For Socrates, thinking was not a destination or a set of facts to be stored, but a dynamic, often uncomfortable process called the (or elenchus ).
Before you can debate whether an action is just, Socrates insists you must answer: What is justice itself? Not a list of just acts, but the Form, the essence, the shared property that makes all just things just. This relentless demand for precision separates Socratic thinking from mere opinionating. Most of our arguments—about politics, ethics, relationships—are futile because we are using the same words to mean radically different things. Socrates stops the argument and says, "Define your terms."