This is “The dissimulation of ignorance practised by Socrates as a means of confuting an adversary”.^[21] Socrates would pretend to be ignorant of the topic under discussion, in order to draw out the inherent nonsense in the arguments of his interlocutors. Chambers dictionary has: “a means by which a questioner pretends to know less than a respondent, when actually he knows more.”

Zoe Williams of The Guardian wrote: “The technique [of Socratic irony], demonstrated in the Platonic dialogues, was to pretend ignorance and, more sneakily, to feign credence in your opponent’s power of thought, in order to tie him in knots.”^[20]

A more modern example of Socratic irony can be seen on the 1970s American television show, Columbo. The fictional character, Lt. Columbo, is seemingly naïve and incompetent. His untidy appearance adds to this fumbling illusion. As a result, he is underestimated by the suspects in murder cases he is investigating. With their guard down and their false sense of confidence, Lt. Columbo is able to solve the cases leaving the murderers feeling duped and outwitted.

I love having a formal name for this tactic.

if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at Philosophy.

this raises a number of questions

1. Q: though i wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true for most articles it can’t be true for all articles. can it?
2. Q: what’s the distribution of distances (measured in “number of clicks away”) from ‘Philosophy’?
3. Q: by this same measure what’s the furthest article from ‘Philosophy’?
4. Q: are there any other articles that are more common than ‘Philosophy’?
5. Q: what are the common paths to ‘Philosophy’?

This is brilliant stuff.

The full video is an hour long. Links to specific topics/questions are provided below:

1. Eternity and the meaning of life 0:42
2. Do we have free will?  4:43
3. How can we convince religious people to abandon their beliefs? 14:52
4. How can atheists live among the faithful? 19:09
5. How should we talk to children about death? 21:52
6. Does human life have intrinsic value? 26:01
7. Why should we be confident in the authority of science? 30:36 
8. How can one criticize Islam after the terrorism in Norway? 35:43
9. Should atheists join with Christians against Islam? 41:50
10. What does it mean to speak about the human mind objectively? 45:17
11. How can spiritual claims be scientifically justified? 50:14
12. Why can’t religion remain a private matter? 54:52 
13. What do you like to speak about at public events? 58:09 

Nor is it that truly a belief at all which has not some influence upon the actions of him who holds it. He who truly believes that which prompts him to an action has looked upon the action to lust after it, he has committed it already in his heart. If a belief is not realized immediately in open deeds, it is stored up for the guidance of the future. It goes to make a part of that aggregate of beliefs which is the link between sensation and action at every moment of all our lives, and which is so organized and compacted together that no part of it can be isolated from the rest, but every new addition modifies the structure of the whole. No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever.

…

In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

This is a phenomenal essay recommended by an associate with whom I’m having an email-form debate. I urge you to read the entire thing.

This is very compelling, but I have a strong counterargument.

Essentially, if people start collecting behind the banner of reason and evidence, it will become inefficient and silently deafening to *not* have a term associated with this approach to finding truth.

Bundles of people who share similar ideas, and who join together to discuss them, seldom do this for long without assigning a name to said approach. Right now that’s called atheism because the main thing being opposed is false belief, and the main place to find that is within religion.

So what Harris is proposing here is that we do something that can’t be done — at least right now. People facing everyone believing in Alchemy will collect together and will become known as anti-alchemy. It’s the same for religion/atheism, and it’s the same for any group that promotes “reason and evidence”.

There will be a name given, and it too will develop the downsides that Harris correctly ascribes to the term “atheism”.

This doesn’t mean this argument hasn’t made sense to me — I may still abandon the label — I’m just saying the argument isn’t as clear and clean as he’s making it out to be.

This is a great way to spend 54 minutes.