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The test of the three
Socrates sieves had, in ancient Greece, a high reputation for wisdom. One day someone came to the great philosopher and said to him, "Do you know what I have just learned about your friend?" "For a
moment, Socrates replied. Before you tell me all this, I'd like to give you a quick test. What you have to say to me, do you make it through the three sieves?
But yes," Socrates continued,"before telling all kinds of things about others, it is good to take the time to filter out what you would like to say. This is what I call the test of the three sieves.
The first strainer is that of TRUTH. Have you checked if what you want to tell me is TRUE? "No, not really, I didn't see the thing myself, I just heard it say. "All right!" So you don't know if that's the truth.
Let's see now, let's try to filter differently, using a second strainer, the BONTÉ one. Is what you want to learn about my friend something GOOD? "Oh no, on the contrary! I heard your friend did a very bad thing. "So, Socrates continues, you want to tell me bad things about him and you're not sure what they are true. It's not very promising!
But you can still take the test, because there is still one sieve left: the one of UTILITY. Is it useful for you to teach me what my friend would have done? "Useful?" No, not really, I don't think that's useful.
"So," concludes Socrates, "if what you have to tell me is neither TRUE, GOOD nor USEFUL, why would you want to tell me? I don't want to know anything. On your side, you'd better double it all up. »
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