Index Generalis

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

• abortion, 255
• action
  • conceptual infrastructure of,
    49–50
  • knowledge and, 126, 165–66
• Agathon, 322, 323
• akratic person, 88. See also weakness of will
• Alcibiades
  • disagreements over justice and, 59–62, 67, 260
  • doomed love for Socrates, 313–17, 321–22, 323, 331
  • doubts about authenticity of, 382n1
  • elevating the demands of kinship, 136
  • encounter with Socrates, 178–79, 181
  • on justice and advantage, 111–17, 123, 125, 127
  • Moore sentence asserted by, 186–92
  • Socrates addressing the soul of, 148
  • Socrates’ failed impact on, 236
  • Socratic irony and, 314, 324, 325–26, 328–29, 331–33
  • ultimately self-destructive, 205–7
  • untimely question addressed to, 203
  • wanting to rule the world, 53, 177–78
  • wavering in, 38–39
• Alcibiades, life and death of, 179–81, 205–7
• anger, 71–76, 72, 99, 120
• Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 342–43, 348
• Anscombe, Elizabeth, 165–66
• answers
  • assumed without asking, 37
  • communal, 82–83
  • currently in use, 57–59, 66, 67, 70, 76, 201
  • inquisitive, 229
  • Meno’s paradox and, 217–18
  • needed for one’s entire life, 59–61, 67
  • perfectly stable, 238
  • refutation by questioning of, 106
  • as self-affirmations, 56
  • shared or collective, 73–75
  • Socrates’ possession of, 229
  • stabilized by inquiry, 49
  • Tolstoy on impossibility of, 33
• anti-Socratizing, 248
• Anytus, 51, 322
• Apollo, 8, 14
• Apology, 11, 51, 149, 152, 153, 251, 317, 325, 364, 387n53
• aporia, 149, 184–86
• a priori knowledge, 232–34, 236
• Aristophanes
  • Clouds, mocking Socrates, 6
  • on love, 299–302, 303, 311, 316
• Aristotelianism, 13–14, 18, 19. See also Neo-Aristotelian ethics
• Aristotle
  • change and, 234
  • on nature of things, 220
  • on perception vs. desire, 81
  • Politics of, 131, 297
  • roots of current ethics and, 128
  • Socratizing example and, 246
  • on true knowledge, 167–68
  • Virtue Ethics and, 111, 124, 125
• Augustine, 154–55
• autochthony, 234, 250, 251
• autonomy, Kantian, 122
• Ayer, A. J., 276–78

• Bacon, Francis, 135
• beautiful things, 137, 380n26
• Becker, Gary, 247–48
• belief. See also Moore’s paradox
  • about what we are doing, 166
  • as answer to a question, 29–30
  • Gadfly-Midwife paradox and, 145
  • load-bearing, 67–70, 201
  • that a person needs to have, 56–57
  • truth and, 160–68
• Bentham, Jeremy, 12, 13, 110, 119
• bodily commands, 81–82
  • Epicureanism and, 12–13, 117–19
  • fear of death and, 358, 360
  • justice vs. advantage and, 112–17
  • kinship commands and, 83–84, 85–87
  • Socrates’ criticisms of, 86–88
  • Utilitarianism and, 19, 119, 120–21
  • weakness of will and, 90–91
• breakups, 307–9
• burial, 74, 354
• Butler, Samuel, 135

• Callicles
  • criticizing equality, 274–75, 286
  • Gadfly-Midwife paradox and, 150, 156
  • on justice and advantage, 116
  • kinship group influencing, 87
  • observing Socrates’ interactions, 10, 17, 18–19
  • on politics, 42, 251–52
  • Socrates testing answers with, 204
  • Socratic irony and, 324–26, 328–29, 331–33, 387n56
  • trolley problems and, 123
  • world outside the conversation and, 293
• caste systems, 250–51
• categorical imperative, 12, 16, 120, 121, 122
• Cebes, 345, 365
• Cephalus, 322
• Chaerephon, 7–8, 324–25, 331–32, 387n56
• Charmides, 150, 315, 322
• Chautauqua, 132–35
• Chomsky, Noam, 218–19
• Cicero, 14, 326–27, 328, 332
• Clifford, William
  • on seeking truth and avoiding error, 160–68, 170, 172, 204–5
  • Socrates in role of, 237
  • Turing test and, 242
• climate change, 254–55
• Clitophon, 155–57, 173–74, 207, 236, 381n13
• codependence, 300
• commands. See savage commands
• communal answers, 82–83
• Confession (Tolstoy), 4–5, 18, 26, 34, 45, 342–43, 368
• Confessions (Augustine), 154–55
• consequentialism, 110, 121–23
• contractualism, 110, 121–22
• conversation, Socratic. See also inquisitive refutation
  • equality in, 296
  • informed by past conversations, 204
  • on least tolerable questions, 55
  • misunderstood as competition, 174, 259
  • politicized, 257–60
  • salience of outer world in, 293–95
  • truly free, 296
• corpses, 21, 353–56
• courage/bravery, 113–14, 116, 236, 249, 336, 348, 365, 357, 369
• cowardice, 114, 136
• craft analogy, 129, 379n17
• Creon, 74–75, 104
• Critias, 157–59, 169–70, 173–74
• Crito, 51, 95–96, 101–2, 105–8, 152, 171–72, 265, 317–22, 362
• Crito, at Socrates’ death, 353–55, 363
• cultivating yourself, 196–99
• curiosity, 164, 203, 217

