In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was well known for his wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who said excitedly, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?
“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything I would like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”
“Triple filter?”
“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my student, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” the man said, “actually I just heard about it and ..”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of
Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”“Well, no, on the contrary…”
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”
“No, I suppose it isn’t really.”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?”
NOW READ ON
This is the reason Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem. It also explains why he never found out that Plato was banging his wife.
If I knew then what I know now……….you know how it goes
Heck two out of three aint bad.
So he wasn’t sure if it was true or not. – fair enough!
But, it there was goodness and it was useful information.
By my way of thinking, if Socca’s had listended he would have discovered his mate was doing him a fav’ by saving him one more job around house! [:p]
He “NEVER” found out…??
Hey reminds me of the joke
“How do you know your husbands having an affair”
“You don’t”REDWING[}
]“The man that thinks at 5o as he did when he was 20 has wasted 30 years of his life”
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