(SPLIT) The Socratic Method: Does it work?

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Spockrates,
This is off topic but I would like to ask anyway, if you don’t want to answer that’s okay. But I am interested in knowing how effective you think the Socratic Method is for arriving at truth? And do you think it is an inductive or deductive method? I believe that is method you are using here and have used on another forum. Blessings
 
SWR11 said:
Spockrates,
This is off topic but I would like to ask anyway, if you don’t want to answer that’s okay. But I am interested in knowing how effective you think the Socratic Method is for arriving at truth? And do you think it is an inductive or deductive method? I believe that is method you are using here and have used on another forum. Blessings
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SWR:

I find the Socratic Method is extremely effective at weeding out truth from lies, and at determining what reasons are good reasons why one should believe, and what reasons are not. By process of elimination, one can then know what ideas are possibly true, and what reasons are better reasons to believe than others.

I’m not so sure I’m using the method to it’s fullest extent in this discussion thread. To see it put to (what I hope is) good use, check out this discussion thread at another forum:

forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?94090-To-be-or-not-to-be-a-Catholic

Personally, the Socratic Method has helped me learn a great deal from Catholics here. Without it, I might have thought I won a lot of arguments at CAF, but I would have never been open to the possibility that what Catholics believe might actually be true. Asking questions is a good way to avoid debate, and an even better way to get good answers from others and test if the reasons why they believe are good reasons why I should believe, too.
 
If you are looking for a biblical precedent for the Socratic Method, consider Jesus’ response in this instance:

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ,[a] the Son of the living God.”

(Matthew 16)

And another example:

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’**”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

(Luke 10)

I guess the difference between Jesus’ use of the Socratic Method and mine is that He already knew the answers to every question he asked. I only sometimes think I know what the answer is!

:D**
 
In my opinion, the Socratic method is a very poor method of pedagogy, which is why it has seldom caught on outside the law schools (who don’t much care about teaching content so much as developing verbal abilities associated with the method). If you look at the Socratic dialogues themselves, for instance, you’ll see that, say, in the Meno, the student’s purported ability to learn certain principles of geometry consists of little more than a series of answers like, “Yes, Socrates,” “Certainly, Socrates,” etc. There is zero indication that the student would be able to recreate this reasoning himself after the fact. That’s just an example, but in my opinion the Socratic method is built on a rotten foundation and has never been shown to be an effective teaching method. (But this is all from a Protestant, so feel free to discount these views as appropriate.)

CThomas

Please forgive me – I forgot to answer your other question. The terms “inductive” and “deductive” are generally used to refer to modes of inference. If the inference to the conclusion follows from nothing more than the meaning of the words of the premises, then the inference is deductive, whereas if it turns on facts of the world then it is inductive. This distinction has no application to the Socratic method, which is merely a particular pedagogical method, not an inference from premises to conclusion.

Best regards,

CThomas
 
Even after all these years, my husband will occasionally get up in the middle of the night, awakened by a nightmare about his law school days. He was not a fan of the Socratic Method.
 
CThomas said:
In my opinion, the Socratic method is a very poor method of pedagogy, which is why it has seldom caught on outside the law schools (who don’t much care about teaching content so much as developing verbal abilities associated with the method). If you look at the Socratic dialogues themselves, for instance, you’ll see that, say, in the Meno, the student’s purported ability to learn certain principles of geometry consists of little more than a series of answers like, “Yes, Socrates,” “Certainly, Socrates,” etc. There is zero indication that the student would be able to recreate this reasoning himself after the fact. That’s just an example, but in my opinion the Socratic method is built on a rotten foundation and has never been shown to be an effective teaching method. (But this is all from a Protestant, so feel free to discount these views as appropriate.)

CThomas
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Would you say, then that Jesus used “a very poor method of pedagogy”? (See the quotes from Luke and Matthew cited previously in this dialog.
 
BettyBoop416 said:
Even after all these years, my husband will occasionally get up in the middle of the night, awakened by a nightmare about his law school days. He was not a fan of the Socratic Method.
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Did he blame the Socratic Method for his educational nightmares? Or was there some other reason for his sleepless nights? If the Socratic Method, what did he not like about it?
 
spockrates said:
Did he blame the Socratic Method for his educational nightmares? Or was there some other reason for his sleepless nights? If the Socratic Method, what did he not like about it?
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My DD just graduated from law school and relates the same experience! She is scaring my poor niece out of her wits about how different it is from undergrad “nicey-nice” school!:eek:
 
kozlosap said:
My DD just graduated from law school and relates the same experience! She is scaring my poor niece out of her wits about how different it is from undergrad “nicey-nice” school!:eek:
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What did DD say was the cause of her sleepless nights?
 
spockrates said:
Would you say, then that Jesus used “a very poor method of pedagogy”? (See the quotes from Luke and Matthew cited previously in this dialog.
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Hi, thanks for the response. The quotes from Luke and Matthew involve the Lord asking questions. If my e-mail suggested that the asking of questions is bad, then I apologize for not being clearer. The Socratic method, by contrast, is a particular teaching method based on certain questionable assumptions and having certain purposes. I do not believe that anything in Scripture supports the idea that the Lord endorsed the Socratic method in the sense in which I was discussing it.