• dark empathy, 98
• death. See also death of Socrates; immortality of the soul; Steve
  • avoided by Ivan Ilyich, 338–42
  • corpses and, 353–55
  • fear of, 118, 356, 358–67
  • life after, 21, 54, 355, 364
  • myth of justifying one’s life, 368
  • philosophy as preparation for, 21, 368–69
  • philosophy facing up to, 349–50, 352
  • premature, 334–35, 356–58, 361
  • Socrates choosing to confront, 345–49, 351
  • Socrates’ claim to expertise in, 245–46, 249, 365, 369
  • Socratic method and, 20–21
• Death of Ivan Ilyich, The (Tolstoy), 45, 337–43, 345, 362
• death of Socrates. See also Phaedo
  • burial and, 353–54, 355
  • fear of death and, 362–67
  • helped by inquiry with others, 367–68
  • philosophy as preparation for, 337
  • sending his wife away, 363
• debate, 269–71, 322
• definition
  • misunderstood by nonphilosopher, 221
  • prioritized by Socrates, 56
  • Socratic, 221, 239
• Delphic oracle, 7–9, 196, 198
• democracy, Dewey on, 266–67
• deontology, 110, 120. See also Kantian ethics
• Descartes, René, 167–68, 292–93
• Dewey, John, 266–67, 271–72
• dialetheists, 185
• Dionysiodorus, 157, 159
• Diotima, 7, 300, 305, 380n4
• disagreement, 61–67, 201–2, 273, 282–83, 292–93, 254–65
• discrimination, and equality, 281
• division of labor, 170–75
• doxa, 84

• egalitarianism
  • finding equality point and, 281
  • in the Iliad, 282–85, 288–89
  • Nietzsche on, 274
  • as political fiction, 251
  • Socrates’ view of, 21
• Eliot, T. S., 26–27
• emotions, negative
  • load-bearing answers and, 67–68, 70
  • of sadness vs. anger, 71–76
• emotive conjugation, 41, 201
• empathy, 98
• Epictetus, 120
• Epicureans, 12–13, 117–19, 128
  • fear of death and, 118, 358–61, 364
• Epicurus, 118, 358
• equality
  • ambition driving quest for, 279
  • of being elevated together, 295–96
  • claims on the truth and, 291–92, 293
  • elusiveness of, 277–79, 281
  • leading other people and, 285–90
  • power to change your mind and, 289–90
  • practice of, 285, 290, 296–97
  • Socrates’ complaints to Polus and, 291–92
  • Socratic intellectualism and, 253
  • status-seeking behavior and, 275–77, 285
  • superiority preferred to, 274–75
  • in world of conversation, 294–95
• Erōs, 56, 303
• erōs, 307
  • philia and, 322–23
• error. See also seeking truth and avoiding error
  • open-mindedness and, 176–77
• ethical theories in the West, 11–14, 110–11. See also Aristotelianism; Epicureans; Kantian ethics; Stoic cosmopolitanism; Stoics; Utilitarianism
  • against intellectualism, 130
  • Socratic difference from, 18, 126–31
  • tamed commands and, 110, 117–20, 130
• ethics, Socratic, 14–18
  • differences from traditions, 18, 126–31
  • offering practical guidance, 18
  • reintroduced as distinctive system, 17–18
• Euthydemus, 154, 157, 315, 317
• Euthyphro, 38, 51–55, 56, 63, 152, 203, 260, 365–66
• experts, 268–69

