Gage Cantrell

“A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“Why does Socrates use so many analogies? First, he is trying to get his partners to think hard in unaccustomed ways. Analogies make the process seem more familiar. He draws comparisons to everyday things and activities—to cobblers and clay. These images give relief from abstraction and create some comfort. They also suggest that anyone can do this, not just specialists. Socrates says: talk the way you are used to talking about the things you know, but do it while thinking about things that are larger.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“The ancient Romans built elaborate networks of pipes to deliver water where they wanted it to go. The networks were a marvel. But many of the pipes were made of lead, and the water carried the lead along with it. One school of thought regards this as part of the reason for the decline and fall of Rome: lead poisoning gradually took its toll, impairing the thought and judgment of many Romans, especially at the top. The theory is much disputed; perhaps it contains no truth. But as a metaphor it is irresistible. We have built networks for the delivery of information—the internet, and especially social media. These networks, too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage. It craves confirmation and resents contradiction. Attention spans collapse; imbecility propagates, then seems normal, then is celebrated. The capacity for rational discourse between people who disagree gradually rots. I have a good deal more confidence in the lead-pipe theory of the internet, and its effect on our culture, than in the lead-pipe theory of the fall of Rome.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook

“If we treat Socrates as an internalized feature of the mind, then this is its first and constant order of business: uprooting false conceits of knowledge.”
― Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner's Handbook