Elenchus and Socrates
Mark Abby
PHL 414 Plato
Mid-Term
February 20, 2012
The phrase “Socratic method” gets tossed around quite a bit during the course of a liberal arts education. One way of describing this method is teaching by means of asking. The thought is that by asking questions, a teacher may trigger some thought in the student’s mind which comes about more organically and effectively than by the means of traditional lecture. Employing the Socratic method allows a teacher to guide a student’s train of thought toward a particular goal, and use of the method requires on the part of the teacher both a keen understanding of psychology and a clear idea as to where the line of questioning is intended to lead. The latter part of that statement becomes problematic as we examine the use of the Socratic method by Socrates himself.
The problem is two-fold. Speaking to the first point, Socrates is not very much of a teacher. By that I mean that he is either unwilling or unable to lead his students (for sake of clarity I will refer to the various interlocutors in the dialogues as being “students” of Socrates, in so much as that is the way in which Plato seems to have framed the discussions) toward any specific lesson or definition. Socrates himself makes a point to admit his inability to serve as an instructor. In fact, he makes the claim that his only real knowledge is his ability to recognize his own lack of knowledge. The second problem with this model of Socrates as an instructor is that the Socratic method should lead the student out of ignorance. Socrates seems to do just the opposite in every dialogue, resulting in the interlocutor becoming more confused and self-contradicting the longer he engages Socrates in debate. As a result, the dialogues do not seem to be a legitimate attempt to provide us with an answer to the central question at the heart of each. Rather, they exist only to show us what is “wrong” and never what is “right”. It is not that we are merely catching a part
PHL 414 Plato
Mid-Term
February 20, 2012
The phrase “Socratic method” gets tossed around quite a bit during the course of a liberal arts education. One way of describing this method is teaching by means of asking. The thought is that by asking questions, a teacher may trigger some thought in the student’s mind which comes about more organically and effectively than by the means of traditional lecture. Employing the Socratic method allows a teacher to guide a student’s train of thought toward a particular goal, and use of the method requires on the part of the teacher both a keen understanding of psychology and a clear idea as to where the line of questioning is intended to lead. The latter part of that statement becomes problematic as we examine the use of the Socratic method by Socrates himself.
The problem is two-fold. Speaking to the first point, Socrates is not very much of a teacher. By that I mean that he is either unwilling or unable to lead his students (for sake of clarity I will refer to the various interlocutors in the dialogues as being “students” of Socrates, in so much as that is the way in which Plato seems to have framed the discussions) toward any specific lesson or definition. Socrates himself makes a point to admit his inability to serve as an instructor. In fact, he makes the claim that his only real knowledge is his ability to recognize his own lack of knowledge. The second problem with this model of Socrates as an instructor is that the Socratic method should lead the student out of ignorance. Socrates seems to do just the opposite in every dialogue, resulting in the interlocutor becoming more confused and self-contradicting the longer he engages Socrates in debate. As a result, the dialogues do not seem to be a legitimate attempt to provide us with an answer to the central question at the heart of each. Rather, they exist only to show us what is “wrong” and never what is “right”. It is not that we are merely catching a part