have to ask what we

mean by Influential, or Great
Philosophers, because:
(a) Unless we are talking scientists who
function as public intellectuals,
philosophers, or Social Critics
(practitioners of critique), or Moral
Fictionalists (wishful thinkers), it really
doesn’t appear that philosophy is a living
or useful language or discipline.
(b) it’s hard to argue there are any
currently living and working rationalists
of any substance. They are largely Moral
Fictionalists.

34
Let’s look at the list:
Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins. The

atheists. It’s worth noting that Dawkins
was correct and Gould was wrong - about
almost everything. (Surprisingly). Harris
and Hitches practice critique but nothing
else.
Zizek practices Critique and has nothing

to offer - and is honest about it. I mean,
what solutions does Zizek provide?
None. And he says so.
Chomsky practices Critique, has nothing

to offer - and is dishonest about it. He is
an interesting example of how people
with high intelligence and verbal acumen
can construct elaborate deceptions.
Between Chomsky and Paul Krugman, a
half dozen people could spend their
entire careers demonstrating their use of
cherry picking, loading, framing,
overloading with incommensurables,
straw men, and heaping of undue praise.
His insight into ‘universal grammar’ but
categories of increasing complexity is

35
largely correct and we can see that in

brain structure today. However, he
speaks about world affairs by constantly
making the error (intentionally), that
rational choice is scalable - just as did
Marx. And he has no concept of
economics whatsoever, and no political
statement can be made any longer
independently of economics - especially
once we understand that the term
economics has nothing to do with money
and everything to do with the voluntary
organization of individuals through the
use of incentives provided by money.
Hofstadter is a good example as any, but

again, he is a public intellectual and a
literary aesthete. Did he really provide
any insight that was not visible in the
literature of the time?
So in closing, I would say, that:

1) There are no influential rationalists,
because the program is complete and it’s
been a dead end. The reasons for this
would require I write a tome.
2) That there are many scientists that

36
serve as public intellectuals, and this will

continue.
3) There remain and always will be a
market for moral literature.
4) That scientific philosophy, if
completed, as ‘the discipline of due
diligence against ignorance, error, bias,
wishful thinking, suggestion,
overloading, and deceit, will replace the
discipline of philosophy.
But that won’t stop people over invested

in a dead frame of reference from
attempting to practice it. Why? It’s cheap
and science is expensive.

37
3 Original and Creative Thinking

Philosophizing
Here are my own work concerning the
nature, the meaning, objectives, aims and
rationale of original and creative thinking
or philosophizing. This is the work that
are usually thought of philosophy and
philosophers in the Western Tradition.
eta-
Philosophy_Why_read_Philosophy_of_o
riginal-_and_creative-
thinking_rather_than_derivative_academ
ic_professionals_
eta-
philosophy_Where_to_begin_Philosophy
_NEWER_version

38
4 Philosophizing resembles Theorizing

The first two pieces consist of my work
on the nature, features, stages, levels and
dimensions of the processes of theory
construction and development or
theorizing.
https://www.academia.edu/30958770/Phi
losophizing_is_part_of_the_Process_es_
of_Theorizing
https://www.academia.edu/30687183/phi
losophizing_no_THEORIZING
Some methods, tools and techniques of
philosophizing as one aspect, on one
level and in one dimension of the process
of theorizing
PHILOSOPHERS' Thinking vol6
(INSIGHT, UNDERSTANDING,
MEANING, COMMUNICATION
INTERSUBJECTIVITY ).docx
In this volume, volume 6, I will deal with
insight and understanding, meaning and
communi...

39
PHILOSOPHER'S THINKING (LOGIC

& ARGUMENTATION (VOLUME 5))
OGIC & ARGUMENTATION
(VOLUME 5) The first section deals
with different ways, approaches o. more
Philosophers' Thinking (Experimental

philosophy & Qualitative Tools Vol 4)
EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
(VOLUME 4) and Qualitative tools and
experimental philosophy. So-c... more
Philosophers' Thinking (THOUGHT or

Imaginary EXPERIMENTS and
METAPHORS (volume 3)
THOUGHT or Imaginary
EXPERIMENTS and METAPHORS
(volume 3) I intended to deal with the
diffe... more

40
PHILOSOPHERS Thinking
(HEURISTICS and PROBLEM-
SOLVING} (VOLUME 2)Vol2.docx
HEURISTICS and PROBLEM-
SOLVING (VOLUME 2) This section
or chapter two. Because of its leng...
more
PHILOSOPHERSTHINKING
(THEORIZING AND
PHILOSOPHIZING (VOLUME
1)vol1.docx
I intended to deal with the different
sections or chapters in one volume, but
as certain sectio... more
(i) Socratic Method
The Socratic Method
The Socratic Method is a form of

argumentative (but not angry) dialogue
between individuals that stirs the cogs of

41
critical thinking into motion. It relies on

a continuous stream of questions that
stretch the mind in ways it’s not used
to — which often means critical thinking,
for all of us. Socrates never sat down and
formalized the method in writing, but
today we can find them categorized into
6 concepts:
· Questions for clarification: Why do

you say we need feature X? Could you
phrase that another way?
· Questions that probe assumptions:
What else can we assume? Is everyone
assuming the same thing?
· Questions that probe reasons and
evidence: What do you think causes the
need for feature X? How did this
situation come about?
· Questions about viewpoints and
perspectives: What could be an
alternative to feature X? Is there anyone
here who sees the project in a different
way?
· Questions that probe implications and
consequences: What are the

42
consequences of assumptions we are

making? If this and that is true, then
what else must be true?
· Questions about the question itself:
Why is this question (problem, challenge)
important? Can we break it down into
smaller parts?
Each of these categories can contain

many question that we ask until one of
the following happens :
1. you reveal information that helps

clarify the need for X
2. the person you’re talking to sees
that they’re unable to logically
explain the need for X (which is a
sure sign that something needs to
change)
The project manager here is the obvious,

but not the only choice — any stakeholder
will do. Everyone in some way related to
the project (managers, owners,
developers, the coffee machine) knows
something about it. By getting into the
habit of asking simple and direct

43
questions, conversation can be nudged

along the path of critical thinking that
will help expose possible flaws in prior
reasoning. Or, as Socrates put it, I cannot
teach anybody anything, I can only make
them think.
Now, all of this has to be done with great

tact and patience. Don’t just whip out a
list of questions and begin drilling
everyone you see. The core of the
approach is to understand that prior
reasoning is not necessarily good
reasoning and that it is important to
verify it. Equally important is to learn
how and when to ask questions, with
enough detachment that the person whom
you’re asking does not feel interrogated
but rather feels part of a part of a
thinking conversation about a joint
enterprise.

44
Socratic Method: asking good

questions that promote thoughtful and
relevant responses
Adapted in part from a Powerpoint
presentation to EMS tutors in May
2012 by Megan Bam, and in part from
pages published on
Criticalthinking.org and the
University of Carleton’s Geoscience
Department website.
What is the Socratic Method?
Named for the famed Greek philosopher
Socrates (470-399 B. C.), a Socratic
approach to teaching is based on the
practice of ‘disciplined, rigorously
thoughtful dialogue’. In brief, the lecturer
claims to know very little about the topic
under discussion in order to draw
students into a thoughtful and thought-
provoking discussion that will engage
them in thinking through their own ideas
and responses to the topic, and to what
they have been learning in the course.
The overall aim of using the Socratic
method of questioning students and
eliciting their responses and engagement

45
is based on Socrates’ idea that the

‘disciplined practice of thoughtful
questioning enables the scholar/student
to examine ideas logically and to be able
to determine the validity of those ideas’.
This approach is sometimes also called
the ‘dialectical approach’ and because it
allows students and teachers to identify
and correct misconceptions and
misunderstandings, it can lead to reliable
knowledge construction, and also
promotes more independent thinking.
Why is it effective in teaching and
learning?
According to the Carleton University:
Socratic questioning helps students to
think critically by focusing explicitly on
the process of thinking. During
disciplined, carefully structured
questioning, students must slow down
and examine their own thinking
processes (i.e., reflective thinking).
Thoughtful, disciplined questioning in
the classroom can achieve the following
teaching and learning goals:

46
-centered
learning
-based learning
wledge
-
solving skills
-term retention of
knowledge
(http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/socratic
/third.html)
This approach may seem simple, but it is

in fact quite rigorous to manage
successfully in practice. The lecturer or
tutor needs to feign ignorance about the
topic under discussion so that students
have to contribute fully to the
conversation, and in so doing actively
construct and critique and think carefully
about the knowledge they are using. If
the teacher steps in and starts giving
them the answers, the process of getting
students to question their own ideas and
think about their knowledge in a more

47
disciplined and rigorous way is

somewhat defeated.
This method is effective in teaching and

learning because it promotes more active
learning; it focuses on what students are
doing and asks them to engage in their
own learning and thinking, rather than
treating them as passive receivers of
knowledge; it takes some of the pressure
off the lecturer or tutor to have ‘all the
answers’ and asks students to take
responsibility for coming up with the
answers; and it develops graduate
attributes that speak being inquiry-
focused and knowledgeable, being
skilled communicators and having a
critical attitude towards knowledge.
Socratic Method - UWC
https://www.uwc.ac.za/TandL/Documents
/Socratic%20Method.pdf
Socratic Method: asking good questions

that promote thoughtful and relevant ...
retention of knowledge

48
(http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/socratic
/third.html).
Search Results
Critical thinking is the process we use to
reflect on, access and judge the
assumptions underlying our own and
others ideas and actions. Socratic
questioning is at the heart of critical
thinking and a number of homework
problems draw from R.W. Paul's
Socratic questions: 1.
9 types of Socratic Questions
umich.edu/~scps/html/probsolv/strategy/
cthinking.htm
Feedback
About this result
9 types of Socratic Questions

49
umich.edu/~scps/html/probsolv/strategy/
cthinking.htm
Critical thinking is the process we use to

assumptions underlying our own and
others ideas and actions. Socratic
questioning is at the heart of critical
thinking and a number of homework
problems draw from R.W. Paul's Socratic
questions: 1.
TYPES OF SOCRATIC QUESTIONS
Due to the rapid addition of new

information and the advancement of
science and technology that occur almost
daily, an engineer must constantly
expand his or her horizons beyond
simple gathering information and relying
on the basic engineering principles.

