A thinking person’s guide to a better life. Ward Farnsworth explains what the Socratic method is, how it works, and why it matters more than ever in our time. Easy to grasp yet challenging to master, the method will change the way you think about life’s big questions. “A wonderful book.”—Rebecca Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex. About 2,500 years ago, Plato wrote a set of dialogues that depict Socrates in conversation. The way Socrates asks questions, and the reasons why, amount to a whole way of thinking. This is the Socratic method—one of humanity’s great achievements. More than a technique, the method is an ethic of patience, inquiry, humility, and doubt. It is an aid to better thinking, and a remedy for bad habits of mind, whether in law, politics, the classroom, or tackling life’s big questions at the kitchen table. Drawing on hundreds of quotations, this book explains what the Socratic method is and how to use it. Chapters include Socratic Ethics, Ignorance, Testing Principles, and Socrates and the Stoics. Socratic philosophy is still startling after all these years because it is an approach to asking hard questions and chasing after them. It is a route to wisdom and a way of thinking about wisdom. With Farnsworth as your guide, the ideas of Socrates are easier to understand than ever and accessible to anyone. As Farnsworth achieved with The Practicing Stoic and the Farnsworth’s Classical English series, ideas of old are made new and vital again. This book is for those coming to philosophy the way Socrates did—as the everyday activity of making sense out of life and how to live it—and for anyone who wants to know what he said about doing that better.

Learn how to argue from the masters. This book is a complete course on the art of argument, taught by the greatest practitioners of it: Churchill, Lincoln, and hundreds of others from the golden age of debate in England and America. The book’s concise chapters provide lessons in all aspects of give and take—the syllogism and the slippery slope, the argumentum ad hominem and reductio ad absurdum, the fallacy and the insult. Ward Farnsworth shows how the full range of such techniques can be used or repelled, and illustrates them with examples that are fascinating, instructive, and fun to read. The result is a browsable reference in which every page is a pleasure. It will leave you better able to win arguments and to defend yourself under fire. It’s also an entertaining reminder that argument can be a source of beauty and delight. As Farnsworth says of the illustrations, they show talented advocates “crossing analytical swords and exchanging abuse when those things were done with more talent and dignity than is common today. They made argument a spectator sport of lasting value and interest.” Farnsworth’s Classical English Argument is the fourth book in a series about the ideas and methods embedded in the best speech and writing of an earlier time. Previous titles in the series are Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric, Farnsworth’s Classical English Metaphor, and Farnsworth’s Classical English Style. Each book is a treasury of insight and an essential reference for all users of language.

This title presents an enlightening overview and analysis of the uses of rhetoric in the English language. The way we use our language to convince and cajole is based on timeless principles - on repetition and variety, suspense and relief, expectation and satisfaction - that have been employed by writers and speakers since the Golden Age of Greece. They can be applied with effect to the construction of simple sentences and paragraphs, or entire compositions. Farnsworth's "Classical English Rhetoric" draws on examples from some of the great masters of English prose - Lincoln and Churchill, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Pain - to illustrate and analyse the most frequently used rhetorical devices with unrivalled clarity and detail. For anyone with an interest in the true potential of language, this is an indispensable guide, a highly useful reference, and a rewarding (and even entertaining) source of instruction.

"Farnsworth beautifully integrates his own observations with scores of quotations from Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne and others. This isn't just a book to read-it's a book to return to, a book that will provide perspective and consolation at times of heartbreak or calamity."-The Washington Post See more clearly, live more wisely, and bear the burdens of this life with greater ease-here are the greatest insights of the Stoics, in their own words. Presented in twelve lessons, Ward Farnsworth systematically presents the heart of Stoic philosophy accompanied by commentary that is clear and concise. A foundational idea to Stoicism is that we appear to go through life reacting directly to events. That appearance is an illusion. We react to our judgments and opinions-to our thoughts about things, not to things themselves. Stoics seek to become conscious of those judgments, to find the irrationality in them, and to choose them more carefully. In chapters including Emotion, Adversity, Virtue, and What Others Think, here is the most valuable wisdom about living a good life from ages past-now made available for our time.

