The Socratic Method - A Key for Learning and Civility

Compiled Propositions for Discussion and Not for Contending

The Socratic method is a form of debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas. The Socratic approach is a method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions and not attacking the opponent.

?1 – A Socratic/ Rational Debate / Conversation is at the heart of the academic enterprise. Rationality helps define our humanity.

2 – However, the predominant approach in society is to think that refutation is not a necessary part of argument.? The prevailing principle is to assume that your opponent is wrong, and then show how silly he is for being wrong.? That is when confusion begins.

3 - Although in the Anglo-Saxon cultures debate is well accepted, regarded and exercised, people usually do not engage in a Socratic dialogue – they talk past each other - - - and forget that it is not about winning the last argument, but the pursuit of truth that counts.? Sometimes we modify each other's thoughts over many years.? Yet, what sometimes looks like a dogfight - is in reality the developing work of a community of the mind and of deep affection.

4 - Someone has said that “Opposition is true friendship” and friends should be able to say anything to each other without fearing resentment.? The problem is that real friends do not come by easily.

5 - Rational opposition is not quarreling. We must argue for truth, not for victory - for truth, not for comfort.? The use of rational opposition via the Socratic Method and dialectical criticism is the normative academic and civilized approach.

6 – Why are Socratic Discussions so important? "Because in any large and talkative community, such as a university, there is always the danger that those who think alike should gravitate together into groups where they will encounter opposition only in the form of rumor that ‘the outsiders say thus and thus’. The absent is easily refuted, dogmatism thrives, and differences of opinion are embittered by group hostility. Each group hears not the best, but the worst, of what the other groups can say.? That is the reality of many academic environments. Politeness (or sometimes educated cynicism) is no substitution for meaningful and constructive discussions."

7 – Some Advice on Debating:

?– “Avoid unqualified statements. It is not useful saying that a point is “irrelevant.” Be specific and tell the failures of the argument.”

?– “Avoid the use of offending words. When we know what is wrong with an argument, we need not to attack the character or motivation of the opponent.”

?– “Be on guard when criticizing.? Remember that our function as a critic is to get out of the way and let logic speak; not to discharge hatred, but to expose the grounds for it; not to vilify faults but to diagnose and exhibit the failures of the argument. Unfortunately, expressing our hatred and revenge is easier. Hence there is a tendency to select pejorative words with a view not to their accuracy but to their power of hurting.”

– In the end, be fair and kind. “We must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to express a strong opinion are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues. The very desire is a danger signal - if we are wise, we shall be very careful with our words. The strength of our dislike is itself a probable symptom that all is not well within; that the raw place in our psychology has been touched, or else that some personal or partisan motive may be secretly at work. If we were simply exercising judgment, we should be calmer; less anxious to speak. And if we do speak, we shall almost certainly make a fool of ourselves.”

8 – As professors, we need to apply (with sensitivity) the rational opposition process via the Socratic Method and dialectical criticism – for helping the development of student’s intellectual muscles - rather than using a condescending approach.? Thus, provoking, startling, even confusing them with unexpected questions, leading them to think for themselves, etc, should be all part of this inexhaustible, tough and joyful exercise of learning.

9 - As mentors we need to help students to counteract the culture of flattery by which we all have been softened by so much that we can no longer bear criticism and take things personally too quickly.? We need to encourage students to go beyond simplistic assignments and avoid pursuing irrelevant indeterminacies, researching inconsequential topics, - - and giving them challenging projects to stretch their imagination.

10 – We need to Socratically combat "chronological snobbery," - "the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. We must ask / find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do?"

11 – "We must also at all cost avoid the sense of academic / corporate superiority – or Charientocracy (the rule by intellectuals, the “cultured,” technocrats, scientists, or, in short, a humanistic elite under the influence of the notion that they know what is best for us)? - - - which is not always Olympian (that is, tranquil and tolerant). It may be Titanic; restive, militant and embittered."

Two Examples:

-??????? “I was once at some kind of conference where two clergymen, obviously close friends, began talking about a certain subject - - - I asked how there could that be? - - -? I had no objection to their laughter, but I wanted an answer in words as well. It was not at all a sneering or unpleasant laugh. It expressed very much what Americans would express by saying "Isn't he cute?" It was like the laughter of jolly grown-ups when an infant terrible asks the sort of question that is never asked. - - - it conveyed the impression that they were fully aware of living habitually on a higher plane than the rest of us, of coming among us as Knights among churls or as grown-ups among children. Very possibly they had an answer to my question and knew that I was too ignorant to follow it. If they had said in so many words "I'm afraid it would take too long to explain," I would not be attributing to them the pride of Friendship. The glance and the laugh are the real point—the audible and visible embodiment of a corporate superiority taken for granted and unconcealed."

