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Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ the-socratic-method-book-review-let-us-reason-together-11656085510 Share * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn * Copy Link * Books & Arts * Books * Bookshelf 'The Socratic Method' Review: Let Us Reason Together Amid 21st-century rancor,an ancient Athenian philosopher offers an alternative: truth and a little humility. []The Athenian philosopher Socrates.Photo: Getty Images By Martha Bayles June 24, 2022 11:46 am ET print Text Listen to article (3 minutes) To every received truth there are exceptions. For example, it is often said that you can't judge a book by its cover. But in the case of "The Socratic Method," you can. Written by Ward Farnsworth, a classics scholar and dean of the University of Texas School of Law, and published by Godine, a Boston-based company known for both its editorial judgment and its artisan bookmaking, "The Socratic Method" is a beautiful object, with a costly sewn binding, an elegant font--and, more to the point, a jacket illustration that is richly suggestive of what is inside. That illustration, by American pen-and-ink artist Olivia Knapp, is doubtless inspired by the cover of Mr. Farnsworth's previous book, "The Practicing Stoic" (2018), which features a drawing by J.J. Grandville, the 19th-century French caricaturist famous for depicting people as animals. In like manner, the new cover spoofs Raphael's fresco "The School of Athens," by depicting Plato as an elephant sporting a red cloak, Aristotle as a donkey draped in blue, and a group of admirers as a fox, mandrill, pig, badger, ostrich and turtle. 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