Week 1 Philosophy Workshop: Testing Six Definitions of a Good Friend

Part 1 — The Big Picture

People argue about words like fair, brave, and friend all the time, and most of those arguments are really about what the word means. This week you learned that philosophy examines questions like these by careful argument rather than by authority alone, that the Socratic method tests a definition with a counterexample and then revises it, and that Q1, the line from Plato's Apology, is Benjamin Jowett's English for what Socrates says. In this workshop you test six short definitions of a good friend, revise one of them over two rounds, write a short dialogue between the strongest defender and the strongest critic of the examined life, and then catch a chatbot making the slips this week warns about.

Time budget: Plan for about 90 minutes.

Part 2 — The Task

Guiding question: Which of six illustrative definitions of a good friend survive a counterexample, how does one of them change over two rounds of the Socratic method, and how would the strongest defender and the strongest critic of the examined life answer each other?

Workshop data: Six illustrative definitions of a good friend

Source: Six illustrative definitions of a good friend, written for this workshop and printed in full in Part 4; they come from no real person or group.

• Rows: 6 definitions, F1 to F6, one row each in the definitions table
• Columns: definition, your counterexample, too broad or too narrow, and why
• Source text: F1. A good friend is someone who always agrees with you. F2. A good friend is someone you have known for years. F3. A good friend is someone who helps you move to a new apartment. F4. A good friend is someone who tells you the truth even when it hurts. F5. A good friend is someone you message every day. F6. A good friend is someone who wants what is good for you, for your own sake.

Part 3 — Materials & Procedure

Tools and materials

• A free word processor or note-taking app for arguments in standard form and short dialogues, with the pinned public-domain texts on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Classics Archive open beside it; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose reconstructions, quotations, and attributions the student checks word for word against the pinned text and record before trusting them
• Pen and paper or any free note-taking app
• One approved chatbot

Ways of working

• reconstruct-the-argument
• test-the-thought-experiment
• write-the-dialogue

Procedure

1. Read the six definitions in the first table of Part 4. For each one, say it once in your own words in its strongest form, as someone who believes it would put it. Tool: Pen and paper or any free note-taking app. Check: You can restate each definition fairly before testing it.
2. For each definition, write one counterexample: a case the definition gets wrong. Then label it too broad (it lets in a case that is not a good friend) or too narrow (it leaves out a case that is), and give your reason in the last column. Tool: A free word processor or note-taking app for arguments in standard form and short dialogues, with the pinned public-domain texts on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Classics Archive open beside it; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose reconstructions, quotations, and attributions the student checks word for word against the pinned text and record before trusting them. Check: Every row has a counterexample, a label, and a reason.
3. Choose one definition and run two rounds of the Socratic method in the second table: the definition, a counterexample, a revised definition, and a second counterexample, each labeled too broad or too narrow. Tool: A free word processor or note-taking app for arguments in standard form and short dialogues, with the pinned public-domain texts on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Classics Archive open beside it; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose reconstructions, quotations, and attributions the student checks word for word against the pinned text and record before trusting them. Check: Your examination ends with a sharper question, not a settled definition.
4. Read the variation printed above the third table. Write a six-turn dialogue, three turns each, between the strongest defender and the strongest critic of the line Q1, about whether Socrates should accept the offer. End with one plain sentence that names where they disagree. Tool: A free word processor or note-taking app for arguments in standard form and short dialogues, with the pinned public-domain texts on Project Gutenberg and the Internet Classics Archive open beside it; and one approved chatbot used as a sparring partner whose reconstructions, quotations, and attributions the student checks word for word against the pinned text and record before trusting them. Check: Each side is stated as its best defender would state it, and the closing sentence names the disagreement.
5. Paste the prompt from Part 6 into one approved chatbot after your completed tables, or use the equivalent route. Record what the chatbot or the printed analysis says in the fourth table, and check each item against Q1 as printed and this week's chapter. Tool: One approved chatbot. Check: Each row of the sourcing table says whether the claim matches the course's record.
6. Answer the five analysis questions, then write your critique report and check your work against the quality gate. Tool: Pen and paper or any free note-taking app. Check: Every quality-gate line can be ticked.

Fallback route

When to use it: Use this route if no note-taking app is available or the chatbot will not load.

Copy the four tables onto paper by hand, complete them there, and complete the critique on the equivalent route instead of the chatbot. Then answer every analysis question and submit the same items for equal credit.

This route earns the same credit as the primary route.

Part 4 — The Scaffold

Test each definition before you revise any of them; a fair test starts from the strongest reading.

