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The Socratic method

Check the size

"All of them, or just some?"

Socratic, sharpened by modern work · modern statistics (base rates)

A claim that's true sometimes gets sold as true always. Ask how far it really stretches: who, how many, how often.

Meno lists a virtue for men, women, children and slaves. Socrates: 'in seeking one virtue I have discovered a whole swarm of virtues there in your keeping.' (72a)

Socrates asks what is true of all cases. Kahneman & Tversky (1973) showed people ignore base rates, how common something actually is, when a vivid example is in front of them. Asking 'all, or some, and how many?' adds that numerical check.

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