Socratic Check

Socratic Check

A structured 7-prompt pre-decision checklist. Ryan brings a position; each prompt challenges one layer of the reasoning. The output is not a verdict — it is a sharper version of Ryan's own thinking with the weak joints exposed.

When to Activate

Manual triggers:

• "Socratic check"
• "Run the 7 prompts"
• "Pre-decision check"
• "Before I commit"
• "Stress my reasoning"
• "Am I thinking about this right?"

Auto-detect:

• User states a decision they are about to make (not an idea to explore) and asks whether they are reasoning about it correctly.
• User says "I'm about to X" and signals hesitation.

Do NOT activate when:

• User wants the idea itself attacked → use devils-advocate.
• User wants requirements discovery → use interrogate.
• User wants to learn a concept → use mentor-feynman.

The Anti-Pattern This Fixes

Vending-machine usage: user asks, Claude answers, user ships. Zero learning, outsourced judgment, unchecked assumptions. Socratic prompting reverses the polarity — the user states a position, Claude attacks premises, the user rebuilds the position stronger or walks away from it.

The 7 Prompts

Run one at a time. Wait for the user's answer before moving to the next. Capture the user's answers verbatim — do not paraphrase. The point is to hear the user's own reasoning, not Claude's summary of it.

1. Challenge assumptions

"What are you assuming is true here that you have not verified? For each assumption, what is the cheapest way to check it before committing?"

Why: most failed decisions trace to an unexamined assumption treated as fact.

2. Test evidence

"What is the strongest piece of evidence supporting this decision, and what is the strongest piece against it? If the 'against' evidence is weak or absent, why is that — have you actually looked?"

Why: confirmation bias. Most users can cite pro-evidence and go silent on con.

3. Premortem failure analysis

"Fast-forward 6 months. This decision has failed badly. Write the post-mortem: what went wrong, what we missed, what signal we ignored. Be specific."

Why: anticipating failure modes is easier in the future tense than the present.

4. Counter-argument strength

"Steelman the opposing position. Not a strawman — the strongest version of the argument for doing the opposite. Does your position still hold against that version?"

Why: if you can't argue against yourself, you don't understand your own position.

5. Bias detection

"What bias might be driving this choice — sunk cost, novelty, recency, social proof, motivated reasoning? If you stripped the bias out, would you still make the same call?"

Why: biases are invisible until named. Forcing the name surfaces the pull.

6. Framing challenge

"How is this decision framed? Who framed it that way? What frame would a competitor, a skeptic, or someone five years from now use? Does the choice change under a different frame?"

Why: the frame often decides the answer before the analysis begins.

7. Consequence evaluation

"What are the second and third-order consequences — not just the direct outcome but what it enables, forecloses, or signals? What becomes harder after this? What becomes impossible?"

Why: first-order consequences are obvious. Second-order is where the real cost or leverage lives.

Output Format

After all 7 answers are captured, produce:

1. Position (restated) — one sentence, Ryan's own words.
2. Strongest joint — the part of the reasoning that held up under every prompt.
3. Weakest joint — the prompt where the reasoning wobbled most, and what needs to be shored up before committing.
4. Open verification — the cheapest check from prompt 1 that is still pending, if any.
5. Recommendation — commit / shore up then commit / kill / park.

Keep the output to under 150 words. The work is in the 7 prompts; the summary is just the scoreboard.

Modes

• Fast (default for Ryan, personal mode) — present all 7 prompts at once as a numbered list, let the user answer inline. Skip per-prompt explainers.
• Guided (candidate / customer mode) — one prompt at a time, with the "why" line shown. Wait for answer. Move on.

Cross-skill integration

• If prompt 3 (premortem) surfaces a real failure mode, offer to escalate to devils-advocate for a full adversarial pass on that mode.
• If prompt 1 (assumptions) surfaces an unverified assumption that requires external research, offer to run a web search or pull internal docs.
• If the user tries to run this on a vague idea rather than a specific decision, redirect to interrogate first to pin down what is actually being decided.

Source

@dailyprompter Instagram post 2026-03-21 — the framing (7 prompts that challenge thinking) was public; the actual 7 prompts were gated behind an engagement wall. Reconstructed from the principle plus related literature: Edward Y. Chang's Socratic Method paper (arxiv 2303.08769), the intellectual-sparring-partner template, and the "10 Prompts That Force AI to Challenge Your Worst Ideas" toolkit. Card: ~/mindspace/library/summit/try/2026-04-17-1146-socratic-prompting-7-prompts.md.