Donald Robertson

And the first thing I would always do, Chris, is shake his hand, right? And it took a surprisingly long time for him to get used to that. I always remember my imaginary Socrates, in my mind, I insisted on shaking his hand, but he thought it was a bit weird at first. And I would say to him, I'd ask him lots of questions about anything that I was struggling with in the book.

And what I generally found, any of the history stuff, His opinion, well, you know, I'd be like trying to think, we need to kind of eye on this and get it accurate and stuff. And he would always, my imaginary Socrates anyway, would always be like, who cares? You know, it's like, I don't even know why, you know, he seemed to place surprisingly little importance on getting it historically accurate.

And what I generally found, any of the history stuff, His opinion, well, you know, I'd be like trying to think, we need to kind of eye on this and get it accurate and stuff. And he would always, my imaginary Socrates anyway, would always be like, who cares? You know, it's like, I don't even know why, you know, he seemed to place surprisingly little importance on getting it historically accurate.

And what I generally found, any of the history stuff, His opinion, well, you know, I'd be like trying to think, we need to kind of eye on this and get it accurate and stuff. And he would always, my imaginary Socrates anyway, would always be like, who cares? You know, it's like, I don't even know why, you know, he seemed to place surprisingly little importance on getting it historically accurate.

and he said no there's just focus on telling the story of the literary character of socrates in a way that gets people interested in the philosophy that's what actually matters right you know there are other books that you can go and read where people try and argue through the evidence and you know yeah try to get to truth i've been thinking about something not too dissimilar a little bit more generalized but i think what you're getting at as well which is

and he said no there's just focus on telling the story of the literary character of socrates in a way that gets people interested in the philosophy that's what actually matters right you know there are other books that you can go and read where people try and argue through the evidence and you know yeah try to get to truth i've been thinking about something not too dissimilar a little bit more generalized but i think what you're getting at as well which is

and he said no there's just focus on telling the story of the literary character of socrates in a way that gets people interested in the philosophy that's what actually matters right you know there are other books that you can go and read where people try and argue through the evidence and you know yeah try to get to truth i've been thinking about something not too dissimilar a little bit more generalized but i think what you're getting at as well which is

See, you are thinking about it in a more Socratic way. So the very fact you're going, well, can I see it from more than one perspective? So the role that you always have to be qualified, well, maybe there's some exceptions to that, right? And you can easily think of examples of great thinkers in the past that...

See, you are thinking about it in a more Socratic way. So the very fact you're going, well, can I see it from more than one perspective? So the role that you always have to be qualified, well, maybe there's some exceptions to that, right? And you can easily think of examples of great thinkers in the past that...

See, you are thinking about it in a more Socratic way. So the very fact you're going, well, can I see it from more than one perspective? So the role that you always have to be qualified, well, maybe there's some exceptions to that, right? And you can easily think of examples of great thinkers in the past that...

they weren't qualified they were outsiders or talented amateurs or whatever but on the other hand having zero qualifications in certain subjects clearly in some cases just leads to the Dunning-Kruger effect and people making schoolboy errors that are just almost cringeworthy if you know about the subject um

they weren't qualified they were outsiders or talented amateurs or whatever but on the other hand having zero qualifications in certain subjects clearly in some cases just leads to the Dunning-Kruger effect and people making schoolboy errors that are just almost cringeworthy if you know about the subject um

they weren't qualified they were outsiders or talented amateurs or whatever but on the other hand having zero qualifications in certain subjects clearly in some cases just leads to the Dunning-Kruger effect and people making schoolboy errors that are just almost cringeworthy if you know about the subject um

I mean, the most obvious example of that, I think, is the internet is absolutely awash with people that can't tell the difference between causation and correlation and medical research. But newspapers and magazines have exploited that confusion for generations, but now it's become a much bigger thing on the internet.

I mean, the most obvious example of that, I think, is the internet is absolutely awash with people that can't tell the difference between causation and correlation and medical research. But newspapers and magazines have exploited that confusion for generations, but now it's become a much bigger thing on the internet.

I mean, the most obvious example of that, I think, is the internet is absolutely awash with people that can't tell the difference between causation and correlation and medical research. But newspapers and magazines have exploited that confusion for generations, but now it's become a much bigger thing on the internet.

So like understanding kind of like basic medical research methods, like, you know, not getting confused about that, like does lead a lot of people to make basic mistakes, right? Basically to misinterpret. If you don't know, like during the pandemic, like, every five minutes people were waving around research studies and stuff that didn't have any medical research, right?

So like understanding kind of like basic medical research methods, like, you know, not getting confused about that, like does lead a lot of people to make basic mistakes, right? Basically to misinterpret. If you don't know, like during the pandemic, like, every five minutes people were waving around research studies and stuff that didn't have any medical research, right?

So like understanding kind of like basic medical research methods, like, you know, not getting confused about that, like does lead a lot of people to make basic mistakes, right? Basically to misinterpret. If you don't know, like during the pandemic, like, every five minutes people were waving around research studies and stuff that didn't have any medical research, right?

So they had no idea what the stuff they were reading actually meant. And over and over again, they're kind of like just making the kind of mistakes that you would get taught not to make, right? So there are problems that happen. And there are people when they discuss ancient philosophy that make errors that an academic philosopher maybe wouldn't make.