50
A number of homework problems have

been included that are designed to
enhance critical thinking skills. Critical
thinking is the process we use to reflect
on, access and judge the assumptions
underlying our own and others ideas and
actions.
Socratic questioning is at the heart of

critical thinking and a number of
homework problems draw from R.W.
Paul's Socratic questions:
1. Questions  Why do you say

for that?
clarification:  How does this
relate to our
discussion?
 "Are you going
to include
diffusion in your
mole balance
equations?"

51
2. Questions  What could we

that probe assume instead?
assumptions:  How can you
verify or
disapprove that
assumption?
 "Why are
neglecting radial
diffusion and
including only
axial diffusion?"
3. Questions  What would be

that probe an example?
reasons and  What
evidence: is....analogous
to?
 What do you
think causes to
happen...? Why:?
 "Do you think
that diffusion is
responsible for
the lower
conversion?"

52
4. Questions  What would be

about an alternative?
Viewpoints  What is another
and way to look at it?
Perspectives:  Would you
explain why it is
necessary or
beneficial, and
who benefits?
 Why is the best?
 What are the
strengths and
weaknesses of...?
 How are...and
...similar?
 What is a
counterargument
for...?
 "With all the
bends in the pipe,
from an
industrial/practic
al standpoint, do
you think
diffusion will

53
affect the
conversion?"
5. Questions  What
that probe generalizations
implications can you make?
and  What are the
consequences: consequences of
that assumption?
 What are you
implying?
 How
does...affect...?
 How does...tie in
with what we
learned before?
 "How would our
results be
affected if
neglected
diffusion?"
6. Questions  What was the

about the point of this
question: question?

54
 Why do you
think I asked this
question?
 What
does...mean?
 How does...apply
to everyday life?
 "Why do you
think diffusion is
important?"
7. Questions  What is the

that Probe purpose of ... ?
Purpose:  Was this purpose
justifiable?
 What is the
purpose of
addressing this
question at this
time?
 What is the
purpose of the
main character in
this story?

55
8. Questions  What is the main

that Probe idea we are
Concepts: dealing with?
 Why/How is this
idea important?
 Do these two
ideas conflict? If
so, how?
 What main
theories do we
need to consider
in figuring out ...
?
9. Questions  What
that Probe conclusions are
Inferences and we coming to ...
Interpretations ?
:  What is the
conclusion based
on?
 How did you
reach that
conclusion?
 What do you
think of ...?

56
 How to interpret
the data?
The following is a transcript of a

teaching experiment, using the Socratic
method, with a regular third grade class
in a suburban elementary school. I
present my perspective and views on the
session, and on the Socratic method as a
teaching tool, following the transcript.
The class was conducted on a Friday
afternoon beginning at 1:30, late in May,
with about two weeks left in the school
year. This time was purposely chosen as
one of the most difficult times to entice
and hold these children's concentration
about a somewhat complex intellectual
matter. The point was to demonstrate the
power of the Socratic method for both
teaching and also for getting students
involved and excited about the material
being taught. There were 22 students in
the class. I was told ahead of time by two
different teachers (not the classroom
teacher) that only a couple of students

57
would be able to understand and follow

what I would be presenting. When the
class period ended, I and the classroom
teacher believed that at least 19 of the 22
students had fully and excitedly
participated and absorbed the entire
material. The three other students' eyes
were glazed over from the very
beginning, and they did not seem to be
involved in the class at all. The students'
answers below are in capital letters.
The experiment was to see whether

I could teach these students binary
arithmetic (arithmetic using only two
numbers, 0 and 1) only by asking them
questions. None of them had been
introduced to binary arithmetic before.
Though the ostensible subject matter was
binary arithmetic, my primary interest
was to give a demonstration to the
teacher of the power and benefit of the
Socratic method where it is applicable.
That is my interest here as well. I chose
binary arithmetic as the vehicle for that
because it is something very difficult for

58
children, or anyone, to understand when

it is taught normally; and I believe that a
demonstration of a method that can teach
such a difficult subject easily to children
and also capture their enthusiasm about
that subject is a very convincing
demonstration of the value of the
method. (As you will see below,
understanding binary arithmetic is also
about understanding "place-value" in
general. For those who seek a much more
detailed explanation about place-value,
visit the long paper on The Concept and
Teaching of Place-Value.) This was to be
the Socratic method in what I consider its
purest form, where questions (and only
questions) are used to arouse curiosity
and at the same time serve as a logical,
incremental, step-wise guide that enables
students to figure out about a complex
topic or issue with their own thinking and
insights. In a less pure form, which is
normally the way it occurs, students tend
to get stuck at some point and need a
teacher's explanation of some aspect, or
the teacher gets stuck and cannot figure

59
out a question that will get the kind of

answer or point desired, or it just
becomes more efficient to "tell" what you
want to get across. If "telling" does
occur, hopefully by that time, the
students have been aroused by the
questions to a state of curious receptivity
to absorb an explanation that might
otherwise have been meaningless to
them. Many of the questions are decided
before the class; but depending on what
answers are given, some questions have
to be thought up extemporaneously.
Sometimes this is very difficult to do,
depending on how far from what is
anticipated or expected some of the
students' answers are. This particular
attempt went better than my best possible
expectation, and I had much higher
expectations than any of the teachers I
discussed it with prior to doing it.
I had one prior relationship with this

class. About two weeks earlier I had
shown three of the third grade classes
together how to throw a boomerang and

60
had let each student try it once. They had

really enjoyed that. One girl and one boy
from the 65 to 70 students had each
actually caught their returning
boomerang on their throws. That seemed
to add to everyone's enjoyment. I had
therefore already established a certain
rapport with the students, rapport being
something that I feel is important for
getting them to comfortably and
enthusiastically participate in an
intellectually uninhibited manner in class
and without being psychologically
paralyzed by fear of "messing up".
When I got to the classroom for the

binary math experiment, students were
giving reports on famous people and
were dressed up like the people they
were describing. The student I came in
on was reporting on John Glenn, but he
had not mentioned the dramatic and
scary problem of that first American trip
in orbit. I asked whether anyone knew
what really scary thing had happened on
John Glenn's flight, and whether they

61
knew what the flight was. Many said a

trip to the moon, one thought Mars. I told
them it was the first full earth orbit in
space for an American. Then someone
remembered hearing about something
wrong with the heat shield, but didn't
remember what. By now they were
listening intently. I explained about how
a light had come on that indicated the
heat shield was loose or defective and
that if so, Glenn would be incinerated
coming back to earth. But he could not
stay up there alive forever and they had
nothing to send up to get him with. The
engineers finally determined, or hoped,
the problem was not with the heat shield,
but with the warning light. They thought
it was what was defective. Glenn came
down. The shield was ok; it had been just
the light. They thought that was neat.
"But what I am really here for today

is to try an experiment with you. I am the
subject of the experiment, not you. I want
to see whether I can teach you a whole
new kind of arithmetic only by asking

62
you questions. I won't be allowed to tell

you anything about it, just ask you
things. When you think you know an
answer, just call it out. You won't need to
raise your hands and wait for me to call
on you; that takes too long." [This took
them a while to adapt to. They kept
raising their hands; though after a while
they simply called out the answers while
raising their hands.] Here we go.
1) "How many is this?" [I held up ten

fingers.]
TEN
2) "Who can write that on the board?"

[virtually all hands up; I toss the chalk
to one kid and indicate for her to come
up and do it]. She writes
10
3) Who can write ten another way?

[They hesitate than some hands go up.
I toss the chalk to another kid.]

63
||||||||||
4) Another way?
||||| |||||
5) Another way?
2 x 5 [inspired by the
last idea]
6) That's very good, but there are lots

of things that equal ten, right? [student
nods agreement], so I'd rather not get
into combinations that equal ten, but
just things that represent or sort of
mean ten. That will keep us from
having a whole bunch of the same kind
of thing. Anybody else?
TEN
7) One more?
X [Roman numeral]
8) [I point to the word "ten"]. What is

this?