CThomas
 
CThomas said:
In my opinion, the Socratic method is a very poor method of pedagogy, which is why it has seldom caught on outside the law schools (who don’t much care about teaching content so much as developing verbal abilities associated with the method). If you look at the Socratic dialogues themselves, for instance, you’ll see that, say, in the Meno, the student’s purported ability to learn certain principles of geometry consists of little more than a series of answers like, “Yes, Socrates,” “Certainly, Socrates,” etc. There is zero indication that the student would be able to recreate this reasoning himself after the fact. That’s just an example, but in my opinion the Socratic method is built on a rotten foundation and has never been shown to be an effective teaching method. (But this is all from a Protestant, so feel free to discount these views as appropriate.)

CThomas

Please forgive me – I forgot to answer your other question. The terms “inductive” and “deductive” are generally used to refer to modes of inference. If the inference to the conclusion follows from nothing more than the meaning of the words of the premises, then the inference is deductive, whereas if it turns on facts of the world then it is inductive. This distinction has no application to the Socratic method, which is merely a particular pedagogical method, not an inference from premises to conclusion.

Best regards,

CThomas
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Thanks for clarifying the distinctions between the Socratic Method, and the philosophical discipline of logic.

🙂

And sorry for asking whether you thought Jesus used the Socratic Method to the exclusion of addressing the point you made about Plato’s Meno. Let me tell you what I think Socrates was trying to demonstrate in that socratic dialog. Please tell me whether I’m mistaken:
  1. The Socratic Method is a method that asks questions, but does not give the answers to the questions asked.
  2. If one asks a question, he asks for the answer to the question, rather than giving the answer to the question.
  3. One who sincerely answers a question says what he already knows, not what he does not already know; or he says what he has forgotten, but now remembers.
  4. If one asks a question, and another answers the question, the one answering the question gives the answer he knows, or remembers to the one asking, but does not receive the answer from the one asking the question.
  5. If one asks a child questions about a subject the child has never been taught, and does not yet know (such as geometry) and the child gives correct answers to the questions, showing that he now knows the subject he was never taught, then that child has remembered what he once knew, but had since forgotten.
  6. If a child could never have learned the subject he had forgotten in this life, he must have learned it prior to this life.
  7. If prior to birth, the child’s soul was in the presence of the only true God of Wisdom (who knows every truth) then the child might have received every truth from this God prior to being born.
  8. It is possible that coming to a knowledge of the truth by answering questions is a process of remembering what one knew when in the presence of God (who revealed that truth to him when in His presence). Such truth must have been forgotten at birth, for a newborn infant knows (or remembers) very little.
Therefore,

A. Truth is not necessarily taught, but is possibly already known, but forgotten, and then remembered. That is, all truth is inside everyone one of us who received it from God prior to birth. Truth is not learned, nor taught by men. Truth is remembered, by answering the questions of men (the Socratic Method) and given to us by God alone.
 
Spockrates – I think that’s a good summary of what Plato was trying to do with the dialogue involving squares in the Meno. There’s two separate questions here, though. The first is the philosophical question whether this dialogue demonstrates the existence of intrinsic, untaught geometrical knowledge. On this question, I think the argument is as you summarize it. I personally don’t think the argument works, but that’s something for the philosophers to hash out. There is a second question, though, and it involves whether the form of teaching used by Socrates in this dialogue is an effective means of teaching (or drawing out the intrinsic knowledge regarding) the geometrical principles at issue. And on this latter point I think that the method doesn’t work particularly well. And the reason here is that understanding a mathematical proof involves far more than nodding along with each step in isolation as someone does the proof for you. If you look back at the exchange, as I recall it, it’s basically Socrates doing all the work and the kid saying, “That’s right, sure, of course.” It would be an interesting experience to do this with a real kid – maybe I’ll try it tonight with my own young kids. I bet I could take the Plato text and walk the kids through the proof, and they would agree with each step. Then I’d given them a blank sheet of paper and ask them to do the proof themselves. I’d be shocked if they could recreate it.
 
