Why Most Philosophy Leaves You Confused — and How to Get the Training You Really Need
The Socratic Method vs. The Hero’s Preparation
Philosophy is supposed to make us wiser, stronger, and better prepared for life. But in practice, many people — even those who study philosophy in formal programs — come away more uncertain than before.
The reason? Most philosophy education doesn’t distinguish between two very different approaches: the Socratic Method and what I call the Hero’s Preparation.
The Socratic Method: Open-Ended and Directionless
The Socratic Method, as demonstrated in Plato’s dialogues depicting the life of Socrates in ancient Athens, is a kind of philosophical conversation with one central aim: to uncover contradictions in a person’s beliefs.
Here’s how it works:
- The conversation begins with a confident claim (“Justice is helping friends and harming enemies”).
- Through questions, Socrates forces the speaker to explore implications and exceptions.
- Eventually, contradictions emerge — beliefs that can’t both be true.
- The old certainty collapses, and the dialogue ends in aporia — puzzlement.
The strength of this method is that it clears away false confidence. The weakness is that it’s directionless: there’s no built-in path to resolution, no training in what to do with the confusion once it appears. The point is simply to doubt more intelligently.
The Hero’s Preparation: Guided Exploration Toward Choice
The South Asian philosophical tradition — visible in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Buddha’s journey — works differently. It, too, begins by exposing errors, but the process is guided and purposeful.
Here, exposing an error is not the end. It’s the removal of a bad option — a choice you do not have to make.
Once those false options are cleared away, something powerful happens:
- You begin to see a range of choices in your own life that had been unnoticed or underappreciated.
- These are not abstract “correct answers” but concrete ways forward from the problems of your past.
- The focus shifts from “What’s wrong with my thinking?” to “What can I do now, given what I see clearly?”
In the Katha Upanishad, Nachiketas learns from Yama not just the truth about death, but how to live in a way that transcends its grip. In the Gita, Arjuna doesn’t just get philosophical clarity — he gets a practice for acting decisively and ethically in the heat of battle. The Buddha, too, emerges from his philosophical quest with the Eightfold Path — a lived discipline that navigates suffering and delivers freedom.
Where Philosophy Education Gets It Wrong
Most philosophy programs don’t separate these two approaches. Students are exposed to both open-ended doubt and structured philosophical systems — but without clarity on how the methods differ or where they lead.
As a result:
- Some lucky students intuitively turn what they’ve learned into a practice that helps them navigate life’s pressures — the benefits of the Hero’s Preparation.
- Many others get stuck in endless aporia — great at dismantling ideas, but with no practical path forward.
Philosophy becomes a sport of cleverness, not a training ground for resilience and autonomy.
Why Academics Often Stay Stuck in the Socratic Method
In many academic settings, there is an unspoken assumption: if you depart from the Socratic Method’s impasse, the only alternative is interpretation.
Interpretation means explaining philosophical traditions in terms of the beliefs, doctrines, and outlooks of their authors. It is descriptive and comparative — a way of saying, “This is what they thought, in their context.”
The problem is that interpretation is passive. It doesn’t tell you what to do with the ideas. It treats philosophy as a collection of perspectives to be cataloged rather than a skill to be developed.
Because interpretation has been the default “next step” after Socratic doubt, academics often assume that anything beyond aporia is an attempt to hand students a new belief system — a form of indoctrination. This fear keeps them from teaching philosophy as a practical discipline.
The Alternative: Explication in the Hero’s Preparation
Explication is different from interpretation. Explication is about making the reasons behind a claim explicit, so they can be examined, weighed, and used for responsible choice.
In the Hero’s Preparation, explication is the key method. You’re not told what to believe; you’re trained to see clearly why a choice makes sense or doesn’t, and to recognize when you’re free to reject limiting ideas.
The outcome is not a new set of beliefs, but a personal skill:
- Processing information responsibly
- Seeing hidden choices in complex situations
- Choosing with clarity and confidence under pressure
The Hero’s Preparation replaces the paralysis of aporia with the freedom to act boldly and successfully. It is not indoctrination — it is liberation from the ideas and perspectives that hold us back.
Philosophit™: Ending the Confusion
That’s why I created Philosophit™.
Philosophit™ focuses entirely on the Hero’s Preparation through explication. What the hero develops is phitness. It’s not about clever debate for its own sake — it’s about building whole person strength that integrates mind, body, and senses to:
- Recognize and reject bad options before they waste your time and energy
- Spot hidden choices in your own life and act on them strategically
- Process complexity and conflicting information without losing clarity
- Win against the odds, as an individual, in the face of life’s pressures
Drawing from Western, Chinese, and Indian traditions, Philosophit™ uses philosophy as a practical training tool — the way athletes use resistance to build strength. You leave with a personal discipline that makes you stronger, clearer, and better equipped for the battles that matter.
In life’s real challenges, victory doesn’t go to the one who can raise the most doubts. It goes to the one who has trained — through explication — to see their choices clearly and act with decisive power.
