About the Socratic Review...

The Socratic Review is a curated daily digest of news and opinion from around the world extracted daily from our Socratic News Wire.  Our editorial approach is governed by the belief that news should be filtered through the Socratic sieves of truth, kindness, and utility.

​

Every day we use our Socratic News Wire to represent different points of view from around the world, as well as individual topical themes: Mondays, The North America Report and Human Dignity; Tuesdays; The Europe & United Kingdom Report and Global Tech & Finance; Wednesdays, The Africa Report and Global Health & Science; Thursdays, The Oceania Report and Topical Trends & Innovation; Fridays, The Asia Report and Global Life & Lifestyles; and Saturdays, The South America & Caribbean Report and Global Arts, Letters & Culture.  We also have our three standing wire reports Monday through Saturday: The Earth Wire with features related to our home planet; Space Wire with features related to our next frontier; and The Ethereal Wire, which explores the strange, historic, or even esoteric foibles of the human condition.  Since we always want to be fair and balanced, our “Not Necessarily Objective Report” also runs Mondays through Saturdays with Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays tacking left and Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays tacking right.  The Sunday Socratic encompasses all the week’s topical departments and with a lighter touch.      

​

Since the ability to speak truth to power through comedy has long been  a cornerstone of classic liberalism, we feature our Satire of the Day every Monday through Saturday as well as a Cartoon of the Day tied to that day's Question of the Day, every Monday through Saturday.  Since some topics are just too expansive for a single day, each week we offer our  In-Depth Perspective Series providing balanced views on a wide variety of topics from science to history to social considerations and humanities.  We also run our Weekly Report every Sunday (In case you missed a day during the week) as well as our Worldview and Topical Magazines every Saturday

 

In short, we invite you to join us on our journey.  As Socrates pointed out, "wonder is the beginning of wisdom. " We hope that The Socratic Review can provide a spark of wonder so our readers can ignite a torch of wisdom, they can read, bookmark and share with their friends and family

 

Welcome to The Socratic Review!

Robert E.L. Walters

Publisher and Managing Editor

The Three Socratic Sieves

Although attributed to Socrates this story is most likely apocryphal

​

In Ancient Greece, Socrates had a great reputation of wisdom. One day, someone came to find the great philosopher and said to him:

​

- Do you know what I just heard about your friend?

​

- A moment, replied Socrates. Before you tell me, I would like to test you the three sieves.

​

- The three sieves?

​

- Yes, continued Socrates. Before telling anything about the others, it's good to take the time to filter what you mean. I call it the test of the three sieves. The first sieve is the TRUTH. Have you checked if what you're going to tell me is true?

​

- No, I just heard it.

​

- Very good! So, you don't know if it's true. We continue with the second sieve, that of KINDNESS. What you want to tell me about my friend, is it good?

​

- Oh, no! On the contrary.

​

- So, questioned Socrates, you want to tell me bad things about him and you're not even sure they're true? Maybe you can still pass the test of the third sieve, that of UTILITY. Is it useful that I know what you're going to tell me about this friend?

​

- No, really.

​

- So, concluded Socrates, what you were going to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor useful. Why, then, did you want to tell me this?