• fear
  • of death, 118, 356, 358–61
  • of seriously reflecting on life, 47
  • in Socrates’ accusers, 11
  • sticking to practical questions and, 2, 18
  • Tolstoy’s message of, 18, 47
  • of the “why?” question, 11
• Ferrante, Elena, 46–47
• fiction, 43–47. See also Anna Karenina; Death of Ivan Ilyich; War and Peace
• fifteen minutes at a time
  • adding up to a life, 2, 26–27
  • of interlocutors declining inquiry, 38, 365–66, 367
  • never looking back, 50
  • postponing the Tolstoy problem, 47, 368
  • prospect of death and, 343
  • resisted by philosopher, 47, 366–67
  • as Tolstoyan strategy, 5
  • wavering and, 36, 44, 87, 93
• fight for social justice, 251
• fighting
  • answers in use and, 70
  • collective answers and, 75
  • disagreement converted to, 61–67, 254, 256, 260
  • as pretend arguing, 260–65
  • Socratic definition of, 262
• fighting back, 100–101
• First Amendment, 266
• FOMO vs. FONA, 360–61
  • of philosopher, 363–67
  • preparation for death and, 369
  • in Socrates’ final hours, 363–67
  • Tolstoy problem and, 368
• Forms, Plato’s theory of, 221
• Foucault, Michel, 247–48, 274
• freedom, 271–73
• freedom of speech
  • except for those who disagree with you, 42
  • flattery by orator and, 269
  • free only if inquisitive, 252–53
  • as performative contradiction, 15
  • persuasion and, 271
  • as political fiction, 251
  • Socrates’ view of, 21
  • to speak truly, 296–97
• free society, 272
• Frege, Gottlob, 69–70
• Freud, Sigmund, 247–48
• friendship (philia), 317–23

• Gadfly-Midwife paradox, 145
  • division of labor and, 170–75
  • Plato’s views and, 152–53
  • in pursuing truth and avoiding error, 160–68
  • two Socrateses and, 149–53, 175
  • two-stage view of, 154–59
• Garden of Eden, 135
• gender
  • discrimination on basis of, 281
  • maintaining feeling of equality and, 279
  • political role and, 250–51
  • pronouns and, 253–54
• Girard, René, 247–48
• Glaucon, 274
• Goffman, Erving, 247–48
• the good
  • everyone’s desire for, 21, 137, 300, 379n15
  • Socrates on love and, 300–302, 304
  • unity of, 116–17, 123, 125, 126, 137–38
• Gorgias
  • as early dialogue, 152–53
  • Gadfly-Midwife paradox and, 150, 156, 172–73
  • justice in, 21, 117, 204
  • on justifying your life, 368
  • liberal triad and, 251
  • persuasive orator in, 56, 268–69, 290
  • on politicizing in debate, 269–71, 322
  • politics in, 42
  • revenge in, 104
  • Socrates wanting discussion and, 9–10, 256–60
  • world outside the conversation and, 293
• Gorgias, Meno’s studies with, 213
• group. See also kinship commands
  • savage commands of, 13, 19
  • Stoicism and, 13
• guilt, and revenge, 101

• habituation, 13–14, 124
• Hanson, Robin, 247–48
• hedonic calculus, 118–19
• Hegel, G. W. F., 327
• hemlock, 51, 265, 344, 363
• Hippias, 54
• Hippias Minor, 152–53, 322
• Hippocrates, 35–37, 40, 201
• Hippothales, 304
• Hobbes, Thomas, 274, 286
• Homer, 54, 61–62, 153, 172. See also Iliad
• hope
  • load-bearing, 68–69
  • of Socrates at end of life, 364
• humility, Socratic, 151, 327

• ignorance
  • of arrested inquiry, 127
  • claim on the truth and, 296
  • as mastery of deepest things, 246
  • reflected in “utopias,” 135
  • Socrates’ assertion of his own, 14, 151, 152, 157–58, 224
  • Socrates on vice as, 21
  • as source of our troubles, 15–16
  • thinking as road from, 238
  • thinking with another person and, 351
  • as worst thing there is, 10–11
• Iliad (Homer)
  • corpses in, 354
  • egalitarianism in, 282–85, 288–89
  • settling a disagreement, 260–61
• immortality of the soul, 343–44, 345–46, 348, 351–53, 354–56, 365, 367–68
• impiety
  • Alcibiades charged with, 180
  • Socrates’ conviction of, 51, 53
• independence, 272–73
  • symbolic displays of, 290–91
• inequality, 253, 279–81, 285
• injustice
  • fighting over, 252, 260–61, 264–65
  • of killing Socrates, 103
  • worse for unjust person, 21
• inquiry
  • answer stabilized by, 49
  • freedom to speak and, 297
  • as a human interaction, 168–70
  • importance of, 11
  • Meno’s paradox and, 144
  • more difficult than refutation, 207
  • needing friends for, 367
  • opinion formed by, 48–49
  • Protagoras turning down, 37–38
  • of questions, not problems, 237
  • as social process, 174–75
  • by Socrates as facing death, 54, 367–68
  • Socrates’ ethics of, 16–17
  • Socratic process of, 224
  • thinking and, 239
  • Tolstoy’s lack of, 30–31
  • into untimely questions, 19–20, 126, 248
  • wavering in absence of, 36, 39, 49
• inquisitive refutation, 159, 168–70, 237, 238
  • lovers engaged in, 304
  • virtue developed through, 249
• intellectualism, 128–31
  • politics and, 253, 297
  • Socratizing move in, 248–49
• Ion, 54
• irony, Socratic, 21, 323–29, 386n50, 387nn52–53
  • projected onto Socrates, 331, 332–33

