Just as the propositions, “It is day,” and “It is night,” are full of meaning when separated, but meaningless if united; so also, granted that for you to take the larger share at a dinner is good for your body, still, it is bad for the maintenance of the proper kind of social feeling. When, therefore, you are eating with another person, remember to regard, not merely the value for your body of what lies before you, but also to maintain your respect for your host.

Commentary

The Socratic Method of question and answer was an attempt to expose contradictions. Socrates believed that reason directs us to resolve contradictions in our own thinking when they’re made obvious enough to us. Something can’t be true if it’s a contradiction in terms. This idea that thoughts need to be, at the very least, coherent spread its influence throughout ancient philosophy and permeated Stoicism. Today psychologists refer to the discomfort caused by awareness of contradictions in our own thinking as “cognitive dissonance”.

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