Socratic Method

Socratic Method: What is a chair? @PhiloofAlexandria

[@vhyomet620]

Hello Professor. I hope this is reaching you. I read the law at an undergraduate level in India. I just wanted to thank you for all the free education you have given to me. You are truly what we call a 'Guru'. In the course of liberal arts and legal studies, disproportionate importance is given to the technical area of the law, and less to subjects like history, philosophy, political science, etc., which I feel are equally essential to a truly liberal education. Your videos and lectures have provided profound and wide-ranging knowledge that has helped me immensely. Thank you very much for all of this. Love from India.

[@laurenc9415]

thank you professor for teaching some humans , love ❤

[@shubhamrautela7655]

I had never seen so many different chairs before!

[@marisaelenenadiejamusiccom3974]

love this video… I was completely obsessed with Socrates as a seven, and I just completed a composition numbers of months ago, called Socrates, that is an experimental composition, exposing our society in Western civilization for what it actually is. Even the eastern civilizations all of the manatee needs to look in the mirror.

[@predjee]

for the last 8 years i have been searching youtube on videos of what the Socratic method exactly is! thank you so much! Knowledge should be available to everyone over the world!

[@naho6009]

Thank you professor, I recently became found your channel and it's amazing for that persons can't able to study in university like me but interested to learn philosophy.

[@tenzinsoepa7648]

massive admiration and respect sir...

[@ryanwalsh1480]

I find this interesting as I'm standing building furniture out of wood listening. Good lecture

[@zla3031]

I can watch/listen to your videos all day.

[@AJel-uu9zx]

So great! I’ve ever come across a Socratic dialogue video that compares. Very thorough demonstration-this gives us the gift of uncertainty and encourages a certain sort of expansive thinking.

[@RebNegru]

Thank you!!!

[@DrOwenAnderson]

This one is very helpful in clarifying what is and what is not the Socratic method.

[@rafaeljhoni7405]

Hi from Brazil professor!! I will enjoy your class, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

[@teachphilosophy]

I created a video on the S Method about ten years ago, but I love that your lecture clearly shows the limitations of the S Method. We know but cannot always outline the necessary and sufficient conditions. thank you for all your videos.

[@mirjunaid3723]

Thanku sir

[@lordfarquaad3939]

I recently found your channel and have found it super useful. Thank you for putting on content, I love learning philosophy and it is very useful in debate. One question I have regarding Kant that I was wondering if you could answer: How does Kant deal with conflicting perfect duties? He only ever writes like one paragraph about conflicting duties, and it is super short and blippy. He claims it’s never possible for the duties to conflict, but I’m very confused about how that could be the case considering situations such as civil obedience conflicting with promise breaking, such as needing to speed or you will be late for work.

[@bawol-official]

Thank you so much for spreading your knowledge.

[@Catholictomherbert]

Knowledge? Does knowledge have something your looking for?

[@PLATOLOSOPHY]

Thank you prof.

[@ericcortes1845]

Ah, your copy of McKeon's "The Basic Works of Aristotle" on the shelf behind you brought a smile to my face. It's quite an old friend, eh?

[@evianwahter]

Thanks

[@shadows1531]

Chair is a structure, which my mind reconginses as a chair

[@ShailySingh4321]

Amazing explanation sir! Sir, which is the best book to read to learn "Socrates Dialogue questions"?

[@zla3031]

the high chair thing blew muh mind

[@samanahmed698]

Thank you from iraq

[@MrFennmeista]

The eternal quest to define truth

[@bruceb85]

The chair is only defined in so much as we can mutually agree on its definition. IE A football in America is a different shape than a football in Europe. What I want to know is if the chair is one part stardust derivatives, and mostly empty space, does the chair even exist? If we were not here to observe the chair, would the chair exist in physical reality, or does it only exist as a thought form? If all matter derives from such stardust, yet is mostly empty space, can we say that all matter is the same and thus cannot be defined other than through the mutual meanings and definitions we agree upon?

[@macmac1022]

Simplest way I can define time. Change.

[@crowdozer3592]

The beanbag chair puzzled me but raises a great point looking at it this way, if your definition of a chair doesn't include the beanbag chair, then by our standards the definition is wrong. But before the beanbag chair was sold and marketed, the definition is okay, because nobody prior to it would say "That's incomplete, what about a bag full of beans?" - nobody except the guy inventing them at least ;) So is the chair definition wrong for not including a motorized refrigerator? What if I plan on selling that as a chair and it finds a cult following? Then it is! but maybe only for people who know about it and have been exposed to it. So what happened, did I change the global definition of a chair or did I carelessly misuse the term chair and corrupt people's views? 🤔 Maybe a bit useless in the chair example but I can see how you really drill down and can figure out subtle differences in the basics we accept. A chair for me is a stool for you, regardless of the form, or the function, or the intent. Now shift that away from chairs to more important things ... I can see why people found Socrates annoying 😆

[@johngibson4882]

Instead of defining what is a chair by it's characteristics. Maybe we should go with strictly its function. The one defining feature of a chair seems to be a place for on person to sit. That would seem to solve the beanbag chair and others that aren't really considered the classic chair. Perhaps a bar stool is a nickname for a chair. I'm not sure if these might lean back into being to general but it just seems to me that trying to define something purely on my it's physical form seems to lead us, at least in this case, down a sort of messy rhetorical road. Just my thoughts. What do you think?