• James, Henry, 309–13
• James, William
  • interlocutor in role of, 237
  • on seeking truth and avoiding error, 160–68, 170, 172, 204–5
  • Tolstoy problem and, 26, 46–47
  • Turing test and, 242
  • on utopia, 133–35
• jealousy, 308, 316–17, 332
• justice, 59–67. See also injustice
  • revenge and, 100, 102, 103
• justice and advantage
  • Moore sentence and, 190–92
  • Socrates on, 111–17, 123, 125
  • in Utilitarianism and Kantianism, 121, 122–24, 125
  • Virtue Ethics and, 125

• Kallipolis, 135, 138
• kalon, 124
• Kant, Immanuel, 12, 14
• Kantian ethics, 13–14, 18, 110–11, 120–25
  • command of the group and, 19
  • looking down on Utilitarianism, 136
  • modern-day, 121
  • rationality and, 120
  • Rawls’ Theory of Justice and, 131
  • taming savage command and, 127
  • trolley problems and, 122–23
• Keats, John, 361
• Keynes, John Maynard, 11–12, 13, 17
• Kierkegaard, Søren, 327
• killing, 97, 100
• kingdom of ends, 120
• kinship bonds, 82–83
  • Socratic irony and, 333
• kinship commands, 83–85
  • bodily commands and, 83–84, 85–87
  • brave face toward death and, 367
  • deontology and, 120–21
  • Ivan Ilyich experiencing, 340
  • justice vs. advantage and, 112–17
  • moral law and, 121, 122
  • proliferation of terms and, 94–95, 96–97
  • revenge and, 93–94, 99–100, 101, 102, 104–5
  • Socrates’ criticisms of, 87–88
  • Socrates’ resistance to escape and, 318–20, 321
  • Stoic cosmopolitanism and, 119–20
  • wavering and, 97
• Kleist, Heinrich von, 147–49
• Knausgaard, Karl Ove, 354
• knowledge
  • action and, 126, 165–66
  • a priori, 232–34, 236
  • from completed inquiry, 49, 127
  • vs. correct opinion, 49
  • inquisitive refutation and, 159, 168–70
  • life oriented toward, 11, 15–16
  • Meno’s paradox and, 218, 223, 224
  • not acting in accordance with, 42–43
  • offered to share with Alcibiades, 317
  • Socrates’ belief in his own lack of, 14
  • Socrates’ claims to expertise, 245–46
  • Socratic ethics and, 126
  • Socratic intellectualism and, 130–31, 248–49
  • thinking and, 237–38
  • Tolstoy’s claimed search of, 39–40
  • virtue and, 37, 38, 229, 248–49
  • wavering in absence of, 39
• “Know thyself,” 196–99
• Korsgaard, Christine, 121
• Kosman, Aryeh, 302–3

• Laches, 54
• Laches, 117, 152–53, 156, 203, 229, 304
• Lane, Melissa, 326, 327–28
• large language models (LLMs), 213–14, 242
• Larkin, Philip, 358–60, 361, 367
• law, and deontological rationality, 121
• Laws, 153
• laws of Athens, Socrates on, 105
• leading questions, 230
• Lear, Jonathan, 327
• Lesser Hippias, 38–39
• liberalism, political fictions of, 251
• load-bearing answers, 56, 59
  • negative emotions and, 67–68, 70
  • to untimely questions, 76, 201
• load-bearing beliefs, 67–70
  • self-blindness and, 201
• load-bearing predictions, 68–69
• love
  • of Alcibiades for Socrates, 313–17, 321–22, 323, 331
  • Aristophanes on, 299–302, 303, 311, 316
  • conducted inquisitively, 20–21
  • defined by Socrates, 56
  • fictional representations of, 307, 310–13
  • revenge and, 94, 104
  • romantic ideal of, 298–99
  • sexual activity and, 307, 309–10
  • Socrates’ claim to expertise in, 245–46, 249, 304
  • Socrates’ erotic language on, 305–6
  • Socrates on ascent in, 21, 311–12
  • Socrates on inquiry and, 312–13
  • Socrates on philosophical discussions and, 303–4
  • in Socrates’ openness, 333
  • Socrates’ resistance to escape and, 102, 318–20, 321
  • Socratic erōs and philia, 322–23
  • Socratic irony and, 324
  • Socratized romance, 306–8, 309–10
  • today’s romantic version of, 302
  • what people want from, 307–9
• Lucretius, 359, 360–61
• Lycon, 51
• Lysias, 159
• Lysimachus, 54
• Lysis, 53, 203, 304, 317, 322

