How to Listen: An Ancient Guide to Learning from Others

A lively new translation of Plutarch’s charming and timeless essay on how to be a good listener—and why listening is essential to learning and living well

Listening is a skill—even an art—and it’s essential to learning and to life. Indeed, as Plutarch writes in How to Listen, “listening well is the foundation for living well.” In this volume, Jeffrey Beneker presents a vivid and accessible new translation of Plutarch’s classic essay about how to become a skilled listener, complete with an inviting introduction and the original Greek on facing pages.

Plutarch is most famous as the author of Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of Greek and Roman statesmen. But he was also an expert on teaching and learning and How to Listen is arguably one of his best pedagogical works. A proponent of active listening well before its time, Plutarch explains the skills we need—and the obstacles and distractions we must overcome—to become effective listeners. Good listening requires, above all, an acknowledgement of our own ignorance in certain subjects and a commitment to gaining knowledge. We must set aside pride and envy so we can respect the expertise of others. We must also train ourselves to see through style and focus on substance, to discriminate between weak and strong arguments, and to criticize ideas fairly and accurately.

Filled with shrewd insights and advice, How to Listen shows how to cultivate a skill that everyone who wants to learn and live well must master.