Student scaffold table 1

Definition	Your counterexample	Too broad or too narrow?	Why
F1. A good friend is someone who always agrees with you.
F2. A good friend is someone you have known for years.
F3. A good friend is someone who helps you move to a new apartment.
F4. A good friend is someone who tells you the truth even when it hurts.
F5. A good friend is someone you message every day.
F6. A good friend is someone who wants what is good for you, for your own sake.

Two rounds on one definition show how the Socratic method sharpens a question.

Student scaffold table 2

Round	Definition	Counterexample	Too broad or too narrow?
Round 1
Round 2

Variation (invented for this workshop, not a historical event): suppose the court had offered Socrates his life on one condition, that he question people only in private, never in public. Write three turns for each side, then one plain sentence naming where they disagree.

Student scaffold table 3

Speaker	Turn 1	Turn 2	Turn 3
The strongest defender of the examined life
The strongest critic

Check every claim the chatbot or the printed analysis makes about sources against the course's record before you trust it.

Student scaffold table 4

Item checked	What the chatbot or analysis said	The course's record	Match or correction
Who speaks the line Q1
Who wrote the work it comes from
Whose English words Q1 uses
The place and year of the trial
Where the cogito line first appears

Part 5 — Analysis Questions

1. Count your labels in the definitions table: how many of the six definitions did you label too broad, and how many too narrow? Show that your two counts add up to 6.
2. Three definitions name a single behavior (agreeing, helping with a move, messaging daily). What do your counterexamples to those three have in common?
3. Using your Round 1, explain why one counterexample is enough to show a definition fails as stated, and why it does not prove the opposite definition.
4. Name one limit of this workshop's method: what can a counterexample not tell you about the definition you revised, and what would you still need to do?
5. Choose one and answer it in 3–4 sentences. (a) Which intuition about the variation did you start with, and did it survive writing both sides of the dialogue? (b) Which definition of a good friend did you first find most convincing, and did it survive your counterexample?

Part 6 — AI-Critique Moment

Choose one equal-credit critique route. Route A: ask an approved AI tool to critique your completed work, then check its response against your own evidence. Route B is the no-AI equivalent printed below.

Approved tools: Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, Grok, Microsoft Copilot.

Prompt to paste:

I've pasted my completed Week 1 Philosophy Workshop tables above. They test six illustrative definitions of a good friend with counterexamples, revise one definition over two rounds, and set out a short dialogue about an invented variation on the trial of Socrates. Please do eight things. First, give one counterexample for each of the six definitions and say whether it shows the definition is too broad or too narrow. Second, tell me who said that the unexamined life is not worth living, in what work, and whose English words the usual line is. Third, state the place and year of Socrates' trial. Fourth, write a short dialogue between the strongest defender and the strongest critic of that line. Fifth, give a neutral one-paragraph summary of their disagreement and tell me which side is right. Sixth, tell me whether this illustrative argument is valid and whether it is sound: If Socrates is wise, he admits his ignorance. Socrates is wise. So he admits his ignorance. Seventh, name two famous thought experiments and who devised each one, and say where Descartes' cogito line first appears. Eighth, tell me where philosophy comes from.

Test the response for these likely failures:

• Chatbots often add a second famous line, such as one about knowing that you know nothing, and present it in quotation marks as Socrates' exact words.
• Chatbots often say Socrates wrote, or said in these exact English words, that the unexamined life is not worth living.
• Chatbots often place the line in Plato's Republic, or put the trial in the wrong city or the wrong era.
• Chatbots often call an argument valid because its conclusion sounds true, including one that reasons from a conditional's consequent back to its antecedent.
• Chatbots often call the wise-Socrates argument sound and say it proves that Socrates admitted his ignorance.
• Chatbots often have the defender of the examined life say that anyone who does not do philosophy lives a worthless life.
• Chatbots often credit the ship of Theseus to Socrates or to Plato.
• Chatbots often say Descartes' cogito line first appears in his Meditations.
• Chatbots often say philosophy began in ancient Greece and is a European subject.
• Chatbots often end the dialogue by declaring that the examined life is the only life worth living, or that the critic has won.
• Chatbots often write a neutral summary that calls Socrates brave and the jury foolish, or calls the critic's view sensible and the defender's naive.

