Saturday, February 04, 2006

How Philosophy works,,

When I think of philosophy I think of Socrates. Today I had an argument with my friend near my door. I said the disciples of Socrates managed to bribe the authorities to free him from death but however he chooses to die. She said none of the disciples could ever reach do that.
Then I began searching in the net about him and his disciples. I found this very interesting piece.
One day Socrates came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"
Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple filter?"
"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?" The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really..."
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even useful why tell it to me at all?" The man was defeated and ashamed. This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem. So whenever someone wants to spread gossip think of this.

It also explains why he never found out that Plato (his student) was having an affair with his wife.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wikipedia says " The character of Socrates provides an illustration of a historical conundrum. If Socrates ever wrote a single word, it has not survived. As such, the entirety of modern knowledge concerning Socrates must be drawn from a limited number of secondary sources, such as the works of Plato, Aristotle, Aristophanes and Xenophon. Aristophanes was known as a satirist, and so his accounts of Socrates may well be skewed, exaggerated, or totally falsified." --- Well someone wrote this anyway in wikipedia and I am just Ctrl-C Ctrl-V in it here...so I dont know if that is really the truth, or I dont know if its good or bad (its just funny), and I dont think its useful at all ( makes it even funnier :)) So Plato might have well lied about his work ( for obvious reasons) and aristocrat is a word derived from aristos probably fomr aristotle...well we all know how true the aristocrats are...:)...but I will take your word for it though that socrates said that actually :)

2/05/2006 01:49:00 AM  
Blogger Camphor said...

@navin - lol. Funny indeed. Darn that you don't blog anymore.

@vibha - I doubt he cared about that. Nobody was worried about AIDS back then.

2/05/2006 01:54:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

@navin
Socrates' wife Xantippe was a kind of shrew. It is believed that he himself said it. As he didnt write anything... well we dont know.
@Camphor
Yah possible that he might not cared but i wonder if at all he came to know about this.

2/05/2006 02:56:00 PM  
Blogger THE DEVIL said...

hmm... good one! Well, a girl telling not to spread gossip is something new though!!

2/09/2006 11:42:00 AM  
Blogger freak of mind said...

Gossip: entertaining oneself and others by talking about the personal affairs of others.i think thats what u hv started here in your tailpiece
Gossip needn't be false to be evil - there's a lot of truth that shouldn't be passed around.

cudnt help recollecting Thoreau

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit it and read it are old women over their tea.

i think there are three types of people

GOSSIP who talks about others
BORE who talks about themselves
CONVERSATIONALIST who talks about the listener.

I can already visualise a tape on ur mouth.Don't let the littleness in others bring out the littleness in you.

what do u think of this "Forbidden fruit creates many jams"

2/11/2006 12:35:00 PM  
Blogger freak of mind said...

check on my post and comment

2/11/2006 01:32:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

@devil
girls maintain more secrets in general. this is not known much.
@prem
the last line is just a joke. see that he was happier w/o knowing the truth.

2/12/2006 08:16:00 AM  
Blogger the Monk said...

yeah, that dude was somethin else...and I have to agree with camphor, that would'be hardly mattered to him...

2/19/2006 12:20:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gossip is also a form of networking and has its many usefulness i.e. intelligence agencies use the same to instill fear and achieve their objective. Pedantic talk is useful, but to an extent. And, everything has to be viewed in an context.

3/15/2006 07:17:00 AM  

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