The Socratic method is designed to make people more open and subtle thinkers—assuming, of course, that they do not first become angry and resentful. NeelBurton explains how it works.
But is the oracle story even true, or is it just another of Plato’s myths? The oracle story conveniently serves to frame Socrates, who had been put to death as a heretic and corrupter of youths, as having been on a noble, divinely inspired mission, attached by the gods to Athens as upon a great horse which “needed to be stirred up by a kind of gadfly.
The method of elenchus, especially as employed by Socrates, consists in questioning one or more people about a certain concept such as justice or virtue with the aim of exposing a contradiction in their initial assumptions and provoking a reappraisal of the concept.
With our initial dogmatism transmuted into a state of puzzlement and suspended judgment, we are ready to become much more open and subtle thinkers—assuming, of course, that we have not first become angry and resentful.To have our understanding of a moral concept undermined is also to have our values undermined, and, with that, our sense of self.and other feelings, and to keep them talking, Socrates often flattered his interlocutors while himself playing the fool.
The technique resembles that used by the TV character Lieutenant Columbo to trap villains. One of the few miscreants who can see through Columbo’s fumbling and forgetful façade is the husband-killer Leslie Williams: LW: You know, Columbo, you’re almost likeable in a shabby sort of way. Maybe it’s the way you come slouching in here with your shopworn bag of tricks.LW: The humility, the seeming absent-mindedness, the uh, homey anecdotes about the family: the wife, you know?LW: Yeah, Lieutenant Columbo, fumbling and stumbling along. But it’s always the jugular that he’s after.
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