As per your irrecusable instructions (and wearing a splendid badge declaring that me to be the Foreign Correspondent EDUCATIONNEWS.ORG - the first word in red, the rest in black: a nice touch I thought - but I do hope you realise that I am still not being paid!), I spent four days last week at the second annual conference of the International Academy of Critical Thinking, held this year in New College, in Oxford.

I am still getting my brain unscrambled. To give it more time to do this, perhaps I can explain that New College is really not very new. It was founded in 1379; but this made it already something of a Johnny-come-lately to University College, Balliol and Merton, which all set up shop between 1249 and 1264. Then came the fourth oldest, Exeter, which was founded in 1314, and the fifth, Oriel, in 1326. So the name of 'New' made perfect sense six hundred years ago: and, I suppose you can say: it stuck.

And I suppose one might say that something similar happened to the International Academy of Critical Thinking. I want to speak well of their efforts. I was a guest at their conference, and took their bread and their salt - and having taken both an ancient superstition inhibits one from criticizing one's host - but I want to speak well of them also because I am greatly impressed by their courage, because I believe their mission is hugely important, and because I found all their speakers, in their very different ways, superb.

Because of these facts I had promised to write a first article praising their work, and only then a second telling them where I think they are going wrong. But now I think that they and your readers are most likely to read the praise and to ignore the criticism: and since it is the criticism which I mean to be the most helpful, I have decided to reverse their order.

Let me repeat that I find the aims of the Academy and Foundation hugely important: capable, indeed, of helping to create a better world. I am a friend. Let us see whether a friend will be heard.

It is first not a trivial comment that the Academy of Critical Thinking might have started with another name. How about - for instance - an Academy of Helpful Thinking? Or how about: an Academy To-help-everyone-understand-each-other-much-better-without- sounding-too-superior-about-it-and getting-up-everyone's-nose? I bet even that last could be boiled down to a few words of ancient Greek.

Which is, of course, where this piece has to start: in ancient Greece, with Socrates, the first man to be handed a cup of poison for persuading too many people that his thinking was better than theirs: or, at least, for making them believe that this is what he thought.

And this - one may surely be allowed to conjecture - may still be a major problem for the Academy: that all its attention appears to be given exclusively to correcting other people's thinking. As they should have learnt from the life, trial and death of Socrates, this may not always be the wisest approach. It is not the best way to make friends and influence people.

Here I am, for example, attempting to unscramble my thinking after a solid four days of learning why it isn't up to scratch; possibly never has been; possibly never will be.

A week ago I could have told you that I met some very interesting people at the Academy; that on the whole I enjoyed it; that I learnt some useful ideas; that I have some criticism that the Academy might find useful the next time around - and which, in fact, might make the whole experience even more rewarding and enjoyable for many more people; which might overcome some of the resistance probably inevitable whenever anyone tries to tell a mass audience that they need to sharpen up their thinking and ditch their old ideas.

Now, however, I find myself worrying that perhaps I may not write with sufficient accuracy, or sufficiently precisely; that I may not have fully questioned my ideas, or examined my beliefs, or considered my assumptions; that there may be implications whose significance has so far escaped me; that there must be alternatives - yea, and even contradictions - in everything that I have ever held imperishable and dear.

In short, I have not just been made to feel inadequate, but flattened.

Well, if my readers can imagine themselves reacting like this, perhaps they will be better able to sympathise with the jury of Socrates' fellow citizens who found him guilty of having offended the gods of Athens; disturbing their society and corrupting their young men.

And this may seem - most unfortunately - much like the aim of the Academy of Critical Thinking.

Its stated purpose on this occasion - and, of course, on all other occasions - is no such thing. On this occasion its aim was to contrast and compare the famous process of education known as the Oxford University Tutorial with the education process followed in most of the newer universities of the world. To prove, mainly through argument and example, that the first is superior to any of these alternatives, and to persuade its audience, from about 15 different countries, that they should somehow adapt the Oxford Tutorial first to benefit their students, second, the future employers of their students, next to the arts, science, industries and economies of their countries - and finally, in the words of one of the Academy's leading exponents, 'to make the world a better place'.

A somewhat irritated response from the audience to this final claim was: "Define: 'better'!"This actually produced a perfectly adequate response. 'Better' might mean more equitable and just societies; less hunger, less homelessness, less violence, more jobs - and so on. All of which is possibly true: if only world population could stop growing.

But the question still remains: long before anyone even thought about population growth, why did his fellow Athenians finally find the man - according to the Delphic oracle the wisest in the world - so irritating and disturbing that they sentenced him to death?

Certainly no-one could fault Socrates for his courage - or his sense of humour. "I am your gad-fly!" he told the Athenians. And when found guilty on the first vote, by just a small margin, the wisest man in the world offered suggested that what he really deserved was a comfortable pension for the rest of his life, or perhaps a small fine.

The second vote was more decisive than the first.

Socrates was about 70 in that year: 399 BC. He was short, balding, pot-bellied, ugly: adored and revered by many of his friends: and yet the majority of the five hundred or so at his trial made no attempt to protest at the sentence that was passed: to drink a cup of hemlock, a slow acting poison producing first paralysis in the lower body, finally the heart, and thus death. And all of this was calmly accepted by Socrates. The poison was brought to him that same evening as he sat surrounded by his friends.

'Soon the jailer … entered and stood by him, saying: "To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the noblest and gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me, when, in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison - indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you are aware, and not I, are to blame. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be - you know my errand." Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.'

The reason for Socrates' execution - which his friends urged him to avoid simply by leaving the city, as he could have done: but in disgrace - seem to me to be very relevant to this report. I shall try to show why it is perfectly reasonable for many to misconceive and distrust the work of the present Academy: although it is work which I value and applaud.

I shall try to show that this may be primarily because the Academy does not emphasize a very central fact about Socrates' life, work, and death - and that this is to the Academy's most serious loss. To express this fact most simply: as well as being amongst the most profoundly rational men of his time, Socrates was also one of the most spiritual who has ever lived. What Socrates was interested in was not just to know the most reasonable way to live, but also to discover the most reasonable way to die. Here is his own explanation to his friends - and to us.

"Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will be an unspeakable gain. . . . Now if death is like this, I say that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if death is a journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this? . . . What would not a man give if he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again … " [1]

Allow me, oh most reasonable of editors, to return to this theme next week. It is then that I will also suggest how the Academy may show itself to be Socrates' true friend.

Colin Hannaford, Oxford, England: 11^th September 2008