64
THE WORD TEN
9) What are written words made up

of?
LETTERS
10) How many letters are there in the

English alphabet?
26
11) How many words can you make

out of them?
ZILLIONS
12) [Pointing to the number "10"]

What is this way of writing numbers
made up of?
NUMERALS
13) How many numerals are there?
NINE / TEN
14) Which, nine or ten?

65
TEN
15) Starting with zero, what are they?

[They call out, I write them in the
following way.]
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
16) How many numbers can you make

out of these numerals?
MEGA-ZILLIONS,
INFINITE, LOTS
17) How come we have ten numerals?

Could it be because we have 10
fingers?

66
COULD BE
18) What if we were aliens with only

two fingers? How many numerals
might we have?
19) How many numbers could we

write out of 2 numerals?
NOT MANY /
[one kid:] THERE

WOULD BE A PROBLEM
20) What problem?
THEY COULDN'T DO
THIS [he holds up seven fingers]
21) [This strikes me as a very quick,

intelligent insight I did not expect so
suddenly.] But how can you do fifty
five?

67
[he flashes five fingers

for an instant and then flashes them
again]
22) How does someone know that is

not ten? [I am not really happy with
my question here but I don't want to
get side-tracked by how to logically try
to sign numbers without an established
convention. I like that he sees the
problem and has announced it, though
he did it with fingers instead of words,
which complicates the issue in a way.
When he ponders my question for a
second with a "hmmm", I think he
sees the problem and I move on,
saying...]
23) Well, let's see what they could do.

Here's the numerals you wrote down
[pointing to the column from 0 to 9]
for our ten numerals. If we only have
two numerals and do it like this, what
numerals would we have.
0, 1

68
24) Okay, what can we write as we

count? [I write as they call out
answers.]
0 ZERO
1 ONE
[silence]
25) Is that it? What do we do on this

planet when we run out of numerals at
9?
WRITE DOWN "ONE,

ZERO"
26) Why?
[almost in unison] I DON'T

KNOW; THAT'S JUST THE WAY
YOU WRITE "TEN"
27) You have more than one numeral

here and you have already used these
numerals; how can you use them
again?

69
WE PUT THE 1 IN A
DIFFERENT COLUMN
28) What do you call that column you

put it in?
TENS
29) Why do you call it that?
DON'T KNOW
30) Well, what does this 1 and this 0

mean when written in these columns?
1 TEN AND NO ONES
31) But why is this a ten? Why is this

[pointing] the ten's column?
DON'T KNOW; IT
JUST IS!
32) I'll bet there's a reason. What was

the first number that needed a new
column for you to be able to write it?
TEN

70
33) Could that be why it is called the

ten's column?! What is the first
number that needs the next column?
100
34) And what column is that?
HUNDREDS
35) After you write 19, what do you

have to change to write down 20?
9 to a 0 and 1 to a 2
36) Meaning then 2 tens and no ones,

right, because 2 tens are ___?
TWENTY
37) First number that needs a fourth

column?
ONE THOUSAND
38) What column is that?
THOUSANDS

71
39) Okay, let's go back to our two-

fingered aliens arithmetic. We have
0 zero
1 one.
What would we do to write "two" if

we did the same thing we do over here
[tens] to write the next number after
you run out of numerals?
START ANOTHER
COLUMN
40) What should we call it?
TWO'S COLUMN?
41) Right! Because the first number we

need it for is ___?
TWO
42) So what do we put in the two's

column? How many two's are there in
two?

72
43) And how many one's extra?
ZERO
44) So then two looks like this:

[pointing to "10"], right?
RIGHT, BUT THAT

SURE LOOKS LIKE TEN.
45) No, only to you guys, because you

were taught it wrong [grin] -- to the
aliens it is two. They learn it that way
in pre-school just as you learn to call
one, zero [pointing to "10"] "ten". But
it's not really ten, right? It's two -- if
you only had two fingers. How long
does it take a little kid in pre-school to
learn to read numbers, especially
numbers with more than one numeral
or column?
TAKES A WHILE
46) Is there anything obvious about

calling "one, zero" "ten" or do you

73
have to be taught to call it "ten"

instead of "one, zero"?
HAVE TO BE
TAUGHT IT
47) Ok, I'm teaching you different.

What is "1, 0" here?
TWO
48) Hard to see it that way, though,

right?
RIGHT
49) Try to get used to it; the alien

children do. What number comes
next?
THREE
50) How do we write it with our

numerals?
We need one "TWO" and

a "ONE"

74
[I write down 11 for them] So we have
0 zero
1 one
10 two
11 three
51) Uh oh, now we're out of numerals

again. How do we get to four?
START A NEW
COLUMN!
52) Call it what?
THE FOUR'S
COLUMN
53) Call it out to me; what do I write?
ONE, ZERO, ZERO
[I
write "100 four" under the
other numbers]
54) Next?

75
ONE, ZERO, ONE
I write "101 five"
55) Now let's add one more to it to get

six. But be careful. [I point to the 1 in
the one's column and ask] If we add 1
to 1, we can't write "2", we can only
write zero in this column, so we need
to carry ____?
ONE
56) And we get?
ONE, ONE, ZERO
57) Why is this six? What is it made

of? [I point to columns, which I had
been labeling at the top with the word
"one", "two", and "four" as they had
called out the names of them.]
a "FOUR" and a
"TWO"
58) Which is ____?

76
SIX
59) Next? Seven?
ONE, ONE, ONE
I write "111 seven"
60) Out of numerals again. Eight?
NEW COLUMN; ONE,

ZERO, ZERO, ZERO
I
write "1000 eight"
[We do a couple more and I continue

to write them one under the other with
the word next to each number, so we
have:]
0 zero
1 one
10 two
11 three
100 four
101 five

77
110 six
111 seven
1000 eight
1001 nine
1010 ten
61) So now, how many numbers do

you think you can write with a one and
a zero?
MEGA-ZILLIONS
ALSO/ ALL OF THEM
62) Now, let's look at something. [Point

to Roman numeral X that one kid had
written on the board.] Could you easily
multiply Roman numerals? Like
MCXVII times LXXV?
NO
63) Let's see what happens if we try to

multiply in alien here. Let's try two
times three and you multiply just like
you do in tens [in the "traditional"
American style of writing out
multiplication].

78
10 two
x
11 times three
They call out the "one, zero" for just

below the line, and "one, zero, zero"
for just below that and so I write:
10 two
x
11 times three
10
100
110
64) Ok, look on the list of numbers, up

here [pointing to the "chart" where I
have written down the numbers in
numeral and word form] what is 110?
SIX
65) And how much is two times three

in real life?
SIX

79
66) So alien arithmetic works just as

well as your arithmetic, huh?
LOOKS LIKE IT
67) Even easier, right, because you just

have to multiply or add zeroes and
ones, which is easy, right?
YES!
68) There, now you know how to do it.

Of course, until you get used to
reading numbers this way, you need
your chart, because it is hard to read
something like "10011001011" in alien,
right?
RIGHT
69) So who uses this stuff?
NOBODY/
ALIENS
70) No, I think you guys use this stuff

every day. When do you use it?

80
NO WE DON'T
71) Yes you do. Any ideas where?
NO
72) [I walk over to the light switch and,

pointing to it, ask:] What is this?
A SWITCH
73) [I flip it off and on a few

times.] How many positions does it
have?
TWO
74) What could you call these

positions?
ON AND OFF/
UP AND DOWN
75) If you were going to give them

numbers what would you call them?
ONE AND TWO/

81
[one student] OH!!

ZERO AND ONE!
[other kids then:] OH,

YEAH!
76) You got that right. I am going to

end my experiment part here and just
tell you this last part.
Computers and calculators have lots of

circuits through essentially on/off
switches, where one way represents 0
and the other way, 1. Electricity can go
through these switches really fast and
flip them on or off, depending on the
calculation you are doing. Then, at the
end, it translates the strings of zeroes
and ones back into numbers or letters,
so we humans, who can't read long
strings of zeroes and ones very well
can know what the answers are.
[at this point one of the kid's in the

back yelled out, OH! NEEEAT!!]

82
I don't know exactly how these circuits

work; so if your teacher ever gets some
electronics engineer to come into talk
to you, I want you to ask him what
kind of circuit makes multiplication or
alphabetical order, and so on. And I
want you to invite me to sit in on the
class with you.
Now, I have to tell you guys, I think

you were leading me on about not
knowing any of this stuff. You knew it
all before we started, because I didn't
tell you anything about this -- which by
the way is called "binary arithmetic",
"bi" meaning two like in "bicycle". I
just asked you questions and you knew
all the answers. You've studied this
before, haven't you?
NO, WE HAVEN'T.
REALLY.
Then how did you do this? You must

be amazing. By the way, some of you
may want to try it with other sets of
numerals. You might try three

83
numerals 0, 1, and 2. Or five numerals.

