How do you apply the Socratic Method in chess?

I agree that your brain can find the answers, but only if you ask the right questions.  If you were to ask yourself a broad question like "what should I play here?", your brain is going to give you a broad answer like "a good move!".  The hard part is asking yourself the right questions.  

Regarding the "what's the threat" question, I agree that it sounds quite general but in fact you must train yourself to do that every single time your opponent makes a move.  Partly because the term "threat" can cover everything from basic tactics, like a mate threat, pins, forks, etc, all the way up to strategic "threats", like a passed pawn, better endgame, etc, that might be less obvious to beginners.  

Every single move your opponent makes you must first ask "what is the threat?".  It helps to pretend that your opponent has another move.  What is the worst thing they could do to you?  And make sure you find ALL of the threats that you can.  Don't stop looking when you find one...there could be multiple threats.  The stronger you get the easier it will become to find threats, and you'll eventually start seeing more complicated threats.

If you are asking yourself the question every time but find that you are missing threats by just not seeing them (but you do really look), then keep a list of the threats you're missing and go train them.  If you're simply not even looking for threats, then you'll be stuck at the beginner level until you do.

Hmm...

I have not forgotten about this post you wrote. I am rereading this everyday and it's always on my second monitor screen as a reminder since I keep on forgetting to apply this principle everytime when I start to lose and go on full tilt. One thing I have learned about myself when I lose is my bad emotion keeps me from seeing this question in my dialogue.

I discovered that when I articulate on a plan I would normally have a decent chance winning a game whereas when I rely on "intuition" on my moves (no plan articulated in words) I would lose and go on full tilt. So even when I make a plan based on what I "think" I know, I'd still win. Maybe this only works in the lower league. 

I am an ignorant person and being such am not sure what the "Socratic Method."  actually is. But if you mean asking questions about your opponent's move, that is the correct way to play. I refer you to the Dan Heisman videos on ICC where he employs this method on all of the games he analyzes on the videos.  

Just logged on ICC. Does he employ this method in all his videos or you're referring to a very specific set of videos where this applies?

Btw your icon looks familar, not sure where I've seen it. Maybe twitch perhaps. 

I prefer to keep chess simple. 

I looked up "Socratic Method" in Wikipedia. Apparently it involves asking a question of the person who asked a question who in turn askes you a question, the idea being to determine the underlying ideas of the assumptions in the original question and the answering question. Sort of like an iterating equation in math. It seems that chess analysis isa sort Socratic Method where when we study the position on the board we ask ourselves questions about the position to determine the underlying ideas of the position and our perceptions of these underlying ideas. In other words, the analyzer of a position is both parties in the application of the Socratic Method. Dan Heisman seems to be advocating the use of this method of chess analysis without calling it the Socratic Method but this is what he seems to be doing. I've been playing his videos on amateur games at http://www6.chessclub.com/chessfm/index/heisman/index.html

It does require ICC membership to view these videos. But I his method of analysis that he uses seems to be in essence an adaptation of the Socratic Method, but I could be wrong since I am no expert on the Socratic Method. Heisman is an educated man with a college degree so it is possible that he may have studied this method in college and he has found a way to apply this method in his chess analysis. I have been trying to improve my chess and by watching these videos and using his method of analysis my game has improved. 

As for my logo I made it from a photo of the king in Isle of Lewis chess set. 

It is an interesting question. The idea is that chess is a game of attrition. We keep punching our opponent until his defenses are broken down and we can then attack a defenseless king. Sometimes we don't mind losing a piece or even a queen, if we can kill our opponent on the next move. But if we can't win immediately we need to take away a pawn here and there for example in order to punch open a file so that our pieces can swarm in. If we get a piece, maybe that piece is defending another piece or pawn and so winning that piece allows us to win yet another piece and so forth. 

An extra piece is usually an advantage because with the extra material we can launch an attack on our opponent's king and mate him. Being one piece down he may not be able to defend himself against a direct attack. If he can defend himself with the existing pieces, the missing piece may have been guarding another piece or pawn which could then be removed and so forth. From a practical point of view you can look through hundreds of games in databases and you will see those games in which someone is missing a piece is usually lost for the person who is down a piece. The exception to this is when tactics are possible.  

Extra material is advantageous because it limits the potential moves your opponent can play that leave the position's evaluation unchanged while increasing the potential moves that you can play that are +/=, ultimately progressing to positional winning advantage and/or checkmate.  

I said both! 

Because the king, alone, will never win.

In analysis I usually phrase my suggestions as questions to my opponent.  I'll say things like what happens after / what do you think about this move?

Why?! I was enjoying your comment, and you ruined it.

I like questions like that.

Also good, IMO, are questions like why one piece said to be worth more than another (e.g. queen vs knight).  Why is it said the center is important?  Why is it said to meet a flank attack with central action?

etc.

Well he should just kill himself then shouldn't he?

Anyway, I certainly wish I had questioned assumptions like "why do we want more material," or "why is two pawns in the center good," long before I realized the worth of doing so.

What's nice is that if you ever think something is vague in chess, you can always break it down further. You could break the center into mobility, but you could break that down too, figure out why is it that mobile positions are good. Then you may find, empirically, that they create more threats, etc etc.

I would say in chess it would be like taking some things you believe to be true, probably as applied to the particular position, and specifically looking for any contradiction in them. That's basically what Socrates did: he'd ask people what they believe, then maybe ask what other closely related things do they believe, and eventually use one of these previously mentioned beliefs to disprove some further claim they make, or to use the further claims to disprove the previous claims.

Personally I don't see a need to be specifically socratic, but just do good logic like a sensible person would do. Know what your assumptions lead to, question them sometimes, etc. I think trying to pretend you're in a dialogue of Socrates will just confuse you more than help.

Socrates is dead.  My cat is dead.  Socrates is my dead cat.

It all goes to show how helpful all these forums can be. I had never known what the Socratic Method was until reading about it here. Now I understand this is the same method that Judge Judy uses. The moral of the whole thing is never appear before Judge Judy.