Last modified: Sept. 20, 2025
Dennis Mancl - dmancl@acm.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The main theme of the book is “thinking” – and how to avoid wrong thinking that comes from believing experts in rhetoric.
The advice about how to “think better” is all derived from the dialogues of the Greek philosopher Socrates. To many people, Socrates is a tragic figure because he was executed for political reasons. Robertson decides to tell more about Socrates life and times, retelling the story of Socrates by drawing on the works of his famous followers Plato and Xenophon plus other biographical information.
Robertson is also set the context of the rise of Greek philosophy by including stories about the people who influenced Socrates throughout his career, particularly the Ionian philosopher Anaxagoras and the political figures Pericles and Alcibiades.
Robertson is a practicing psychotherapist, and the book is filled with comparisons between the “Socratic Method” of asking questions and the methods used in psychotherapy today. In both cases, the questioner is trying to challenge the “wrong thinking” of citizens or patients.
Robertson explains that Socrates could be very annoying to his friends and adversaries. Socrates often used other people as a sounding board to improve his own thinking. Many people thought that Socrates was very wise, but Socrates wasn’t sure of his own wisdom. But over time, he discovered that most people who were considered wise were actually quite foolish. And he learned to distrust orators who wanted to turn everything into a story.
The book proceeds in an unusual order: it begins with the trial of Socrates at the end of his life. Then it jumps back to his youth and his life as a worker in his father’s stoneworkers business and later as a self-sufficient philosopher, teacher, and advisor. Also, as an Athenian citizen, Socrates served as a soldier in several military campaigns during the Peleponesian Wars.
Robertson delves into Socrates’s exploration of the nature of wisdom, justice, and learning.
Socrates was most famous for ”Socratic dialogue.” Plato and Xenophon have left us many stories about famous Socratic dialogues, which were sometimes with competing philosophers and sometimes with ordinary citizens. We don’t know if those dialogues were accurately told, but most of what we know of Socrates’s philosophy is from those stories. Plato in particular probably added some his own ideas - such as Platonic Forms. But the dialogues definitely tell a compelling story of a very independent-minded thinker.
The most famous dialogues were discussions with notorious “Sophists,” a collection of teachers who would help their students succeed in politics and arguing legal cases. The Sophists were mercenary thinkers who were “in it for the money.” They were famous for not caring about what is true and good, their debating techniques were based on tricks for persuading the public. They taught some of their tricks to people who wanted to win court cases.
The author specifically mentions the confrontations between Socrates and two prominent Sophists: Protagoras and Gorgias.
But Socrates shunned the Sophists way of debating, because he wanted to understand what was true and good. He sought to live a life of doing good for the entire society. He used his questions as a technique to learn what he could from others.
A recurring theme in the Socratic dialogues... Socrates would explain to his friends that there is often a difference between how something appears and how it actually is. Socrates asked questions that could help his friends understand more than just superficial appearances.
Socrates asked friends if “some people are slaves of their own ignorance.” Their essential ignorance is not a lack of trade skills (such as the expertise of the cobbler, blacksmith, or carpenter). Their primary ignorance is the lack of knowledge about what is good and beautiful in the world - which are the most important things in life. How can we judge if some person is good or foolish?
The author tries to draw connections between Socrates’s philosophical efforts and modern theories about psychology. One of the techniques that Socrates used to think more clearly about things was to create cognitive distance, a way to observe his own feelings more rationally. Socrates would talk or write about himself in the third person, reducing his direct involvement in self-observation. He would imagine how other people saw him.
One of the later chapters talked about some of the thinking errors that are commonly identified in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (originated by Aaron T. Beck):
We can often find these cognitive distortions on our own, without a therapist.
The last chapters of the book turn to the rise of tyranny in Athens after its defeat at the hands of Sparta. Political power became even more connected to property and the elite. The author explains how the evoluton of political forces lead to Socrates’s trial and conviction.
Socrates faced death without fear, because he believed that he did his best to live a good life.