CThomas said:
Spockrates – I think that’s a good summary of what Plato was trying to do with the dialogue involving squares in the Meno. There’s two separate questions here, though. The first is the philosophical question whether this dialogue demonstrates the existence of intrinsic, untaught geometrical knowledge. On this question, I think the argument is as you summarize it. I personally don’t think the argument works, but that’s something for the philosophers to hash out.
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Yes, you might be right, there–but are not you and I philosophers? The word philosopher, in Greek, literally means a lover of wisdom. Anyone who truly loves wisdom, and wants to be wise about the truth, is a philosopher, I think.

Perhaps the weakest link to Socrates’ (or possibly Plato’s) logical argument is premise 2. For I think it possible to give an answer in the form of a question.
There is a second question, though, and it involves whether the form of teaching used by Socrates in this dialogue is an effective means of teaching (or drawing out the intrinsic knowledge regarding) the geometrical principles at issue. And on this latter point I think that the method doesn’t work particularly well. And the reason here is that understanding a mathematical proof involves far more than nodding along with each step in isolation as someone does the proof for you.
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But did Socrates do the proof for the child, or did he ask the child how to do each step of the proof for himself?
If you look back at the exchange, as I recall it, it’s basically Socrates doing all the work and the kid saying, “That’s right, sure, of course.” It would be an interesting experience to do this with a real kid – maybe I’ll try it tonight with my own young kids. I bet I could take the Plato text and walk the kids through the proof, and they would agree with each step. Then I’d given them a blank sheet of paper and ask them to do the proof themselves. I’d be shocked if they could recreate it.
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Would you be surprised because you think it impossible for a child to be taught something new by the Socratic Method in the way that Socrates taught the slave boy? Yes, I agree it would be interesting to try it out as a psychological experiment. Indeed, I’d be surprised if no such experiments have been done!
 
spockrates said:
SWR:

I find the Socratic Method is extremely effective at weeding out truth from lies, and at determining what reasons are good reasons why one should believe, and what reasons are not. By process of elimination, one can then know what ideas are possibly true, and what reasons are better reasons to believe than others.

I’m not so sure I’m using the method to it’s fullest extent in this discussion thread. To see it put to (what I hope is) good use, check out this discussion thread at another forum:

forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?94090-To-be-or-not-to-be-a-Catholic

Personally, the Socratic Method has helped me learn a great deal from Catholics here. Without it, I might have thought I won a lot of arguments at CAF, but I would have never been open to the possibility that what Catholics believe might actually be true. Asking questions is a good way to avoid debate, and an even better way to get good answers from others and test if the reasons why they believe are good reasons why I should believe, too.
Click to expand...
Hi Spockrates,
I have followed you on the CARM forum and recognized the Socratic Method as your means of inquiry.

Would you agree that the Socratice Method is a dialectical process?
 
CThomas said:
Please forgive me – I forgot to answer your other question. The terms “inductive” and “deductive” are generally used to refer to modes of inference. If the inference to the conclusion follows from nothing more than the meaning of the words of the premises, then the inference is deductive, whereas if it turns on facts of the world then it is inductive. This distinction has no application to the Socratic method, which is merely a particular pedagogical method, not an inference from premises to conclusion.

Best regards,

CThomas
Click to expand...
Hi CThomas,
I am not aware of the deductive method being limited strictly to the meaning of words, and it could be that I misunderstand “premise(s)” of a syllogism. I would agree that the inductive method begins with facts, but drawn from and based on limited observations.
 
SWR11 said:
I have followed you on the CARM forum and recognized the Socratic Method as your means or inquiry.

Would you agree that the Socratice Method is a dialectical process?
Click to expand...
Welcome, my friend! How are things at CARM.org?

If you mean to ask, “Is the Socratic Method the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion?” then I’d answer that it is, indeed!

👍
 
SWR11 said:
Hi CThomas,
I am not aware of the deductive method being limited strictly to the meaning of words, and it could be that I misunderstand “premise(s)” of a syllogism. I would agree that the inductive method begins with facts, but drawn from and based on limited observations.
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From what I understand, a deductive argument (put simply) is one that is logically valid, and one in which if the premises are true and the premises support the conclusion, then the conclusion is *guaranteed *to be true. In contrast, an inductive argument is one in which if the premises are true, and the premises are support the conclusion, then the conclusion is *not *guaranteed to be true, but is perhaps likely. Logicians say that only deductive arguments are logically valid, I think, and so all inductive arguments are logically invalid. Calling them invalid does not mean they do not present good reasons to believe. It just means that the conclusions they support are not certain, though might be highly probable. Most religious beliefs (and other beliefs) are based on induction, rather than deduction, I’d say.

🙂
 
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