Critical Thinking Quotes Socrates

[Yogprasad Moneta]

Socratesthe ancient Greek philosopher, is known for his profound wisdom and deep insights into human nature and morality. His teachings have influenced Western philosophy and continue to inspire people to question, reflect, and seek truth.

Socrates' quotes resonate with people across generations, inspiring them to critically examine their beliefs, values, and actions. His emphasis on self-awareness, the pursuit of wisdom, and the importance of questioning and critical thinking remain relevant even today.

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.

This snippet post has (at the time of writing) received 1,740 likes and 101 comments, of which over 90% are gushing in praise over the brilliance of the message. It is the kind of response that many LinkedIn posters dream of achieving. How did such a small update achieve so much? And should it have?

The most obvious conclusion is that people like it because of the connection between ancient and modern wisdom, the findings of the prototype Western philosopher illuminating the brilliance of a thought leader in emotional intelligence 2.0. Contributors to the thread write:

We all like to feel good and clever, but, in this instance, are we really just fooling ourselves? Have we, by taking the opportunity to display our supposedly profound selves really just illustrated our foolish and erroneous nature?

It's not a quote by Plato's Socrates. Or Xenophon's Socrates. Or Aristophanes' Socrates. Or Timon's Socrates. Or even, for that matter, anybody's historical Socrates. As Michael (Mike) Webster so eloquently put it, "No, Socrates the teacher of Plato, did not say this. Or anything like this type of drivel."

So, what is it? It is a quote from a service station attendant named Socrates from Dan Millman's book, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, published in 1980. Dan Millman is a successful gymnast, athlete and martial artist who now works in the self-help field. This book is extremely well received by those who have read it. It might well be worth reading and employing as a self-help book. The Socrates character in it might be a profoundly illuminating character. Buy it and find out. But don't be tricked into thinking this Socrates has anything to do with ancient wisdom.

It might be, of course, that Dr. Bradberry was referring to this book, After all, 1980 is a reasonably long time ago and it could be arguable that there is no real evidence that he claims it comes from Plato's Socrates (the picture of Socrates and the words "Socrates" and "Greek philosopher" are just circumstantial, m'lud).

What is for sure, though, is that the quote Dr. Bradberry posted has absolutely nothing to do with the actual Socrates. The Socrates character in Dan Millman's book is aligned to the kind of Eastern spirituality that would have been total anathema to the actual Socrates. The quote Dr. Bradberry shared is as far removed from Socratic thought as possible. Indeed, the great modern writers on Socrates (e.g. Kierkegaard, Vlastos, Popper, Nehamas, Nietzsche) are of the opinion that Socrates was outstandingly capable of challenging old ways of doing things but did not presume he could deliver the new. You can read a little bit about how Socrates is a prototype change agent here if you are interested in this type of thing.

As for Dr. Bradberry's Socrates. It is not Socrates. It could never be Socrates. Nobody who reads or writes seriously about Socrates could be fooled for a second. Yet, (madness) it has great traction and a lot of people will walk away feeling they have been touched by ancient wisdom, despite having been touched by almost nothing at all.

As those who read my scribblings already know, I'm pretty passionate about ensuring management thought is underpinned by intellectual solidity, an evidential base, and meaningful discussion. The success of Dr. Bradberry's post illustrates the challenging nature of this passion. A high-profile name posts something that is 100% inaccurate and receives almost universal praise for doing so. What is more mind-blowing is that when the inaccuracy of the quote and source is revealed in the comments to the article, it makes not a blind bit of difference to the degree of praise it is getting. In my experience, this is not uncommon.

Unfortunately, all that seems to matter in the contemporary online space is how marketing and self-promotion can be employed to make people feel clever and motivated. It's almost as if the practice of emotional intelligence 2.0 and it's screwed on sub-disciplines are intent on building a false consciousness that will turn us all into happy robots, blithely liking meaningless quotes and management cliches whilst failing to properly engage with the messy, dirty organisational reality that surrounds us.