Or you might even try twelve 0, 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, ~, and ^ -- see, you have
to make up two new numerals to do
twelve, because we are used to only
ten. Then you can check your system
by doing multiplication or addition,
etc. Good luck.
After the part about John Glenn, the

whole class took only 25 minutes.
Their teacher told me later that after I

left the children talked about it until it
was time to go home.
..............
My Views About This Whole Episode
Students do not get bored or lose

concentration if they are actively
participating. Almost all of these
children participated the whole time;
often calling out in unison or one after
another. If necessary, I could have
asked if anyone thought some answer

84
might be wrong, or if anyone agreed

with a particular answer. You get
extra mileage out of a given question
that way. I did not have to do that
here. Their answers were almost all
immediate and very good. If necessary,
you can also call on particular
students; if they don't know, other
students will bail them out. Calling on
someone in a non-threatening way
tends to activate others who might
otherwise remain silent. That was not
a problem with these kids. Remember,
this was not a "gifted" class. It was a
normal suburban third grade of whom
two teachers had said only a few
students would be able to understand
the ideas.
The topic was "twos", but I think

they learned just as much about the
"tens" they had been using and not
really understanding.
This method takes a lot of energy

and concentration when you are doing
it fast, the way I like to do it when

85
beginning a new topic. A teacher

cannot do this for every topic or all
day long, at least not the first time one
teaches particular topics this way. It
takes a lot of preparation, and a lot of
thought. When it goes well, as this did,
it is so exciting for both the students
and the teacher that it is difficult to
stay at that peak and pace or to change
gears or topics. When it does not go as
well, it is very taxing trying to figure
out what you need to modify or what
you need to say. I practiced this
particular sequence of questioning a
little bit one time with a first grade
teacher. I found a flaw in my sequence
of questions. I had to figure out how to
correct that. I had time to prepare this
particular lesson; I am not a teacher
but a volunteer; and I am not a
mathematician. I came to the school
just to do this topic that one period.
I did this fast. I personally like to

do new topics fast originally and then
re-visit them periodically at a more

86
leisurely pace as you get to other ideas

or circumstances that apply to, or
make use of, them. As you re-visit, you
fine tune.
The chief benefits of this method

are that it excites students' curiosity
and arouses their thinking, rather than
stifling it. It also makes teaching more
interesting, because most of the time,
you learn more from the students -- or
by what they make you think of -- than
what you knew going into the class.
Each group of students is just enough
different, that it makes it stimulating.
It is a very efficient teaching method,
because the first time through tends to
cover the topic very thoroughly, in
terms of their understanding it. It is
more efficient for their learning then
lecturing to them is, though, of course,
a teacher can lecture in less time.
It gives constant feed-back and

thus allows monitoring of the students'
understanding as you go. So you know
what problems and misunderstandings

87
or lack of understandings you need to

address as you are presenting the
material. You do not need to wait to
give a quiz or exam; the whole thing is
one big quiz as you go, though a quiz
whose point is teaching, not grading.
Though, to repeat, this is teaching by
stimulating students' thinking in
certain focused areas, in order to draw
ideas out of them; it is not "teaching"
by pushing ideas into students that
they may or may not be able to absorb
or assimilate. Further, by quizzing and
monitoring their understanding as you
go along, you have the time and
opportunity to correct
misunderstandings or someone's being
lost at the immediate time, not at the
end of six weeks when it is usually too
late to try to "go back" over the
material. And in some cases their ideas
will jump ahead to new material so
that you can meaningfully talk about
some of it "out of (your!) order" (but
in an order relevant to them). Or you
can tell them you will get to exactly

88
that in a little while, and will answer

their question then. Or suggest they
might want to think about it between
now and then to see whether they can
figure it out for themselves first. There
are all kinds of options, but at least
you know the material is "live" for
them, which it is not always when you
are lecturing or just telling them
things or they are passively and
dutifully reading or doing worksheets
or listening without thinking.
If you can get the right questions

in the right sequence, kids in the whole
intellectual spectrum in a normal class
can go at about the same pace without
being bored; and they can "feed off"
each others' answers. Gifted kids may
have additional insights they may or
may not share at the time, but will
tend to reflect on later. This brings up
the issue of teacher expectations. From
what I have read about the supposed
sin of tracking, one of the main
complaints is that the students who are

89
not in the "top" group have lower

expectations of themselves and they get
teachers who expect little of them, and
who teach them in boring ways
because of it. So tracking becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy about a kid's
educability; it becomes dooming. That
is a problem, not with tracking as
such, but with teacher expectations of
students (and their ability to teach).
These kids were not tracked, and yet
they would never have been exposed to
anything like this by most of the
teachers in that school, because most
felt the way the two did whose
expectations I reported. Most felt the
kids would not be capable enough and
certainly not in the afternoon, on a
Friday near the end of the school year
yet. One of the problems with not
tracking is that many teachers have
almost as low expectations of, and
plans for, students grouped
heterogeneously as they do with non-
high-end tracked students. The point is
to try to stimulate and challenge all

90
students as much as possible. The

Socratic method is an excellent way to
do that. It works for any topics or any
parts of topics that have any logical
natures at all. It does not work for
unrelated facts or for explaining
conventions, such as the sounds of
letters or the capitals of states whose
capitals are more the result of
historical accident than logical
selection.
Of course, you will notice these

questions are very specific, and as
logically leading as possible. That is
part of the point of the method. Not
just any question will do, particularly
not broad, very open ended questions,
like "What is arithmetic?" or "How
would you design an arithmetic with
only two numbers?" (or if you are
trying to teach them about why tall
trees do not fall over when the wind
blows "what is a tree?"). Students
have nothing in particular to focus on
when you ask such questions, and few

91
come up with any sort of interesting

answer.
And it forces the teacher to think

about the logic of a topic, and how to
make it most easily assimilated. In
tandem with that, the teacher has to
try to understand at what level the
students are, and what prior
knowledge they may have that will
help them assimilate what the teacher
wants them to learn. It emphasizes
student understanding, rather than
teacher presentation; student intake,
interpretation, and "construction",
rather than teacher output. And the
point of education is that the students
are helped most efficiently to learn by
a teacher, not that a teacher make the
finest apparent presentation,
regardless of what students might be
learning, or not learning. I was
fortunate in this class that students
already understood the difference
between numbers and numerals, or I
would have had to teach that by

92
questions also. And it was an added

help that they had already learned
Roman numerals. It was also most
fortunate that these students did not
take very many, if any, wrong turns or
have any firmly entrenched erroneous
ideas that would have taken much
effort to show to be mistaken.
I took a shortcut in question 15

although I did not have to; but I did it
because I thought their answers to
questions 13 and 14 showed an
understanding that "0" was a
numeral, and I didn't want to spend
time in this particular lesson trying to
get them to see where "0" best fit with
regard to order. If they had said there
were only nine numerals and said they
were 1-9, then you could ask how they
could write ten numerically using only
those nine, and they would quickly
come to see they needed to add "0" to
their list of numerals.
These are the four critical points

about the questions: 1) they must be

93
interesting or intriguing to the

students; they must lead by 2)
incremental and 3) logical steps (from
the students' prior knowledge or
understanding) in order to be readily
answered and, at some point, seen to
be evidence toward a conclusion, not
just individual, isolated points; and 4)
they must be designed to get the
student to see particular points. You
are essentially trying to get students to
use their own logic and therefore see,
by their own reflections on your
questions, either the good new ideas or
the obviously erroneous ideas that are
the consequences of their established
ideas, knowledge, or beliefs. Therefore
you have to know or to be able to find
out what the students' ideas and beliefs
are. You cannot ask just any question
or start just anywhere.
It is crucial to understand the

difference between "logically" leading
questions and "psychologically"
leading questions. Logically leading

94
questions require understanding of the

concepts and principles involved in
order to be answered correctly;
psychologically leading questions can
be answered by students' keying in on
clues other than the logic of the
content. Question 39 above is
psychologically leading, since I did not
want to cover in this lesson the concept
of value-representation but just
wanted to use "columnar-place" value,
so I psychologically led them into
saying "Start another column" rather
than getting them to see the reasoning
behind columnar-place as merely one
form of value representation. I wanted
them to see how to use columnar-place
value logically without trying here to
get them to totally understand its logic.
(A common form of value-
representation that is not "place"
value is color value in poker chips,
where colors determine the value of
the individual chips in ways similar to
how columnar place does it in writing.
For example if white chips are worth

95
"one" unit and blue chips are worth

"ten" units, 4 blue chips and 3 white
chips is the same value as a "4"
written in the "tens" column and a
"3" written in the "ones" column for
almost the same reasons.)
For the Socratic method to work

as a teaching tool and not just as a
magic trick to get kids to give right
answers with no real understanding, it
is crucial that the important questions
in the sequence must be logically
leading rather than psychologically
leading. There is no magic formula for
doing this, but one of the tests for
determining whether you have likely
done it is to try to see whether leaving
out some key steps still allows people
to give correct answers to things they
are not likely to really understand.
Further, in the case of binary
numbers, I found that when you used
this sequence of questions with
impatient or math-phobic adults who
didn't want to have to think but just

96
wanted you to "get to the point", they

could not correctly answer very far
into even the above sequence. That
leads me to believe that answering
most of these questions correctly,
requires understandingof the topic
rather than picking up some
"external" sorts of clues in order to
just guess correctly. Plus, generally
when one uses the Socratic method, it
tends to become pretty clear when
people get lost and are either mistaken
or just guessing. Their demeanor tends
to change when they are guessing, and
they answer with a questioning tone in
their voice. Further, when they are
logically understanding as they go,
they tend to say out loud insights they
have or reasons they have for their
answers. When they are just guessing,
they tend to just give short answers
with almost no comment or
enthusiasm. They don't tend to want to
sustain the activity.

