What was the best conversation of your life?

My night in Tirana with a Catholic priest, a Canadian novelist, and an angry atheist.

Hello everybody,

This week we’re looking at Socrates and the Socratic method with Agnes Callard.

You can find the companion article here: 3 ways to have more meaningful conversations

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I was staying at a cheap hostel in Tirana.

It was 2006, mid-summer, and I was sitting on a balcony. If I looked over the railings, I could see miles of BMWs, honking and weaving their way around stray, jaywalking dogs. I had just finished my undergraduate degree and I knew enough philosophy to talk a lot, but not enough philosophy to talk well. In the three chairs around me were a middle-aged priest from Northern Ireland, a newly divorced Canadian novelist, and an aggressively atheistic man with wild hair and wild eyes.

We started with small talk. “Where have you come from? What do you do for a living?” Then, drip by drip, question by question, we tested the waters. I asked a question about ethics. The priest asked about religion. The writer asked about love. The atheist never asked but always answered.

We talked on that balcony until the Sun came up. Tirana was a shabby, dusty place back then, and yet I remember it more fondly than most places I’ve visited since. That conversation with those strangers — strangers I never saw again — came to define so much of what I still believe. It defines what I consider to be the power of a good conversation.

I live in hope of another Tirana.

Socrates (L), Jonny (M), Agnes (R)

The Socratic way of life

In this week’s interview, I spoke with Agnes Callard about how to have better conversations. Callard believes that we should try to make our conversations more philosophical more often. We should sprinkle our chats with a dusting of the Socratic method. But I want to admit something: I’ve got a conflicted relationship with the “Socratic method.”

On the one hand, I recognize how powerful and philosophically important it is. The Socratic method essentially involves two elements. The first is “Socratic irony,” or “Socratic ignorance,” where you pretend not to know a thing so that you might elicit answers from a friend. “Oh, I didn’t know murder was wrong, can you tell me why it is?” you say, and your partner will tell you all about the value of life, consent, and the harm principle. Or so it’s hoped. The second element is the intention to seek “first principles.” A Socratic dialogue asks follow-up questions, trying to trim an argument back to its basic component parts and see how strong the foundations are.

“The Socratic rule is saying, ‘Look, I’m not going to accept that unless I’m absolutely certain—I’m going to test it, I’m going to challenge it, I’m going to hold it up to the highest possible standard.’ And that process is the process of inquiry. It’s the process by which you acquire knowledge.”

I appreciate the merit of both these things. Socratic irony elicits good replies, and follow-up questions leave no stone unturned. Yet I rarely use the Socratic method myself. I think there are two reasons for this. First, pretending to be ignorant is a kind of dishonesty. It’s an actor’s trick — a debater’s trick. I tend toward honesty and frankness in my conversations, and Socrates’ entire starting point is a kind of wink-at-the-audience ruse. That would bother me.

Second, there’s a certain meanness to what Socrates was doing. Yes, Socrates was in the business of truth-seeking. He was a virtuous, noble sort. But if you read Plato’s dialogues, what is he doing? He’s publicly humiliating people. Even if Socrates was genuinely ignorant about justice or piety or whatever, he was clearly a devastating and brilliant debater. There’s something of the “YouTube Pwn” in Socrates. He invites discussion from people by pretending to be ignorant and then rips their argument — and their reputation — to shreds in the agora. Yes, some people might “deserve” that reputational assault — murderers, fascists, tyrants. But, in the main, Socrates is talking to just normal people. There’s something a touch unlikeable about what he’s doing. Something a bit cruel.

Ultimately, this comes down to a first principles thing. In our interview, Callard even pointed out that there’s a kind of ethical (as in way-of-living) element to being Socratic. As she put it:

“Socratic intellectualism, the ethical theory I propose, is centred around knowledge. Many ethical theories assume we already possess what we need; Socrates shows us the real task is to remedy our ignorance, which is why we need each other.”

I appreciate that knowledge is important, but is it the highest good? In the ancient world, there were many different answers to “what’s the greatest good?” Socrates thought it was knowledge, the Epicureans thought it was tranquillity, the Skeptics thought it was about suspending belief, and the Stoics thought it was virtue.

I lean more Epicurean and Stoic than Socratic about these things. Callard explicitly calls out Skepticism and Epicureanism as “conceited.” Tranquillity “doesn’t sound good to me,” and Skepticism is a “big mistake.” I’m not so sure. The Socratic method is no doubt a useful tool to use often for a great many things. But can we build an ethical theory out of it — should we all try to live like Socrates? For my own part, I’d find a world of Socrateses hard to live in.

I think I’d rather spend my time under the Stoa, or ho kepos, than the Socratic agora.

Where would you spend your ancient Greek hours?

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IN YOUR OPINION

An interesting response this week to the question, “How often do you have meaningful conversations?” More than ever, I feel this one is slightly warped by the fact that the respondents have all chosen to follow a philosophy page. Still, good to see “often” doing so well there.

I got this email about “good conversations,” and I love it:

“I know that this is pretty contrarian, but some of the best “conversations” I’ve had are in actual silence. I’ve been married now for 30 years, and some days, Frank and I will barely say a word to each other. My favorite conversations are when Frank will just give me something I need or when I’ll point at something he’d find interesting. We don’t always need to talk, but this is our language of love.”

– Lorraine, UK

What a beautiful answer, and I wholeheartedly agree. Anyone who knows me well will likely smile and raise an eyebrow because I find it hard to stop talking. I need a distraction — a film, a book, a phone — if I’m not to talk. Perhaps that’s why I love this answer so much. Comfortable silence is, at least for me, an act of love. There are probably only three or four people in my life I can be comfortably silent with, and that’s something I appreciate and cherish often.

How often do you enjoy companionable silences?

Next week, we’re exploring the philosophy of religion with Alex O’Connor. And so, I’m asking a big ‘un:

Do you believe in a God or a metaphysical force?

Send me your thoughts via email or comment below.

MINI READING LIST

• "Mystery humbles you": Scott Derrickson on why skepticism and faith aren't enemies - Big Think

• The price of Christianity's "broken bargain" with democracy - Big Think

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RESOURCES

This newsletter contains my reflection on the topic at hand. Here is a list of the material shared in this email, as well as extra content about the topic that I've shared on my other social platforms:

• The companion article inspired by my conversation with Agnes Callard

• My short video about having transformational conversations, featured on Big Think’s Instagram page

• The full, unedited audio interview with Agnes Callard:

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Jonny is the creator of the Mini Philosophy social network. He’s an internationally bestselling author of three books and the resident philosopher at Big Think. He's known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.

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