• Machiavelli, Niccolò, 274
• marriage, 256, 278, 298–99, 308, 323
• Marx, Karl, 247–48
• materialists, 352–53
• mathematics, 235. See also Meno’s slave
• meaning of life
  • avoiding question of, 26–27
  • Tolstoy on, 32, 33–34, 39–40, 45
• measurement, 63–66
• Melesias, 54
• Meletus, 51, 53, 322
• Meno
  • life of, 236
  • studies with Gorgias, 213
• Meno, 47–49, 55–56, 71, 150, 156–57, 365
• Meno’s paradox, 20, 144, 211–14, 216–18, 219–21
  • joint inquiry and, 222–24
  • reader’s worries about, 229–30
  • Socrates’ positive response to, 233–34
• Meno’s slave, 225–29, 230–31, 233, 235–36, 238, 240
• midwife. See Gadfly-Midwife paradox
• Mill, John Stuart, 12, 13, 14, 110, 111, 119, 121
• mind
  • being seen as, 295
  • problem of other minds, 292–93
• mirror, another person as, 195–202, 204, 207, 317
• misanthropy, 347–48
• misologues, 347–48
• modesty, paradox of, 194
• Molière, 147
• Moore, G. E., 182, 190, 199
• Moore sentences, 182–83, 186
  • asserted by Alcibiades, 186–92, 205
• Moore’s paradox, 20, 144, 182–83, 186
  • normative self-blindness and, 192–95
  • self-knowledge and, 196–201
• moral law, 121, 122
• Moran, Richard, 194
• More, Thomas, 135
• Mussolini, Benito, 280–81

• Nagel, Thomas, 359–60
• Nazis, 263–64, 280
• Neo-Aristotelian ethics, 13–14, 111
• Neo-Socratic ethics, 111
• Nicias, 54, 203
• Nietzsche, Friedrich, 274, 286
• nonviolence, 263
• normative self-blindness, 192–95, 201, 237

• objective/subjective distinction, 64–66, 70, 116. See also subjective questions
• open-mindedness, 2
  • difficulty of, 176–77
  • paradox of, 20, 143–44
  • of Socratic method, 14, 15, 17, 174–75, 240
  • of thinking, 239–40
• open Socrates, 332–33
• oppression, 279–81
• oratory, 147, 268–69, 290
• Orwell, George, 279–81, 285
• other minds, problem of, 292–93

• pain. See also pleasure and pain
  • bodily commands and, 85–86, 88
  • savage commands and, 77–78
• paradoxes, and untimely questions, 19–20
• parental instruction, 78–79
• parental praise, 193–94
• past lives, 229–37
• pederasty, 313
• persuasion, 267–71
  • debate and, 269–71
  • in a free society, 267–68
  • by Gorgias the orator, 268–69
  • orators’ symbolic displays and, 290–91
  • Socratic, 106, 107, 171–72
• Phaedo, 51, 337, 343–48, 350, 356, 361–64, 368–69. See also death of Socrates
  • as early dialogue, 152–53
  • on life after death, 21, 54
  • participants in, 236, 317
  • recollection in, 150
• Phaedrus, 21, 152, 304–7, 322, 371–72, 388n35
• phantasma, 90, 97
• Philebus, 153
• philia, 82
  • erōs and, 322–23
  • as friendship, 317–23
• philosophical life
  • case for, 19–21
  • risk of, 22
  • Socratic ethics and, 18, 21
• philosophical questions
  • frustrating the nonphilosopher, 210
  • vs. scientific problems, 209–10
• piety. See also impiety
  • Euthyphro and, 51–55, 56
• Plato
  • as associate of Socrates, 6, 236, 322
  • on rational part of the soul, 137–38
  • Socratic irony and, 325–26, 333
  • on unity of the good, 137–38
• Platonic Form, 221
• Plato’s Socratic dialogues, 6–7
  • chain ending in death of Socrates, 51
  • chronology of, 152–53, 381n11
  • erotic relationships between men in, 313
  • high stakes of conversations in, 53–54
  • justice and advantage in, 116
  • often with an audience, 171
  • Plato’s own views in, 152–53
  • Socrates as protagonist in, 21
  • two-stage view of Socrates and, 154
  • as used in the chapters, 22
• pleasure and pain. See also pain
  • Epicureanism and, 12–13, 117–19
  • Stoics and, 120
  • using “good” and “bad” for, 92–93
  • Utilitarianism and, 12, 120
  • weakness of will and, 88–90, 91–92
• poetry
  • fear of death in, 361
  • romantic, 307
  • by Socrates in prison, 362, 367, 388n35
• polarization, 254–55
• Polemarchus, 100
• political fictions, 250–51
• politicization, 253–60
  • of argument, 262
  • defined, 254
  • Socratic conversation and, 256–60
• politics
  • conducted inquisitively, 20–21
  • living together with others and, 250, 267, 272–73
  • Socrates’ apolitical life, 251–52
  • Socrates’ claim to expertise in, 249, 252
  • Socratic intellectualism and, 253, 297
  • wavering in, 42
• Politics (Aristotle), 131, 297
• Polus, 10, 117, 127, 150, 156, 269–71, 291–92, 293
• polyamory, 302
  • Socratic, 21, 322–23
• power
  • admired in the Republic, 274
  • Foucault on, 274
  • political disagreements and, 252
• premature death, 334–35, 356–58, 361
• primal scene, 210–11, 213, 214, 221, 224, 329
• problems
  • Meno’s presuppositions and, 223–24
  • questions and, 144, 214–21, 238
• progress in philosophy, 150, 158–59, 168, 204, 207, 210, 214, 224–25, 228, 230, 236, 366
• promise to someone, 202
• pronouns, 253–54
• Protagoras
  • audience in, 322
  • breaking off conversation, 365–66
  • as early dialogue, 152–53
  • Gadfly-Midwife paradox and, 171–73
  • proliferation of terms in, 96
  • unity of goods and, 116
  • virtue in, 54
  • wavering in, 35–38
  • weakness of will in, 88
• punishment, 98–99, 117
• pushy questions, 229, 230

