The Questioning Method
Socrates and the art of the elenchus
The Art of Questioning
Socrates rarely lectured. Instead he asked questions (What is courage? What is justice?) then gently tested each answer for contradictions. This method, called the elenchus, works by cross-examination: your own words are followed to where they collapse. The goal isn't to humiliate but to clear away false confidence, so that real understanding has room to begin.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Where this sits in the course
“The Questioning Method” is lesson 2 of 3 in The Examined Life, a course about begin with Socrates: what philosophy is and why questioning matters.. The lessons are sequenced rather than a menu, so this one assumes what came before it.
The Examined Life is itself one of 18 courses in thinkr. The set opens with what philosophy is, moves through the Stoics and the Eastern traditions, then into what can be known, what exists, how to act and how power works — closing on practical reasoning you can use in an argument this week.
More from Socrates
“I know that I know nothing.”
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
“There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”
In the app this lesson is followed by 4 exercises that check whether the idea actually landed — and every answer, right or wrong, is explained rather than scored. That is the part a written page cannot reproduce.