Having spent over a decade trying to develop a holistic perspective on the opportunities and perils of organisational change, I try my best to stand back and reflect upon the reams of supposed "best way" practices inundating the change management and transformational leadership market. I hope to meld techniques and tools of business transformation with a deeper appreciation of the value of the experience and skill sets of those going through change, reduce the psycho-emotional stresses accompanying change and inject some humour, sensitivity and critical thinking into the process of change. If you enjoyed this post, others, in no order of importance, can be found below.

Illustrating the importance of irony for organizations and management is my life's work. Without trying to be a Machiavellian manipulator or provocatively tugging at heartstrings, please, if you enjoyed this article or found it interesting in any way, take a second to comment, like or share it. Thanks.

Mays Imad received her undergraduate training from the University of Michigan Dearborn, where she studied philosophy. She received her doctoral degree in cellular and clinical neurobiology from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. She then completed a National Institute of Health-Funded Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona in the Department of Neuroscience. She joined the Department of Life and Physical Sciences at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, as an adjunct faculty member in 2009, and later as a full-time faculty member in 2013.

Somehow I kept thinking, I just need to finish my school. It became like a soothing lullaby, I just need to finish my school. Somehow, if I finished my school and got my education, I knew that I would be okay. Whatever happened, whether my mom came back or not, I would be able to take care of myself and my sisters. My mom came back, we were able to leave, and we made it to Jordan. Then we made it to the States. I think back about that story and what led to that realization that if I got my education, that it was so intimately linked to being okay.

[00:07:20] Bonni: That to me seems quite an unusual source of comfort. Do you also find it unusual source of comfort or is that my own cultural background? Perhaps speaking here, do you see that as something that would be a common way, when someone faced with that kind of a situation, to see it as such a comfort?

[00:14:35] Bonni: What can you tell us about what is missing from even those of us that may introduce some of these things in our classes, as far as the inner landscape of critical thinking? What can you tell us about that?

First of all, decide on definitions. What is critical thinking? How do we teach it? What is logical thinking reasoning, and how do we teach it? We wanted to also come up with examples, sample assignments, and to really spend time on all right, we have those sample assignments, we have definitions, how do we assess it? We did about a year of work with that incubator grant. We created a website. We put everything on that website.

Now, in the process of doing research with my students and also doing the work with that incubator grant, there were two things that emerged. Number one, critical thinking is not enough. If I was seeing that students learned the logical fallacies and learned the structure of an argument and how to assess it and analyze it, and yet they were getting stuck when they encountered something that was ambiguous that dealt with uncertainty, or definitely they were getting stuck when they were dealing with a topic that had some ideological or political implication.

[00:19:29] Bonni: Something that really helped me understand this, as I read your work, was an assignment that you gave to students about imagining a world devoid of critical thinking. Could you talk about that assignment and what they came up with? This was just fascinating for me.

What came back is this without me preparing them, without me even giving them any hint, but this link to our ability to live together, our ability to thrive, some students talked about empathy. Some students talked about justice, some students linked it to the demise of society and democracy, and so on. They were able to see, at least, the students that I worked with, the connection between this class, this assignment, these fallacies that we were learning, and the future and their role in that future.

In fact, I was just analyzing some of the qualitative data from one of the studies I did on critical thinking and what comes back, again and again, is students want this to be infused in all of their courses across curriculum, and to be able to practice more and more. One of the students, whom I was reading their input, said that it actually helps reduce their imposter syndrome. The more they practice the skills, the more it becomes second nature, the more they freeze when they are confronted with new situations.

I remember in my classes, the classes that left an impact on me that remember to this day, years later, those are the ones where there was a lot of reinforcement and a lot of integration and making connections, not just with each other, but the materials. I mentioned Dr. Maureen Linker. I remember she was my professor and she was remarkable. Even the stories that she told about her family, about her upbringing. She used those stories to help us practice some of those critical thinking or logic, symbolic logic tools we were using in the classroom. She understood though remarkably so, the affective component of learning.

3a8082e126