• questions. See also untimely questions; “why” question
  • coming at the right time, 28
  • liberation from commands and, 109
  • most important not confronted, 45
  • politicized into competition, 254
  • problems and, 144, 214–21, 238
  • pushy, 229, 230
  • that were asked, 138–39
  • Tolstoy’s failure to ask, 34, 40
  • Tolstoy’s inability to answer, 25–26
• Quine, W. V. O., 233
• Quintilian, 326–28, 332

• race
  • discrimination on basis of, 281
  • feeling of equality and, 279
  • political role and, 250–51
• rational attachment, 301–2, 303, 309, 312, 322–23
• rationality
  • deontological, 120–22
  • misologues and, 347–48
  • Plato on rational soul and, 137–38
  • Utilitarianism and, 120–21
• rationalizing, 43–44, 45, 94
• Rawls, John, 121, 131
• recollection, 150, 176, 231–33
• refutation, Socratic. See also Gadfly-Midwife paradox; inquisitive refutation
  • aporia and, 149, 184–86
  • asserting Moore sentence, 186
  • as cooperative process, 172–73
  • as courtship, 304
  • formulations of, 106
  • how it works, 201–5
  • normative self-blindness and, 237
  • purpose of, 169–70
  • shared conclusion drawn from, 237–38
  • Socrates’ gratitude for, 258–60
• reincarnation, 232, 233
• religion
  • discrimination on basis of, 281
  • feeling of equality and, 279
  • political role and, 250
• religious faith
  • immortality of the soul and, 351–52, 353, 356
  • of Tolstoy, 4, 31
• Republic
  • admiration of power in, 274
  • departing from Socrates’ thought, 137–38, 152–53
  • on justice and advantage, 117
  • on justifying your life, 368
  • rational part of the soul and, 136–37
  • on revenge, 100
  • as utopia, 135, 138
• respect
  • desired from equals, 279–81
  • feeling of equality and, 279
  • inquiring together and, 295, 296–97
  • Kantian ethics and, 111, 120, 125, 126
  • orientation toward truth and, 292
  • for power to help others, 295
  • rulers attuned to, 289
  • setting equality point and, 276–77, 284–85
  • in world of conversation, 294–95
• revenge, 88, 93–105
  • definition of, 94
  • disguised by proliferation of terms, 94–95, 104–5
  • empathy as prerequisite for, 98
  • kinship and, 93–94, 99–100, 101, 102, 104–5
  • in romance, 317
  • Socrates’ refusal to take, 95–96, 318
  • Socratic position on, 99–100, 101–4
  • Stoics and, 119–20
  • three flavors of, 94, 101
  • wavering and, 94, 104–5
• romance, 298–99, 301–2, 306–8, 310–12
• Russell, Bertrand, 41, 69–70, 201