– “Another time, when I had been addressing an undergraduate society and some discussion followed my paper, a young man with an expression as tense as that of a rodent so dealt with me that I had to say, “Look, sir. Twice in the last five minutes you have called me a liar. If you cannot discuss a question of criticism without that kind of thing I must leave.” I expected he would do one of two things; lose his temper and redouble his insults, or else blush and apologize. The startling thing is that he did neither. No new perturbation was added to the habitual malaise of his expression. He did not repeat the Lie Direct; but apart from that he went on just as before. One had come up against an iron curtain. He was forearmed against the risk of any strictly personal relation, either friendly or hostile, with such as me. Behind this, almost certainly, there lies a circle of the Titanic sort— We—who are they to them—do not exist as persons at all. We are specimens; specimens of various Age Groups, Types, Climates of Opinion, or Interests, to be exterminated. Deprived of one weapon, they coolly take up another. They are not, in the ordinary human sense, meeting us at all; they are merely doing a job of work—spraying (I have heard one use that image) insecticide.”

?– A Word of Warning: “I claim to be one of the cultured myself and have no wish to foul my own nest.? - - - Frankness is best. The real traitor to our order is not the man who speaks, within that order, of its faults, but the man who flatters our corporate self-complacency. I gladly admit that we number among us men and women whose modesty, courtesy, fair-mindedness, patience in disputation and readiness to see an antagonist's point of view, are wholly admirable. I am fortunate to have known them. But we must also admit that we show as high a percentage as any group, whatever of bullies, paranoiacs, and poltroons, of backbiters, exhibitionists, mopes, milksops, and world-without-end bores. The rudeness that turns every argument into a quarrel is really no rarer among us than among the sub-literate; the restless inferiority-complex ("stern to inflict" but not "stubborn to endure") which bleeds at a touch but scratches like a wildcat is almost as common among us as among schoolgirls.”

12 – We need to combat the habit of cynicism. Some cultivate cynicism for so long that their lives are twisted into a perpetual sneer (scornful attitude). As a consequence, the habit of flippancy builds around them the finest armor-plating against any true Socratic discussions or meaningful relationships.

13 – We need others to help us see better:

"The man who is contented to be only himself; and therefore, less a self; is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. I regret that the brutes cannot write books. Very gladly would I learn what face things present to a mouse or a bee; more gladly still would I perceive the olfactory world charged with all the information and emotion it carries for a dog."

14 – Socratic discussions help to minimize our differences and civilize us - rather than amplify our variances as we come from different cultural backgrounds: for example, between "Southerners" and "Northerners" :-)

“"Everyone can pick out among his own acquaintance from the Northerner and Southerner types - the high noses, compressed lips, pale complexions, dryness and introversion of the one, the open mouths, the facile laughter and tears, and (so to speak) the general greasiness of the others. The Northerners are men of rigid systems whether skeptical or dogmatic, Aristocrats, Stoics, Pharisees, Rigorists, signed and sealed members of highly organized "Parties". The Southerners are by their very nature less definable; boneless souls whose doors stand open day and night to almost every visitant, but always with the readiest welcome for those who offer some sort of intoxication. The delicious tang of the forbidden and the unknown draws them on with fatal attraction, the smudging of all frontiers, the relaxation of all resistances, dream, opium, darkness, death, and the return to the womb. Every feeling is justified by the mere fact that it is felt: for a Northerner, every feeling on the same ground is suspect. An arrogant and hasty selectiveness on some narrow a priori basis cuts him off from the sources of life.”

15 - To finish with Lewis, when closing a heated debate with Prof. Tillyard:

"And with this, my case is ended.? As I glance through the letter again, I noticed that I have not been able, in the heat of the argument, to express as clearly or continuously as I could have wished my sense that I am engaged with 'an older and better soldier.' But I have little fear that you will misunderstand me.? We have both learnt our dialectic in the rough academic arena where knocks that would frighten the London literary coteries are given and taken in good part; and even where you may think me something too impertinent you will not suspect me of malice. I am, my dear Sir, with the greatest respect, Your obedient servant.”

Scholars can be gentlemen and gentlewomen.

Finally, we need to go beyond the Socratic Method into a Feeling Intellect - - - in which the words of the Psalmist may resonate:

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord.”

Cheers,

Paulo

Sentences in quotes adapted from CSL