Socrates said the very first thing that has to happen for any true knowledge to be gained and to

truly be educated was the admission of ignorance. And that's one of the hardest things for any of us

to admit that we are ignorant about anything. But Socrates said once the person admits that he or

she is ignorant, now the possibility is open to lead

them to a deeper understanding of truth.

Even if you've never taken a course in philosophy before, many people are somewhat familiar

with the name Socrates, and perhaps

also what is known as the Socratic method of dialogue or discovering truth that he developed.

Welcome to the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham. Today, R.C.

Sprawl will introduce us to Socrates, his view of education, and said the context

of what life in Athens was like for Socrates, a society that shares many parallels with

Aulde. Here's Dr. Sprawl.

In the 19th century, one of the most important philosophers in Europe was Soren Kierkegaard.

And though we're not going to be looking at Kierkegaard today, I just want to mention in passing

that he was known affectionately as the Danish gadfly. That little expression, gadfly, refers to somebody that kind of

stirs the pot by flittering around from group to group, engaging people in serious discussions

and thought. Well, the first philosopher in history that was known as a gadfly was Socrates.

Socrates was called the gadfly of Athens because of the controversy in which he was engaged by trying to provoke people to think more

deeply than they were accustomed to doing.

Socrates is famous for initiating the phrase, the unexamined life is not worth living.

And his passion was to get people to do just that, to examine their lives, to examine their

thinking, not to just accept ideas uncritically because they were in vogue or because they were popular,

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