• sadness, 71–76
• savage commands, 77–78. See also bodily commands; kinship commands
  • as answers to unasked questions, 80–81
  • as answers to untimely questions, 19, 78
  • Crito’s offer of escape and, 107
  • harmonized in Virtue Ethics, 124–25
  • maximally rational versions of, 117
  • rationality in modern-day ethics and, 121–22
  • as Socrates’ term in Crito, 104
  • Socratic method as alternative to, 106–9
  • tamed versions of, 19, 110, 117–20
  • Utilitarianism and Kantianism and, 126–27
  • of warring masters, 13
• Scanlon, T. M., 121
• Scheffler, Samuel, 84–85
• Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 382n1
• Science, 163–64, 209–10, 218–19
  • measurement and, 64
  • seeking truth and avoiding error, 20, 160–68, 170, 172, 204–5
  • Gadfly-Midwife paradox and, 145–46
• Segvic, Heda, 129
• self-blindness, normative, 192–95, 201, 237
• self-cultivation, 196–99
• self-esteem, 84
• self-knowledge, Socratic, 196–201
  • fate of Alcibiades and, 205–7
• self-promising, 194–95
• self-worth, 84
• Seneca, 119
• seriousness, Socratic, 329–33
• shame, 84
  • of Alcibiades, 206–7
  • Callicles on, 293–94
• Sidgwick, Henry, 12, 13, 110, 119, 131
• Simler, Kevin, 247–48
• Simmias, 345–46, 364–65
• Skeptics, 207
• slave morality, Nietzsche on, 274
• slavery. See also Meno’s slave
  • societies accepting of, 250–51
• Smith, Adam, 285–90
• social justice, fight for, 251
• Socrates. See also death of Socrates
  • apolitical life of, 251–52
  • arguing against killing him, 103
  • besting the Athenian intellectual elite, 151
  • biography of, 5–6
  • called a jerk, 323–24, 329
  • claims to expertise, 245–46, 249
  • confessing his own weaknesses, 7, 8–9, 21, 151
  • diagnosing his own wavering, 38–39
  • execution of, 6, 51, 260
  • exhortation to move forward, 364–65
  • failures of, 236
  • having answers, 229
  • inspiring people to become like himself, 10–11, 21
  • as a kind of person, 9–10, 21
  • major sources for, 6–7
  • odd or acceptable beliefs of, 21
  • as person one can become, 7, 9–10, 330–31
  • refusing to escape, 105–7, 108, 317–22
  • refusing to take revenge, 95–96, 318
  • trial of, 5–6, 7, 11, 116–17, 364
• Socratic dialogues, 6. See also Plato’s Socratic dialogues
• Socratic ethics, intellectualist, 128–31, 248–49
• Socratic method
  • critical views of, 14
  • demonstration of, 222–29
  • of persuade or be persuaded, 107–8
  • as social interaction, 15, 241
  • thinking and, 238, 240–41
  • three ingredients of, 143
  • today’s halfhearted imitation of, 17
  • used as only a style, 15
• Socratizing move, 246–49
  • in today’s politics, 251–52
• Sophist, 153
• Sophocles’ Antigone, 74
• sōphrosynē, 54
• soul. See also immortality of the soul
  • Plato on, 136, 380n26
  • Socrates’ beliefs about, 232, 234–35
• speaking
  • power to change your mind, 289–90
  • preference over listening, 287
  • Smith on, 286
• Statesman, 153
• status-seeking, 275–77
• Steve
  • conference on unpublished papers, 349–50
  • final conversation with, 334, 356–58, 369
  • immortality of the soul and, 351–52
  • premature death and, 334–35, 356–58, 361
  • preparation for death and, 337, 369
  • talking philosophy with, 335–37, 351
• Stoic cosmopolitanism, 119–20
• Stoics, 12–13, 128
• Strauss, Leo, 327
• subjective questions, 61–67. See also objective/subjective distinction
• suicide, Tolstoy’s thoughts of, 4–5, 25, 29, 33–34, 47
• superstition, 21, 47, 352, 353, 355
• suspension of judgment, 62, 65, 68, 143, 161–62, 164, 185, 199–200, 203, 339
• Swift, Jonathan, 135
• Symposium
  • Alcibiades in, 205–7, 313
  • Aristophanes in, 299–302
  • Kosman on, 302–3
  • Plato’s ideas in, 152–53
  • rejection of irony in, 21
  • Socrates as midwife in, 150
  • Socrates on love in, 21, 303–7, 322

