HAVE THE ACUMEN TO DO THE TRIPLE FILTER TEST

Socrates who is considered to be the father of Western philosophy is also known as “questioner of everything and everyone”.  His style of teaching—immortalized as the Socratic Method—involved not conveying knowledge but rather asking question after clarifying question until his students arrived at their own understanding.

One day an acquaintance met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?" 

"Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you’re going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test.”

“The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?" 

"Well, no," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and…"

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now, let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?"

 "Umm, no, on the contrary…," the person stammered to answer.

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about my friend, but you’re not certain it’s true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left—the filter of usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?" 

 "No, not really," was his answer.

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true, nor good, nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"

If only the people have the acumen to let what they try to convey about others have gone through these filters!