How to Think Like Socrates
Good Fit
- Readers of Robertson's "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" who enjoy books linking Stoicism and ancient philosophy to modern psychology
- Psychology enthusiasts who want to understand the philosophical roots of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Readers wanting to learn the Socratic method of questioning as a practical self-reflection tool
- Readers who enjoy a writing style that weaves historical reconstruction (Cicero's visit to the Academy) directly with the author's own story
Not a Fit
- Specialists looking for a purely academic, philological analysis of Socrates and Plato — this book is in the popular-applied genre
- Readers skeptical of drawing parallels between ancient philosophy and modern therapy, who consider this anachronistic
- Readers who want to focus purely on Socrates' biography rather than the author's personal story
The book opens with Cicero's visit to the Academy in Athens in 79 BCE — a site plundered and abandoned after Sulla's siege, where Cicero and his friends still sense the spiritual presence of Socrates and Plato, tied to a poem Lord Byron wrote mourning this loss.
Robertson turns to his own story — finding a copy of Plato's Republic by chance at 17 in Scotland, which led him to study philosophy at the University of Aberdeen and later into a clinical psychotherapy career.
The author shows that many of Stoicism's core ideas trace directly back to Socrates — noting that Epictetus's famous line, "people are disturbed not by events but by their opinions about events," appears in Socrates' dialogues four hundred years earlier.
The chapter quotes CBT founder Aaron Beck, who said he first encountered this idea while studying Plato's Republic at university — "Socratic questioning" (where's the evidence for this? how might other people see this situation differently?) became the foundation of his therapeutic method.
As an example, the chapter describes the method Socrates used to resolve his son Lamprocles's complaint about his mother Xanthippe — Robertson presents this as evidence that Socrates acted like a "relationship counselor," practicing a form of cognitive therapy twenty-five hundred years early.
- A strong opening technique that renders historical reconstruction (Cicero's visit) in vivid, novelistic description
- Weaves the author's personal story (how he came to philosophy) directly together with academic content
- A style that cites ancient sources (Cicero, Epictetus, Xenophon) closely, without falling into heavy academic language
- Uses experimental narrative techniques later in the book — such as narrating Socrates' death in the second person ("you"), drawn from the Phaedo dialogue
The same author's earlier bestseller connecting Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism to modern therapy
A similar approach to bridging ancient philosophy and modern psychology
A work examining the Socratic method of questioning with greater academic depth
While the Introduction only lays out the general framework, the remaining chapters connect specific episodes from Socrates' life (his military service, his relationship with Xanthippe, his dialogues with young people) to concrete CBT techniques (emotional regulation, values clarification, Socratic questioning).
The book closes with an emotional finale, drawing on the Phaedo dialogue to narrate Socrates' death in the second person — using his fearlessness and his view of death as "a kind of remedy" to invite the reader toward their own philosophical reconciliation with mortality.
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