• Theaetetus, 150, 153, 168, 236, 365
• thinking
  • definition of, 237–42
  • knowing oneself and, 199
  • by machines, 208–9, 213–14, 241–42
  • as private mental activity, 148–49, 173–75, 238, 295
  • shared between two people, 146, 172–73, 237–38, 351
• Thrasymachus, 116, 123, 156, 159, 274–75, 324–26, 327–29, 331–33
• tolerance, 272–73
• Tolstoy, Leo, 2–5. See also Anna Karenina; Death of Ivan Ilyich; War and Peace
  • accusing himself of weakness, 34, 42, 90
  • confrontation with death and, 348–49
  • depression and, 25–26
  • philosophers susceptible to terror of, 18
  • unexamined life and, 17
  • untimely questions and, 19, 27–29, 30, 343
  • wavering of, 34, 40
• Tolstoy problem
  • Ferrante on, 46–47
  • for Ivan Ilyich, 341, 345
  • self-knowledge and, 201
  • Socrates’ questioning and, 44
  • Socratic solution to, 47, 48, 201
  • Tolstoy’s avoidance of, 46–47
  • in Tolstoy’s fiction, 45
• Trojan War, 62, 65, 260–61, 282–85
• trolley problems, 13, 122–23, 125
• truth. See also seeking truth and avoiding error
  • on immortality of the soul, 348
  • never refuted, 270–71
  • Socrates as midwife and, 150, 152, 159
  • Socrates on his right to, 292
  • structuring the conversation, 294–95, 297
  • thinking and, 239–40
• Turing, Alan, 208
• Turing test, 208–9, 213–14, 242
• Tyson, Mike, 276–78

• unexamined life, 4, 17, 47, 368
• untimely questions, 55–61
  • with answer that is being used, 27–28, 57–59, 66, 67, 70, 76
  • askable in fiction, 46, 47
  • collective answers to, 73–75
  • commands as answers to, 78
  • cooperative inquiry into, 174–75
  • defined, 19, 27, 48, 239
  • ethical, 235–36
  • fighting about, 65
  • getting by without asking, 44–45
  • hardened into answers, 27–28
  • on immortality of the soul, 348
  • inquiry into, 19–20, 126, 248
  • load-bearing answers to, 76, 201
  • Moore’s paradox and, 200
  • needing answers for a whole life, 59–61
  • open-mindedness about, 143–44
  • preparation for death and, 368–69
  • refutation and, 202–3
  • sadness vs. anger and, 71, 73
  • self-knowledge and, 200
  • Socratic approach to, 19–20, 47, 240
  • thinking and, 238
  • of Tolstoy, 19, 27–29, 30, 343
  • wavering and, 44–45
  • working with another person on, 20
• Utilitarianism, 12, 13–14, 16, 18, 110–11, 120–25
  • bodily command and, 19, 119
  • difficulty of utopia in, 131–32
  • taming the savage command and, 127
  • trolley problems and, 122–23
• utopia, paradox of, 131–36

• violence, 97, 100–101, 103
  • justification of, 263–65
• virtue
  • craft analogy and, 129, 379n17
  • knowledge and, 37, 38, 229, 248–49
  • Meno’s attempt to define, 55–56, 212, 219, 229, 352
  • Meno’s paradox and, 211–14, 220, 223, 224
  • recollection and, 232, 233
• Virtue Ethics, 13–14, 110–11, 124–25
  • motivational failures and, 127
  • Plato’s Republic and, 138
• Vlastos, Gregory, 326–27

• war, 100, 260–61. See also Trojan War
• War and Peace (Tolstoy), 43–44, 45, 342, 347, 348
• wavering
  • bodily commands and, 87, 103
  • between contexts, 41–42
  • vs. disagreement together, 201–2
  • disguised by proliferation of terms, 94–95, 104–5
  • in fiction, 47
  • in folk wisdom, 41
  • on immortality of the soul, 352–53, 356
  • justice vs. advantage and, 112–13, 115–16
  • kinship commands and, 87, 97, 103
  • language affected by, 41, 104
  • of love into hate, 94
  • in politics, 42
  • rationalizing and, 43–44
  • revenge as form of, 94, 104–5
  • of Socrates at end of life, 367
  • Socrates diagnosing his own, 38–39
  • on Socratic irony, 328
  • stopped by conclusion of inquiry, 49
  • of Tolstoy, 34, 40
  • untimely questions and, 44–45
  • weakness of will and, 42–43, 88, 91, 93
  • without asking the question, 37
  • without inquiry, 36, 39, 49
  • without knowledge, 39
• weakness of will, 88–93
  • disguised by proliferation of terms, 94–95
  • Epicurean response to, 118
  • as ignorance, 249
  • Tolstoy’s accusation of himself, 34, 42, 90
  • wavering and, 42–43, 88, 91, 93
• wealth, 85
• “why” question, 1
  • acting on basis of answer to, 29
  • asked by Tolstoy, 3–4, 5, 29, 32
  • fear of, 11
  • philosophers of today and, 19
  • Socrates finding happiness in, 5
• the will, 127, 138
• Williams, Bernard, 194
• wisdom
  • Alcibiades’ offer of sex for, 317
  • self-knowledge and, 198–200
  • Socrates’ understanding of, 8–9, 10, 14
• writing, Socrates’ opposition to, 362, 371–72, 388n35

• Xenophon, 6–7, 154, 236, 322, 326, 329

• zero-sum competition, 254, 256–60, 261