Transcript:

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0105 - 2167/07/06/12:40 - Rosenthal College, Orb Twofeather's office

OT [data connection]: Look, Zoa ... Lee ... don't get too hung up on Socrates. They're only the first lesson in a semester's worth of material. Besides, there's a school of thought that says they may not have even actually existed.

Zoa [data connection]: Wait, Socrates might not have existed? I didn't see that anywhere.

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[Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room]

OT [data connection]: Uh... I probably shouldn't mention that, it's not exactly part of the curriculum.

LC: I want to know.

Zoa [data connection]: Lee wants to know. I'm pretty curious, myself. How the heck does a fictional character form the basis of a civilization's system of thought?

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[Rosenthal College, Orb Twofeather's office]

OT [data connection]: Well, understand, the hypothesis I'm about to mention is... somewhat controversial in academic circles, and I'm not endorsing it myself.

OT [data connection]: Socrates never wrote anything down themself, we only know about them from the writings of their students, most notably Plato, and those accounts are so contradictory about Socrates and their beliefs that it's officially something called The Socratic Question.

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[Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room]

Zoa [data connection]: Is that the same thing as The Socratic Method?

OT [data connection]: No, the Socratic Method is asking questions to get to the truth. Or, at least, that's what Plato tells us.

LC: Just asking a bunch of questions... because they know nothing?

Zoa: I guess, yeah.

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[Rosenthal College, Orb Twofeather's office]

OT [data connection]: The thing is, having someone who claims to be perfectly neutral and unbiased who asks questions until their philosophical opponents talk themselves into agreeing with a position... well, Plato's recounting of the Socratic dialogues has always felt to me like those political posts where an innocent five year old says something pure and simple that just so happens to reinforce the parent's opinion on the geometric asset tax.

OT [data connection]: It's deeply unrealistic, and even if it were realistic, maybe arguing from a position of ignorance isn't the marker of absolute truth that people are inclined to think it is.

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[Lee Caldavera's apartment, living room]

LC: I don't follow politics. Five year olds get involved in their parents' taxes now?

Zoa: I'm five years old, and nobody asks me about tax policy.

LC: Well, you're not a person.

Zoa: Doesn't mean I don't have opinions.

LC: I noticed.

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