Write 3–5 sentences that quote at least two statements from the chatbot you used, say what is wrong with each and correct it with evidence from this week's chapter, Q1 as printed, or your tables, and name one thing the chatbot got right.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

No AI account is required for this workshop. Instead of the chatbot, critique this flawed analysis, printed here in full: "Socrates wrote in his own words that 'the unexamined life is not worth living,' and he also wrote a famous line about knowing that he knows nothing. The line comes from Plato's Republic, and Socrates was tried in Rome. Like Descartes, whose cogito line first appears in his Meditations, Socrates invented famous thought experiments, among them the ship of Theseus. The argument 'If Socrates is wise, he admits his ignorance. Socrates is wise. So he admits his ignorance.' is sound, so it proves he admitted his ignorance, and the argument 'If Socrates is wise, he admits his ignorance. Socrates admits his ignorance. So he is wise.' is valid too. People who defend the examined life think anyone who does not do philosophy lives a worthless life. Philosophy began in Greece and is a European subject. In a neutral summary, brave Socrates stood up to a foolish jury, so the examined life is the only life worth living and the question is settled." Mark it up: quote each flawed sentence, name what is wrong (an invented or misattributed quotation, a translation presented as Socrates' own words, a wrong work or place, a thought experiment credited to the wrong person, the cogito placed in the Meditations, a valid argument called sound without checking its premises, an invalid argument called valid, a position weakened beyond what its defenders hold, one tradition presented as all of philosophy, a verdict on an open question, or a summary that takes a side), cite the evidence from this week's chapter, Q1 as printed, or your tables, and write a corrected sentence beneath it. This route assesses the same objective (Objective 1 — explain what philosophy is, name its main branches, and describe the Socratic practice of examining beliefs through questioning and argument) as the chatbot critique, takes comparable effort (about 30 minutes and 200–300 words), is scored by the same scoring criteria for the same credit, and its own submission artifact is the marked-up flawed analysis, posted in place of the chatbot share link and report.

Part 7 — What to Submit

• All four completed scaffold tables: the definitions table, the two rounds, the dialogue, and the sourcing check
• Written answers to all five analysis questions
• The chatbot critique report with its share link, or the equivalent route's marked-up flawed analysis

Deliverable:

A short Philosophy Workshop report on six illustrative definitions of a good friend: four completed tables (the definitions table, the two rounds, the dialogue on the variation, and the sourcing check), written answers to five analysis questions, and a critique of a chatbot's reading of the same work, or, on the equivalent route, a marked-up correction of the printed flawed analysis. Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text. Choose a written, recorded, or spoken form for your answers; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria.

Rubric

The rubric below shows how each submitted part is evaluated; bands are full, partial, or none.

Workshop evaluation criteria

Criterion	Full	Partial	None
Testing the six definitions	Every definition is restated fairly, has a counterexample the definition gets wrong, and carries a too-broad or too-narrow label with a reason that fits the case.	Most definitions are tested, but one or two counterexamples do not fit, labels are missing or mismatched, or reasons are absent.	No definitions are tested, or the tests are copied from a chatbot without any checking.
Two rounds of the Socratic method	Both rounds give a definition and a counterexample, each labeled with a reason, the second definition answers the first counterexample, and the examination ends on a sharper question.	Both rounds appear, but the revision ignores the first counterexample or a label is missing.	Fewer than one complete round is submitted.
The dialogue on the variation	Three turns each, with the defender and the critic stated as their best defenders would state them, the turns answering each other, and one plain sentence naming where they disagree; either side may come out stronger without penalty.	The dialogue is present, but one side is weakened into a straw version, the turns do not answer each other, or the closing sentence is missing.	No dialogue is submitted.
Accurate sourcing	Q1 is quoted word for word and credited to Plato's Apology in Benjamin Jowett's translation, Socrates is named as the speaker, and the trial is placed in Athens in 399 BCE.	One sourcing slip appears, such as a missing translator, Socrates named as the writer, or a wrong place or year.	Sourcing is missing, or more than one sourcing slip appears.
Critique of the chatbot or of the printed flawed analysis	On either route, at least two statements are quoted and corrected with evidence from the chapter, Q1 as printed, or the tables, and one correct statement is acknowledged; both routes earn this band equally.	On either route, errors are named but corrected without evidence, or only one error is caught.	No critique appears, or pasted output is submitted without any checking.
Reflection on an intuition	The chosen reflection option is answered in 3–4 sentences that name a specific starting intuition or definition and say whether and why it survived.	The reflection is answered but stays general or does not say whether the intuition survived.	No reflection is submitted.

Quality Gate

• Every definition has a counterexample, a too-broad or too-narrow label, and a reason.
• The two label counts add up to 6.
• Both rounds name a definition and a counterexample, and the second definition answers the first counterexample.
• Each side of the dialogue is stated as its best defender would state it, and no verdict is given on the open question.
• Q1 is quoted word for word and credited to Plato's Apology in Benjamin Jowett's translation, with no other quotation added.
• No quotation, date, work, or view is invented anywhere in the submission.
• The critique quotes the chatbot or the flawed analysis and corrects at least two statements with evidence from the chapter, Q1 as printed, or the tables.