Restitution is the body of law concerned with taking away gains that someone has wrongfully obtained. The operator of a Ponzi scheme takes money from his victims by fraud and then invests it in stocks that rise in value. Or a company pays a shareholder excessive dividends or pays them to the wrong person. Or a man poisons his grandfather and then collects under the grandfather's will. In each of these cases, one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another. And, in each, the law of restitution provides a way to undo the enrichment and transfer the defendant's gains to a party with better rights to them. Tort law focuses on the harm, or costs, that one party wrongfully imposes on another. Restitution is the mirror image; it corrects gains that one party wrongfully receives at another's expense. It is an important topic for every lawyer and for anyone else interested in how the legal system responds to injustice.
In "Restitution, " Ward Farnsworth presents a guide to this body of law that is compact, lively, and insightful--the first treatment of its kind that the American law of restitution has received. The book explains restitution doctrines, remedies, and defenses with unprecedented clarity and illustrates them with vivid examples. Farnsworth demonstrates that the law of restitution is guided by a manageable and coherent set of principles that have remarkable versatility and power. "Restitution "makes a complex and important area of law accessible, understandable, and interesting to any reader.

There are two kinds of knowledge law school teaches: legal rules on the one hand, and tools for thinking about legal problems on the other. Although the tools are far more interesting and useful than the rules, they tend to be neglected in favor of other aspects of the curriculum. In "The Legal Analyst," Ward Farnsworth brings together in one place all of the most powerful of those tools for thinking about law.
From classic ideas in game theory such as the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and the "Stag Hunt" to psychological principles such as hindsight bias and framing effects, from ideas in jurisprudence such as the slippery slope to more than two dozen other such principles, Farnsworth's guide leads readers through the fascinating world of legal thought. Each chapter introduces a single tool and shows how it can be used to solve different types of problems. The explanations are written in clear, lively language and illustrated with a wide range of examples.
"The Legal Analyst" is an indispensable user's manual for law students, experienced practitioners seeking a one-stop guide to legal principles, or anyone else with an interest in the law.

Restitution is the body of law concerned with taking away gains that someone has wrongfully obtained. The operator of a Ponzi scheme takes money from his victims by fraud and then invests it in stocks that rise in value. Or a company pays a shareholder excessive dividends or pays them to the wrong person. Or a man poisons his grandfather and then collects under the grandfather's will. In each of these cases, one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another. And, in each, the law of restitution provides a way to undo the enrichment and transfer the defendant's gains to a party with better rights to them. Tort law focuses on the harm, or costs, that one party wrongfully imposes on another. Restitution is the mirror image; it corrects gains that one party wrongfully receives at another's expense. It is an important topic for every lawyer and for anyone else interested in how the legal system responds to injustice.
In "Restitution, " Ward Farnsworth presents a guide to this body of law that is compact, lively, and insightful--the first treatment of its kind that the American law of restitution has received. The book explains restitution doctrines, remedies, and defenses with unprecedented clarity and illustrates them with vivid examples. Farnsworth demonstrates that the law of restitution is guided by a manageable and coherent set of principles that have remarkable versatility and power. "Restitution "makes a complex and important area of law accessible, understandable, and interesting to any reader.

"I must refrain from shouting what a brilliant work this is (praeteritio). Farnsworth has written the book as he ought to have written it - and as only he could have written it (symploce). Buy it and read it - buy it and read it (epimone)."-Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern English Usage Everyone speaks and writes in patterns. Farnsworth is your guide to patterns known as rhetorical figures that can make your words more emphatic, memorable, and effective. This book details the timeless principles of rhetoric from Ancient Greece to the present day, drawing on examples in the English language of consummate masters of prose, such as Lincoln, Churchill, Dickens, Melville, and Burke. Most rhetorical figures amount to departures from simple and literal statement, such as repeating words, putting words into an unexpected order, leaving out words that might have been expected, asking questions and then answering them. All apply to the composition of a simple sentence or paragraph-repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them. Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric is for anyone who wants to be a better speaker or writer.

Chess tactics explained in English: the second volume of material from www.chesstactics.org. This book is the second in a two-part set. The two books together contain over a thousand examples organized in unprecedented detail. Every position is accompanied by a commentary describing a train of thought that leads to the solution; these books thus are the ideal learning tool for those who prefer explanations in words to long strings of notation. Book II -- the present volume -- covers pins and skewers, removal of the guard, and mating patterns. (The first book in the set provides an introduction to tactics and explains forks and discovered attacks.) Also available in hardcover.

Chess tactics explained in English: the website www.chesstactics.org in book form. This volume is the first in a two-part set. The two books together contain over a thousand examples organized in unprecedented detail. Every position is accompanied by a commentary describing a train of thought that leads to the solution; these books thus are the ideal learning tool for those who prefer explanations in words to long strings of notation. This first volume provides an introduction to tactics and explains forks and discovered attacks. (Book II covers pins and skewers, removal of the guard, and mating patterns.) A hardcover version is also available.

How does one turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable? Using examples from Churchill, Lincoln, Dickens, Melville, and many others, this book examines the most valuable rhetorical devices with amazing clarity.