Headline, January 07 2025/ THINKING : ''' LIVE EXAMINED LIFE '''

THINKING : 

''' LIVE EXAMINED LIFE '''

ON THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY - the eternal and exclusive ownership of every student in the world - total power lies with the students of the world. But the Founders carry a veto : Iconic Democracy. Remember That!

It is an ethical system that calls for living a life '' oriented towards knowledge.'' Therefore, it may be of the greatest honour to read : '' Open Socrates : The Case for a Philosophical Life By Agnes Callard.

WE OFTEN ENCOUNTER STORIES OF PEOPLE confronting life's most profound questions only when death is near.

Several books, written by those with terminal illnesses, are filled with advice about what truly matters with life and refer to the prospect of death as a ''putter of things in perspective'', as Simon Boas puts it in '' A Beginner's Guide to Dying."

YET, to delay such reflection until life's closing chapter is to put the cart before the horse.

In Open Socrates : The Case for a Philosophical Life, Agnes Callard, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, challenges the tendency to defer life's most important questions - such as why we live as we do, what justice and courage are, how we ought to face death. Instead, she advocates for living reflectively and thoughtfully through our lives.

WE avoid an engagement with fundamental questions because we assume we already possess the answers. Too often, these answers are driven by fleeting impulses of pleasure and pain, or by social pressure to conform.

By relying on those unexamined answers, Callard argues, we fail to ask life's questions for ourselves and risk living only for '' the next fifteen minutes in life.'' This leads us to make inconsistent choices at different moments in life and consigns us to '' a lifetime of wavering.''

As an alternative, Callard advances neo-Socratic ethics as a guide for navigating life's complexities. She sets the Socratic approach against three dominant ethical traditions of Utilitarianism, Kantianism and Aristotelian Virtue Ethics.

Each of these traditions resolves moral dilemmas by suggesting adherence to a fixed principle, such as maximising the greatest good of the greatest number, respecting others' dignity or cultivating character virtue.

The Socratic approach offers no specific normative ideals and proposes ''inquiry'' as a path to reach answers.

Callard, however, argues that the Socratic approach is more than a method or style of thinking. She presents it as an ethical system that calls for living a life '' oriented towards knowledge.''

From Socrates' perspective, our struggles in life stem from a lack of knowledge, and the remedy lies in engaging in the '' right kind of conversations '' and committing to a life of inquiry. Such a life requires us to be open-minded, aiming to avoid errors and striving to seek the truth.

Open-mindedness and the pursuit of truth require a willingness to admit when we are wrong. Socratic inquisitive conversations were characterised by revealing the ignorance of those who believed themselves to be knowledgeable.

Through interrogation and refutation, Socrates led his interlocutors to the point where they were compelled to contradict themselves.

This kind of critical self-examination is challenging, since we rarely have the distance to view our beliefs objectively. Yet, it becomes possible when another person serves as a mirror, by questioning our assumptions.

In this way, Socratic inquiry is not a solitary exercise but a fundamentally collaborative activity, which makes thinking a social enterprise.

When practised alone, the search for truth is a two-stage process that involves first discarding falsehoods and then affirming what is true. Socrates, however, saw these as inseparable tasks that are best carried out simultaneously in dialogue.

Both are committed to the principle of '' persuade or be persuaded.'' Constant critical self-examination is important and that thinking should be viewed as a social rather than a solitary enterprise.

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Life, Meaning, Knowledge and Truth, continues. The World Students Society thanks Nauman Asghar.

With most respectful dedication to the Global Founder Framers of The World Students Society, and then Leaders, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers.

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