97
Finally, two of the interesting,

perhaps side, benefits of using the
Socratic method are that it gives the
students a chance to experience the
attendant joy and excitement of
discovering (often complex) ideas on
their own. And it gives teachers a
chance to learn how much more
inventive and bright a great many
more students are than usually appear
to be when they are primarily passive.
[Some additional comments about the

Socratic method of teaching are in a
letter, "Using the Socratic Method".]
[For a more general approach to

teaching, of which the Socratic Method is
just one specific
form, see "Teaching Effectively: Helping
Students Absorb and Assimilate
Material"]

98
https://www.criticalthinking.org/store/get
_file.php?inventories_id=231&inventorie
s_files_id=374
The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of

Socratic Questioning
1
© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking
Press
www.criticalthinking.org
Socratic Questioning Transcripts
http://www.garlikov.com/Soc_Meth.html
http://www.trigonweb.com/dowload/SO
CRATIC%20QUESTIONS.pdf
THE SIX TYPES OF SOCRATIC

QUESTIONS

99

information and th
e advancement of
daily, an
engineer must constantly
simple gathering
information and relying
THE SIX TYPES OF SOCRATIC

QUESTIONS
information and th
e advancement of
daily, an
engineer must constantly
simple gathering
information and relying

100
A number of homework problems have

been included th
at are designed to
enhance critical thinking skills. Critical
thinking
is the process we use to
assumptions underl
ying our own and others
ideas and actions.
Socratic questioning is at the heart of
critical th
inking and a number of
homework problems draw from R.W.
Paul's six types o
f Socratic questions:
1. Questions for
clarification:
•
Why do you say that?
•
How does this relate to our discussion?
•
What do you mean by?
•
What do we already know about...?

101
2. Questions that probe

assumptions:
•
What could we assume instead?
•
How can you verify or disapprove that
assumption?
•
Could you explain why you arrived at
that
conclusion? (Explain how...)
•
What would happen if...?
•
Do you agree or disagree with this
statement...?
reasons and evidence:
•
What would be an example?
•
What is....analogous to?
•
What do you think causes to happen...?
Why:?
•

102
What evidence is there to support your

answer?
4. Questions about
Viewpoints and
Perspectives:
•
What would be an alternative?
•
What is another way to look at it?
•
Would you explain why it is necessary-or
beneficial and who benefits?
•
Why is the best?
•
What are the strengths and weaknesses
of...?
•
How are...and ...similar?
•
What is a counter argument for...?
•
Compare... and... with regard to...
implications and
consequences:

103
•
What generalizations can you make?
•
What are the consequences of that
assumption?
•
What are you implying?
•
How does...affect...?
•
How does...tie in with what we have
learned before?
•
Why is... important?
6. Questions about the
question:
•
What was the point of this question?
•
Why do you think I asked this question?
•
What does...mean?
•
How does...apply to everyday life?
Socratic Questions
Socratic QuestionsSocratic Questions

104
Socratic Questions
[Adapted from Richard Paul's
Critical Thinking Workshop
]
A.
Questions that probe CONCEPTUAL
understandings.
1. What do you mean by ____?
2. How does ____ relate to ____?
3. Could you put that another way?
4. Is your basic point ____ or ____?
5. Let me see if I understand you; do you
mean ____
or ____?
6. How does this relate to our
discussion/problem/i
ssue?
7. Could you give me an example?
8. Would this be an example: ____?
9. Could you explain further?
10. Can you find a more precise term for
____?
B.
Questions that probe ASSUMPTIONS.
1. What are you assuming?
2. What could we assume instead?

105
3. You seem to be assuming ____. Do I

understand yo
u correctly?
4. You seem to be assuming ____. How
would you just
ify taking this for
granted?
5. Why would someone make this
assumption?
C.
Questions that probe REASONS AND
EVIDENCE for a pos
ition.
1. How do you know?
2. Why do you think that is true?
3. Do you have any evidence for that?
4. What are your reasons for saying that?
5. What other information do we need?
6. Could you explain your reasons to us?
7. Are these reasons adequate?
8. Why did you say that?
9. What led you to that belief?
10. How does that apply to this case?
11. What would change your mind?
12. Is there a reason to doubt that
evidence?

106
13. What would you say to someone who

said ____?
14. By what reasoning did you come to
that conclusi
on?
15. How could we find out whether that
is true?
D.
Questions about PERSPECTIVES.
1. You seem to be approaching this from
____ perspe
ctive. Why have you
chosen this rather than another
perspective?
2. How would other groups/types of
people respond?
Why? What would
influence them?
3. How could you answer the objection
that ____ wou
ld make?
4. What might someone who believed
____ think?
5. Can/did anyone see this another way?
6. How many other perspectives can you
imagine?

107
E.
Questions that probe CONSEQUENCES
of a position.
1. When you say ____, are you implying
____?
2. But if that happened, what else would
happen as
a result? Why?
3. What effect would that have?
4. Would that necessarily happen or only
probably h
appen?
5. If we disagree, what consequences
could result?
6. If this and this is the case, then what
else mus
t also be true?
7. Would any implication or result cause
you to thi
nk differently?
http://www.keytostudy.com/six-types-
socratic-questions/
Posted on September 5, 2016 by Lev

Goldentouch, PhD

108
Six types of Socratic questions
We ask similar questions after each time

we preread or read the text. The
questions can be divided into questions
building our curiosity so we can focus on
the text and questions we asked in order
to ensure we understood the text
properly. This post mainly deals with
questions of the second kind. If we
cannot answer the questions we need to
reread the text. Typically I ask one
question at the end of each section and 6
questions at the end of an article/chapter.
The tool that we use is called socratic

questions, and apparently there are six
types of them. This article was used to
generate my list.
1. Questions for clarification. Quite

often we preread a text and do not
understand its added value. What
is the main subject of the article?
Why did the author write the
article? What can I get out of it?
This sort of questions is typically

109
asked after first prereading of an

article. If we are puzzled by some
section we asked it again. If the
document does not make any
sense, there is really no need to
read and create mental markers –
you might better reread the article
after “Aha!” moment later on.
assumptions. To get a reasonable
theory some things need to be
assumed. These assumptions may
be explicitly stated in the
document, implicitly assumed by
the author like common sense, or
may be invisible to the author
being a part of his belief system.
Typically we probe the
assumptions after reading the
chapter/article when we consider
how to use the new information in
our own knowledge base.
Occasionally we find the article
untrustworthy or useless in real life
scenarios and need to probe

110
assumptions immediately after

initial prereading.
3. Questions that probe reasons
and evidence. This is something
we ask quite often, almost every
section, when trying to link the
new information with other
information we know. Some links
may be obvious, yet some might
require concentration and
creativity. We make the more
complex linking at the end of the
text, when trying reevaluate the
article. We do need to recreate the
logic of the article from the details
we remembered when reading. If
something is missing from this
logic we really should scan (read
very fast) and rescan the article for
the missing parts. This process
results in improved comprehension
but reduced average speed, so we
do not count it when calculating
the reading speed. Sometimes this
“search and recovery” mission
takes me x3-x5 more time than

111
reading the article itself, especially

with complex patents and
scientific articles.
4. Questions about viewpoints and
perspectives. Typically we use
various perspectives to increase
creativity and curiosity before
reading the article. It might be a
good idea to ask the same question
after reading the article, so we can
identify the hidden agendas behind
the article. An article is typically a
work of several people with
different agendas, each person and
agenda being fused into the
common text. You may have your
own different agenda and then you
might miss key arguments or you
might have a very similar agenda
and then you will miss flaws in
logic. Occasionally articles contain
hidden triggers which make us act
differently. Do we want to
incorporate these triggers in our
life?