[@pennyhoffmann5205]

Places to sit can include false positives like the sand at the beach, a carpet, and another person.

[@JorgeGonzalez-sx7fk]

@@pennyhoffmann5205 something to sit that elevates the sitter above the ground

[@shivambhanushali3086]

​@@JorgeGonzalez-sx7fkA bed? A platform/stage?

[@InfinityOf6]

I think of a stool as a type of chair :3

[@tylerhulsey982]

Especially the ones with the backs!

[@InfinityOf6]

@@tylerhulsey982 Stools and chairs and benches are all "seats", maybe it's a mistake to ask if other seats are "chairs"

[@setiandromeda6091]

Is language our limitation? I trust I know what a chair is bt cant accurately communicate what it is.a chair can have many functions.there is a feeling I get from what I call a chair.there are things I associate a chair with ad there are several assumptions I make to determine what a chair is or is not.also often times this can be determined by culture ad environment.or e lse a chair is a chair is a chair just like sitting may not be sleeping.again wont this depend on my physiology?

[@tiborkovacs5317]

Who What Where When Which Why How = Socratic method...oslt.

[@christophercoey7804]

Much of that which is discussed relates to the gap between language and knowledge and the flawed idea that we can define many things to an exacting standard. As a poet you come to realise quite quickly that you fail language and language fails you! How can I make such a claim? Well in some languages it is very difficult to convey certain ideas, the language itself is lacking, the words themselves do not exist, or they do, but there is not enough variation or nuance to describe a particular thing in enough granularity. Evolution has shaped language too, to the point where all languages elevate certain descriptives above and beyond others. Sight is the pre-eminent sense and it shows, every language has far more numerous descriptives and nuance when it describing what is seen over and above what we can hear, smell, taste or touch let alone the many more complex senses that exist like differing forms of proprioception. My point? Language fails us!!! The idea that we can hope to define many things is mistaken. Note: I am not saying that the endeavour is foolish, or pointless, it absolutely isn't. The journey and the attempt are often fruitful as they allows us to discover things along the way both directly and indirectly, and that includes things like language fails us lol, not simply or just that we fail it, though of course we do and often to differing degrees - almost at every turn. The socratic method...would you say it was crucial in the concept of skepticism and even the Scientific method? It seems so to me, though I admit to not being remotely learned or lettered about philosophy or the history thereof. Love these videos. Very generous teaching: I love your passion for your subjects. You breathe it, it's great. P.S A moment of Eureka is a light bulb moment (we see a solution at least metaphysically or figuratively), we think of great leaders as visionaries (derived from vision, and a sight beyond eyes or light). We think of great writers as having a wonderful imagination (derived from image). Sight has been so important to humans that it has hogged a great deal of our descriptive language, true if you are French, Russian, English, Spanish etc. So it is easier to define sight with a granularity that can be lacking when it comes to other senses. This if course is only an exemplar of my claim, just as chair was in your classes about how easy or not it is to define a supposedly simple object. Try and find wonderous accolades that refer to hearing or scent alone etc, you'll struggle! Clear as a bell, Oops clear is also sight. It can be done, but the descriptives that only pertain to other senses and not sight are few and far between and we have little to no accolades for having great smell, touch or taste etc. Language was not created as by way of design, it evolved, it formed and forms and continues to evolve and it has and does according to need and culture etc. It is not very good at being bent to our will according to strict definition. If one has the apriori view that language is perfect, designed or created by God etc, then it is harder to shake the notion that perfect definitions are always there, just waiting for clearer thinking and that one fine day a bright mind might hit upon an ultimate definition. Mostly I think the exercise of philosophy is positive for different reasons. The telos of philosophy is thought to be truth, right? It seems to me that the telos of philosophy is to think critically. Philosophy a block upon which to sharpen the mind, and discover or rediscover how much we don't know. A tool to help us make the best out of the reality of what is, rather than what one would wish or hope for. I waffle. I am sure your lectures and your videos have been cause for more wondering, wandering, waffle and outright pondering of life and what it all means than most of KZbin and social media combined. I dare say you've got a lot of average students above average grades and made lessons a pleasure.

[@setiandromeda6091]

What about what is sitting?must a chair be sat on ad must the sister be human?

[@bijupl1]

For the love of god quote the videos you are inserting

[@ultraparadoxical7610]

I find it very difficult to reconcile your clear-thinking philosophy videos with the fact that you support/supported Trump.

[@PhiloofAlexandria]

I don’t talk about politics here. But Trump is a Rawlsian conservative. Everything he did was to improve the welfare of the least advantaged. And he succeeded. Lowest unemployment for minorities ever. Wage growth, highest among the lowest income levels, for the first time in decades.

[@macmac1022]

@@PhiloofAlexandria He also seems to try and not go to war. When he threatened north korea with war because of their weapon testing, that was the only time ccn agreed with him that he should go to war. They wanted it but he did not. I am not a huge trump fan but I found him to be better then the alternatives. I just found your videos today. I love philosophy, learned it on my own for over 25 years now. So far from what I have seen you seem to be a reasoned person. OK, going to watch this one now as I have a thing for questions.

[@zakmatew]

@@PhiloofAlexandria but you focus only on the positives. Cherry picking won’t help your argument in support of trump. I underhand your unwillingness to talk about politics here but I am ready to destroy most pro trump arguments by those who present them to me. If you are up to the challenge let’s do it.