112

implications and consequences.
How can I use what I just read?
This is the main question we ask
after reading an article. If the
article did not make your inner
word richer, if you did not get
motivated to do the right thing, if
your knowledge base and toolset
did not grow – then why did you
read the article? Being honest to
ourselves about why we read what
we read and what we do with what
we read is very important. If you
read just to pass some sort of exam
or because you have completion
bias (decided to read so need to
finish reading), you may want to
reassess situation and find more
practical motivations.
6. Questions about the question.
Some articles are provocative and
they make us think. Rather than
giving us an answer they ask a
question. These are the best
articles as far as I am concerned,

113
since they can set up into a journey

and open worlds we could not
imagine. It is very useful to think
for a while about the questions we
are asked and how we can learn
more about them. Do not just put a
checkmark on the article, but try to
plan your researh, enrich the
original question with follow-up
questions you may have
I hope this article will make you ask

further questions and read more about
socratic method and critical thinking.
Asking the right question is 80% of the
process, with the right questions asked
finding the answer is easy.
https://www.criticalthinking.org/store/get
_file.php?inventories_id=231&inventorie
s_files_id=374

114
Contents
Introduction Part One
A Taxonomy of Socratic Questions
Based in Critical Thinking Concepts
4
Questions that Target the Parts of
Thinking
4
Questions that Target the Quality of
Reasoning
7
The Art of Socratic Questioning
Checklist
10 Four Directions in Which to Pursue
Thought
12 Three Kinds of Questions
14
Asking One-System, No-System, and
Conflicting-System Questions
15 Questioning Questions: Identifying
Prior Questions
17
Asking Complex Interdisciplinary
Questions
18

115
Part Two
24 Exploring the Mind and How it
Works (Elementary School)
26
Helping Students Organize Their
Thoughts for Writing (Middle School)
33
Helping Students Think Deeply about
Basic Ideas (High School)
37
Helping Students Think Seriously
about Complex Social Issues (High
School) 42
Part Three
The Mechanics of Socratic
Questioning
48
Three Kinds of Socratic Discussion
48
Spontaneous or Unplanned
48
Exploratory
49

116
Focused
50
Wondering Aloud About Truth and
Meaning
54 Sources of Student Belief
55
General Guidelines for Socratic
Questioning
57
Part Four
The Role of Questions in Teaching,
Thinking, and Learning
60
The Teacher as Questioner
60
Understanding Content as
Interrelated Systems with Real-Life
Connections 61
Thinking Is Driven By Questions
62
Part Five
Socrates, the Socratic Method, and
Critical Thinking
64 A Definition of Socratic

117
Questioning
64 On Socrates
65 The Intellectual Virtues as
Displayed By Socrates
66
The Systematic Nature of the Socratic
Method
68 Placing the Dialectic Process at the
Heart of Teaching
68
The Historical Contribution of
Socrates
69
The Concept of Critical Thinking
69
What Critical Thinking Brings to
70
Appendices
A—Patterns in Teaching that
Incorporate Socratic Dialogue
72
B—Analyzed Transcript of a Socratic

Dialogue from Plato’s

118
The Art of

119
Dear Reader,
It is hard to imagine someone being a
good critical thinker while lacking the
disposition to question in a deep way. It
is also hard to imagine someone
acquiring the disposition to question in a
fuller way than Socrates. It follows that
those truly interested in critical thinking
will also be interested in the art of deep
questioning. And learning the Socratic
art is a natural place to start.
Of course, to learn from Socrates we
must identify and practice applying the
components of his art. Without a sense
of these components, it is hard to grasp
the nature of the questioning strategies
that underlie the art of Socratic
questioning. The art requires
contextualization. And in that
contextualization, the spirit of Socratic
questioning is more important than the
letter of it.
In this guide, we provide analyses of
the components of Socratic questioning,

120
along with some contemporary examples

of the method applied in elementary
through high school classes.
To get you started in practicing
Socratic questioning, we begin with the
nuts and bolts of critical thinking (Part
One), followed by some examples of
Socratic dialogue (Part Two), and then
the mechanics of Socratic dialogue (Part
Three). The fourth and fifth sections
focus on the importance of questioning
in teaching, the contribution of Socrates,
and the link between Socratic
questioning and critical thinking.
As you begin to ask questions in the
spirit of Socrates—to dig deeply into
what people believe and why they
believe it—you will begin to experience
greater command of your own thinking
as well as the thinking of others. Be
patient with yourself and with your
students. Proficiency in Socratic
questioning takes time, but time well
worth spending.

121
We hope this guide is of use to you

and your students in achieving greater
command of the art of deep questioning.
Richard Paul Linda Elder

Center for Critical Thinking Foundation For
Critical Thinking
1
Contents
Introduction Part One
A Taxonomy of Socratic Questions
Based in Critical Thinking Concepts
4
Questions that Target the Parts of
Thinking
4
Questions that Target the Quality of
Reasoning
7
The Art of Socratic Questioning
Checklist

122
10 Four Directions in Which to Pursue

Thought
12 Three Kinds of Questions
14
Asking One-System, No-System, and
Conflicting-System Questions
15 Questioning Questions: Identifying
Prior Questions
17
Asking Complex Interdisciplinary
Questions
18
Part Two
24 Exploring the Mind and How it
Works (Elementary School)
26
Helping Students Organize Their
Thoughts for Writing (Middle School)
33
Helping Students Think Deeply about
Basic Ideas (High School)
37

123
Helping Students Think Seriously

about Complex Social Issues (High
School) 42
Part Three
The Mechanics of Socratic
Questioning
48
48
48
Exploratory
49
Focused
50
Wondering Aloud About Truth and
Meaning
54 Sources of Student Belief
55
General Guidelines for Socratic
Questioning
57

124
Part Four
The Role of Questions in Teaching,
Thinking, and Learning
60
The Teacher as Questioner
60
Understanding Content as
Interrelated Systems with Real-Life
Connections 61
Thinking Is Driven By Questions
62
Part Five
Socrates, the Socratic Method, and
Critical Thinking
64 A Definition of Socratic
Questioning
64 On Socrates
65 The Intellectual Virtues as
Displayed By Socrates
66
The Systematic Nature of the Socratic
Method
68 Placing the Dialectic Process at the
Heart of Teaching
68

125
The Historical Contribution of

Socrates
69
The Concept of Critical Thinking
69
What Critical Thinking Brings to
70
Appendices
A—Patterns in Teaching that
Incorporate Socratic Dialogue
72
B—Analyzed Transcript of a Socratic
Dialogue from Plato’s Euthyphro
76
C—More On Socrates
90

2 The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of Socratic
Questioning Introduction
The unexamined life is not worth living—Socrates
Socratic questioning is disciplined questioning that can be
used to pursue thought in many directions and for many
purposes, including: to explore complex ideas, to get to
the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to
uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish
what we know from what we don’t know, and to follow
out logical implications of thought. The key to
distinguishing Socratic questioning from questioning per
se is that Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined,
and deep, and usually focuses on foundational concepts,
principles, theories, issues, or problems.
Teachers, students, or indeed anyone interested in
probing thinking at a deep level can and should construct
Socratic questions and engage in Socratic dialogue.
When we use Socratic questioning in teaching, our
purpose may be to probe student thinking, to determine
the extent of their knowledge on a given topic, issue or
subject, to model Socratic questioning for them, or to
help them analyze a concept or line of reasoning. In the
final analysis, we want students to learn the discipline of
Socratic questioning, so that they begin to use it in
reasoning through complex issues, in understanding and
assessing the thinking of others, and in following-out the
implications of what they, and others think.

The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of Socratic Questioning
In teaching, then, we can use Socratic questioning for

at least two purposes:
1. To deeply probe student thinking, to help students
begin to distinguish what they know or understand
from what they do not know or understand (and to
help them develop intellectual humility in the
process).
2. To foster students’ abilities to ask Socratic questions,
to help students acquire the powerful tools of Socratic
dialogue, so that they can use these tools in everyday
life (in questioning themselves and others). To this
end, we need to model the questioning strategies we
want students to emulate and employ. Moreover, we
need to directly teach students how to construct and
ask deep questions. Beyond that, students need
practice, practice, and more practice.
Socratic questioning teaches us the importance of
questioning in learning (indeed Socrates himself thought
that questioning was the only defensible form of
teaching). It teaches us the difference between systematic
and fragmented thinking. It teaches us to dig beneath the
surface of our ideas. It teaches us the value of developing
questioning minds in cultivating deep learning.
The art of Socratic questioning is intimately connected
with critical thinking because the art of questioning is
important to excellence of thought. What the word
“Socratic” adds to the art of questioning is systematicity,
depth, and an abiding interest in assessing the truth or
plausibility of things.
Both critical thinking and Socratic questioning share a

common end. Critical thinking provides the conceptual
tools for understanding how the mind functions (in it’s
pursuit of
3
meaning and truth); and Socratic questioning employs

those tools in framing questions essential to the pursuit
of meaning and truth.
The goal of critical thinking is to establish an
additional level of thinking to our thinking, a powerful
inner voice of reason, that monitors, assesses, and
reconstitutes—in a more rational direction—our
thinking, feeling, and action. Socratic discussion
cultivates that inner voice through an explicit focus on
self-directed, disciplined questioning.
In this guide, we focus on the mechanics of Socratic
dialogue, on the conceptual tools that critical thinking
brings to Socratic dialogue, and on the importance of
questioning in cultivating the disciplined mind. Through
a critical thinking perspective, we offer a substantive,
explicit, and rich understanding of Socratic questioning.
To get you started in practicing Socratic questioning,
we begin with the nuts and bolts of critical thinking (Part
One), followed by some examples of Socratic dialogue
(Part Two), and then the mechanics of Socratic dialogue
(Part Three). The fourth and fifth sections focus on the
importance of questioning in teaching, the contribution

of Socrates, and the link between Socratic questioning

and critical thinking.
• Raises basic issues
• Probes beneath the surface of things
• Pursues problematic areas of thought
• Helps students discover the structure of their own
thought
• Helps students develop sensitivity to clarity,
accuracy, relevance, and depth
• Helps students arrive at judgments through their
own reasoning
• Helps students analyze thinking—its purposes,
assumptions, questions, points of view, information,
inferences, concepts, and implications
5
Implications frame of reference,Point of

Viewperspective,orientation,Purposegoal,
objective,function
world view

and Question Consequences

at Issue
that which follows problem,
issue logically, effects
Elements of
Assumptions Thought
Information presuppositions,
data, facts, evidence, axioms,
taking observations, for
granted experiences,
Concepts
reasons theories,
Interpretation
definitions, laws, and
Inference principles,
conclusions, models
solutions
understand the agenda behind it. Some of the many

questions that focus on purpose in thinking include:
• What is your purpose right now?
• What was your purpose when you made that
comment?
• Why are you writing this? Who is your audience?
What do you want to persuade them of?
• What is the purpose of this assignment?
• What are we trying to accomplish here?

What is our central aim or task in this line of

•
thought?
• What is the purpose of this chapter, relationship,
policy, law?
• What is our central agenda? What other goals do we
need to consider?
2. Questioning Questions. All thought is responsive to
a question. Assume that you do not fully understand a
thought until you understand the question that gives
rise to it. Questions that focus on questions in thinking
include:
• I am not sure exactly what question you are raising.
Could you explain it?
• What are the main questions that guide the way you
behave in this or that situation?
• Is this question the best one to focus on at this point,
or is there a more pressing question we need to
address?
13
Opposing thoughts and objections:

How would you answer someone who
said …? What might these people say?
How could someone else look at this?
Why?
Why do you think your way of looking at it is better?

The
implications
and
consequences
:
The origin Are you implying or source:
The belief, that …? If that’s
How did statement, or true, then
what else you come to conclusion must
by true? How
would we
put that believe that?
into action?
What
happens
when you act
on that
belief?
Support, reasons, evidence, and assumptions:

How do you know? Are you
assuming that …? Is this a good
assumption? What evidence do you
have? Why is that relevant? How do
you know your evidence is true?
How are you conceiving of, thinking
about the issue? Why?

This diagram, and the classifications implicit in it,

helps accentuate the following important facts about
thinking.
• All thinking has a history in the lives of particular
persons.
• All thinking depends upon a substructure of
reasons, evidence, and assumptions.
• All thinking leads us in some direction or other (has
implications and consequences).
• All thinking stands in relation to other possible
ways to think (there is never just one way to think
about something).
This classificatory scheme highlights four ways we can
help students come to terms with their thought:
• We can help students reflect on how they have
come to think the way they do on a given subject.
(In doing this, we are helping them examine the
history of their thinking on that subject, helping
them find the source or origin of their thinking.)
• We can help students reflect on how they support or
might support their thinking. (In doing this, we are
helping them express the reasons, evidence, and
assumptions that underlie what they think.)

14 The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of Socratic
Questioning
• We can help students reflect on what “follows from”

their thinking, what implications and consequences
their thinking generates. (In doing this, we are
helping them recognize that all thinking entails or
involves “effects” or “results” that we are obliged to
consider.)
• We can help students reflect on how it is that people
with points of view different from theirs might raise
legitimate objections or propose alternative ways to
think that they should take into account. (In doing
this, we are helping them think more broadly, more
comprehensively, more fair-mindedly.)
Three Kinds of Questions
In approaching a question, it is useful to figure out what
type it is. Is it a question with one definitive answer? Is it
a question that calls for a subjective choice? Or does the
question require us to consider competing answers.

1 2
3
One-System No-System Conflicting Systems
requires evidence calls for stating requires

evidence and reasoning a subjective and
reasoning
within a system preference within conflicting
systems
a correct a subjective better and worse answer

opinion answers
Knowledge Cannot be Judgment

assessed
48 The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of
Socratic Questioning Part Three
The Mechanics of Socratic Questioning
We can loosely categorize three general forms of
Socratic questioning and distinguish three basic kinds of
preparation for each: spontaneous, exploratory, and

focused. Each of these forms of questioning can be used
to probe student thinking at any level of instruction—
from elementary throughout graduate school.
All three types of Socratic discussion require
developing the art of questioning. They require the
teacher to learn a wide variety of intellectual moves and
to develop judgment in determining when to ask which
kinds of questions (realizing that there is rarely one best
question at any particular time).
When your teaching is imbued with the Socratic spirit,
when you maintain your curiosity and sense of
wonderment, there will be many occasions in which you
will spontaneously ask students questions that probe
their thinking. There will be many opportunities to
question what they mean and explore with them how you
might find out if something is true, logical, or
reasonable. If one student says that a given angle will be
the same as another angle in a geometrical figure, you
may spontaneously question how the class might go
about proving or disproving this assertion. If a student
says, “Americans love freedom,” you may spontaneously
wonder aloud about what such a statement might mean
(Does that mean, for example, that we love freedom
more than other people do? Does it mean that we live in
a free country? What would it mean to live in a free
country? How would we know if we did? Does
“freedom” mean the same thing to all Americans?). If in

a science class a student says that most space is empty,
you may spontaneously ask a question as to what that
might mean and how you together might find out.
Such spontaneous discussions provide models of
listening critically as well as exploring the beliefs
expressed. If something said seems questionable,
misleading, or false, Socratic questioning provides a way
of helping students become self-correcting, rather than
relying on correction by the teacher. Spontaneous Socratic
discussion can prove especially useful when students
become interested in a topic, when they raise an important
issue, when they are on the brink of grasping or
integrating a new insight, when discussion becomes
bogged down or confused or hostile. Socratic questioning
provides specific moves which can fruitfully take
advantage of student interest. It can help you effectively
approach an important issue. It can aid in integrating and
expanding an insight, move a troubled discussion
forward, clarify or sort through what appears confusing,
and diffuse frustration or anger.
Although by definition there can be no preplanning for
a particular spontaneous discussion, you can prepare
yourself by becoming familiar and comfortable with
generic Socratic questions, by developing the art of
raising probing follow-up questions and by
49

giving encouraging and helpful responses. Consider the
following “moves” you might be prepared to make:
Spontaneous Socratic Questioning “Moves”

• Ask for an example of a point a student has made,
or of a point you have made.
• Ask for evidence or reasons for a position.
• Propose a counter-example or two.
• Ask the group whether they agree. (Does everyone
agree with this point? Is there anyone who does not
agree?)
• Suggest parallel or similar examples.
• Provide an analogy that illuminates a particular
position.
• Ask for a paraphrase of an opposing view.
• Rephrase student responses clearly and accurately.
In short, when you begin to wonder more and more

about meaning and truth, and so think aloud in front of
your students by means of questions, Socratic exchanges
will occur at many unplanned moments in your
instruction. However, in addition to these unplanned
wonderings, we can also design or plan out at least two
distinct kinds of Socratic discussion: one that explores a
wide range of issues and one that focuses on one particular
issue.
Exploratory

What we call exploratory Socratic questioning is
appropriate when teachers want to find out what students
know or think and to probe student thinking on a variety
of issues. For example, you might use it to assess student
thinking on a subject at the beginning of a semester or
unit. You could use it to explore student values, or to
uncover problematic areas or potential biases. You could
use it to identify where your students are the most clear
or the most fuzzy in their thinking. You can use it to
discover areas or issues of interest or controversy, or to
find out where and how students have integrated
academic material into their thinking (and into their
behavior). Such discussions can be used in introducing a
subject, in preparing students for later analysis of a topic,
or in reviewing important ideas before students take a
test. You can use it to determine what students have
learned from their study of a unit or topic, or as a guide
to future assignments.
After an exploratory dialogue, you might have students
take an issue raised in discussion and develop in writing
their own views on the issue. Or you might have students
form groups to further discuss the issue or topic.
With this type of Socratic questioning, we raise and
explore a broad range of interrelated issues and concepts,
not just one. It requires minimal preplanning or
prethinking. It has a relatively loose order or structure.
You can prepare by having some general questions ready
to raise when appropriate by considering the topic or

issue, related issues, and key concepts. You can also
prepare by predicting students’ likeliest responses and
preparing
76 The Thinker’s Guide to the Art of
Socratic Questioning Appendix B
Analyzed Transcript of a Socratic Dialogue from
Plato’s Euthyphro
What follows is an excerpt from Plato’s Euthyphro. This
is a dialogue between Socrates and Euthyphro, in which
Socrates is questioning Euthyphro on what it means to
be pious (and, by implication, what it means to be
impious). Through this excerpt, we get a good idea of
the basic approach taken by Socrates when questioning
others. At the heart of most Socratic dialogues is a
concept that is both abstract and deep. Socrates pretends
that he doesn’t understand the concept, and that he
needs help from the person he is questioning in
understanding the concept clearly and accurately.
This dialogue takes place outside the courthouse where
Socrates is shortly to stand trial. There he meets
Euthyphro, “a seer and religious expert, who says that he
is going to charge his own father with manslaughter.
Socrates is startled, and inquires how Euthyphro can be
sure that such conduct is consistent with his religious
duty. The result is a discussion of the true nature of
Piety. Euthyphro does not represent Athenian orthodoxy;
on the contrary, he is sympathetic towards Socrates. He

is an independent specialist, confident in his own
fallibility, and therefore a fit subject for Socrates’
curative treatment, which aims at clearing the mind of
false assumptions and so making it receptive of real
knowledge…although the argument moves in a circle, it
offers clues for the solution of the problem.”
What we want most to notice in this, and indeed any
dialogue led by Socrates, is how Socrates guides the
discussion. We want to understand the precise
intellectual moves, if you will, Socrates makes at each
point along the way, so that we might emulated those
moves. The best way to do this is to use the language of
critical thinking to label those moves. As you read
through this dialogue, notice the notes we provide
relevant to this point (in parentheses and italics). We
begin shortly after the beginning of the dialogue, and
include a good portion, but not all, of the dialogue.
Euthyphro: The man who is dead was a poor dependent
of mine who worked for us as a field laborer at Naxos,
and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a
quarrel with one of our domestic servants and slew
him. My father bound him hand and foot and threw
him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens, to ask of a
diviner what he should do with him. Meantime he had
no care or thought of him, being under the impression
that he was a murderer; and that even if he did die
there would be no great harm. And this was just what
happened. For such was the effect of cold and hunger

and chains upon him, that before the messenger
returned from the diviner, he was dead. And my father
and family are angry with me for taking the part of the
murderer and prosecuting my father. They say that he
did not kill him, and if he did, the dead man was but a
murderer, and I ought not to take any notice, for that a
son is impious who prosecutes a father. That shows,
77
Socrates, how little they know of the opinions of the

gods about piety and impiety.
Socrates: And what is piety, and what is impiety?
(Socrates asks Euthyphro to explicitly state the
fundamental difference between two concepts. This
is an important early step in conceptual analysis.)
E: Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say,
prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder,
sacrilege, or of any other similar crime—whether he
be your father or mother, or some other person, makes
no difference—and not persecuting them is impiety.
And please to consider, Socrates, what a notable proof
I will give you of the truth of what I am saying, which
I have already given to others—of the truth, I mean of
the principle that the impious, whoever he may be,
ought not to go unpunished. For do men regard Zeus
as the best and most righteous of the gods?—and even
they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because
he wickedly devoured his sons, and that he too has
punished his own father (Uranus) for a similar reason,
in a nameless manner. And yet when I proceed against
my father, they are angry with me. This is their
inconsistent way of talking when the gods are
concerned, and when I am concerned.
S: May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am
charged with impiety— that I can not away with
these stories about the gods? And therefore I suppose
that people think me wrong. But, as you who are well
informed about them approve of them, I cannot do
better than assent to your superior wisdom. For what
else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know
nothing of them? I wish you would tell me whether
you really believe that they are true.
(Here, Socrates is saying that Euthyphro, since he
purports to know a lot about the gods, should tell
Socrates of his knowledge. Socrates refers to the
indictment against him—that he believes in gods
different from those sanctioned by the state.
Socrates is demonstrating intellectual humility,
while imlying that Euthyphro is intellectually
arrogant in purporting to know what the gods
believe.)
E: Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of
which the world is in ignorance.
S: And do you really believe that the gods fought with
one another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the
like, as the poets say, and as you may see represented

in the works of great artists? The temples are full of
them. Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?

145

146
i) Philosophical Toolkit
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophers-Toolkit-Compendium-
Philosophical-Concepts/dp/1405190183#reader_1405190183
Table of Contents
Preface.
Acknowledgements.
1. Basic Tools for Argument.
1.1 Arguments, premises and conclusions.
1.2 Deduction.
1.3 Induction.
1.4 Validity and soundness.
1.5 Invalidity.
1.6 Consistency.
1.7 Fallacies.
1.8 Refutation.
1.9 Axioms.
1.10 Definitions.
1.11 Certainty and probability.
1.12 Tautologies, self-contradictions and the law of non-contradiction.
2. More Advanced Tools.
2.1 Abduction.
2.2 Hypothetico-deductive method.
2.3 Dialectic.

147
2.4 Analogies.
2.5 Anomalies and exceptions that prove the rule.
2.6 Intuition pumps.
2.7 Logical constructions.
2.8 Reduction.
2.9 Thought experiments.
2.10 Useful fictions.
3. Tools for Assessment.
3.1 Alternative explanations.
3.2 Ambiguity.
3.3 Bivalence and the excluded middle.
3.4 Category mistakes.
3.5 Ceteris paribus.
3.6 Circularity.
3.7 Conceptual incoherence.
3.8 Counterexamples.
3.9 Criteria.
3.10 Error theory.
3.11 False dichotomy.
3.12 False cause.
3.13 Genetic fallacy.
3.14 Horned dilemmas.
3.15 Is/ought gap.

148
3.16 Masked man fallacy.
3.17 Partners in guilt.
3.18 Principle of charity.
3.19 Question-begging.
3.20 Reductios.
3.21 Redundancy.
3.22 Regresses.
3.23 Saving the phenomena.
3.24 Self-defeating arguments.
3.25 Sufficient reason.
3.26 Testability.
4. Tools for Conceptual Distinctions.
4.1 A priori/a posteriori.
4.2 Absolute/relative.
4.3 Analytic/synthetic
4.4 Categorical/modal.
4.5 Conditional/biconditional.
4.6 De re/de dicto.
4.7 Defeasible/indefeasible.
4.8 Entailment/implication.
4.9 Essence/accident.
4.10 Internalism/externalism.
4.11 Knowledge by acquaintance/description.

149
4.12 Necessary/contingent.
4.13 Necessary/sufficient.
4.14 Objective/subjective.
4.15 Realist/non-realist.
4.16 Sense/reference.
4.17 Syntax/semantics.
4.18 Thick/thin concepts.
4.19 Types/tokens.
5. Tools of Historical Schools and Philosophers.
5.1 Aphorism, fragment, remark.
5.2 Categories and specific differences.
5.3 Elenchus and aporia.
5.4 Hume's fork.
5.5 Indirect discourse.
5.6 Leibniz's law of identity.
5.7 Ockham's razor.
5.8 Phenomenological method(s).
5.9 Signs and signifiers.
5.10 Transcendental argument.
6. Tools for Radical Critique.
6.1 Class critique.
6.2 Deconstruction and the critique of presence.
6.3 Empiricist critique of metaphysics.

150
6.4 Feminist critique.
6.5 Foucaultian critique of power.
6.6 Heideggerian critique of metaphysics.
6.7 Lacanian critique.
6.8 Critiques of naturalism.
6.9 Nietzschean critique of Christian-Platonic culture.
6.10 Pragmatist critique.
6.11 Sartrean critique of 'bad faith'.
7. Tools at the Limit.
7.1 Basic beliefs.
7.2 Gödel and incompleteness.
7.3 Philosophy and/as art.
7.4 Mystical experience and revelation.
7.5 Paradoxes.
7.6 Possibility and impossibility.
7.7 Primitives.
7.8 Self-evident truths.
7.9 Scepticism.
7.10 Underdetermination.
Internet Resources for Philosophers.
Index.
See Less

151
Author Information
Julian Baggini (www.julianbaggini.com) is a freelance writer and co-founding
editor of The Philosophers’ Magazine.
Peter S. Fosl is Professor of Philosophy at Transylvania University in

Lexington, Kentucky.
New To This Edition
 For the second edition, many of the volume’s original 87 entries have
been enhanced, extended and updated, an entirely new section has been
added on methods drawn from the history of philosophy, and the
suggestions for further reading have been expanded
 This edition has a broad, pluralistic approach--appealing to readers in
both continental philosophy and the history of philosophy, as well as
analytic philosophy. In this second edition, greater attention is paid to
continental philosophy and history of philosophy than in the first edition
The Wiley Advantage
 Provides necessary intellectual equipment to engage with and participate

in philosophical argument and criticism
 Features significantly updated and expanded entries, as well as an entirely
new section drawn from methods in the history of philosophy
 This edition has a broad, pluralistic approach--appealing to readers in
both continental philosophy and the history of philosophy, as well as
analytic philosophy
 Explains difficult concepts in an easily accessible manner, and addresses
the use and application of these concepts
 Proven useful to
philosophy students at both beginning and advanced levels

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PHILOSOPHY – Aims, Methods,

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

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1 Seeking, development and realization

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1 Seeking, development and realization

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l share a deep love of real philosophy. By

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condition, and on the natural world in

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both intensively and also widely inside

In view of this conception of real

The threefold purpose of this co-authored

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very different points of view; second, to

Our immediate goal at APP is the same

“Enlightenment is the human being’s

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

but in lack of resolution and courage to

In other words, we think that it’s up to all

“When nature has unwrapped, from

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being, who is now more than a machine,

1. Think philosophically for yourself.

Everyone in contemporary professional

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2. Criticize professional philosophical

Everyone in contemporary professional

More accurately, the article could have

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

Should Contemporary Professional

3. Recognize and reject professional

Everyone in contemporary professional

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First, since 1983 there have been

In The Beginning There Was Logical

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into the 80s, the core was philosophy of

In the 80s, the core gradually switched

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

deconstructionist, or Foucauldian post-

Then in the 90s, the core quietly but

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the philosophy of language in effect

Finally in the 00s and now into the 10s,

To be fair, in the 80s and 90s several

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Realism with a Human Face, and Robert

Therefore, it is completely clear that

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But why, since at least 1983, has there

“Poor old Nagel—I haven’t actually read

Second, since 1983 everyone else in

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AOS—as it were, the client states of the

Graduate student, non-tenure track

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

I work on topics that fall fully outside of

Third, there has been an emergence and

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org

primary or sole function of graduate

Fourth and finally, perhaps the most

© 2007 Foundation for Critical Thinking Press www.criticalthinking.org