People call “Socratic Method” a form of inquiry in which a statement or claim is tested by asking a sequence of questions. It is named after Socrates (469-399 BC) because it imitates his method of debating, when he discussed philosophy in Athens.

Let me first point out that Socrates never regarded his way of debating as a method or strategy to acquire knowledge. Nor did he claim that, by asking questions, there was any guarantee of finding out the truth.

Plato’s works, in which Socrates plays the central role, offer examples of how to practise the “Socratic Method.” Each work addresses a different subject, for example, religion, friendship, the nature of morality, life after death, etc.

The logical structure is similar, although the participants in each debate vary. Each participant represents a particular point of view, which they defend by using examples or philosophical arguments.

Socrates’ opponents

Socrates plays the central role, but doesn’t necessarily come up with better arguments. His goal is to check if the arguments given by his opponents are waterproof.

How does Socrates practise his method? He asked questions or feigned ignorance with the avowed goal of undermining his opponent; he wanted to identify discrepancies or contradictions in his opponents’ arguments, expecting the truth to emerge at the end of the process.

Plato’s most famous works in which Socrates practised his “Socratic Method” in debating his opponents are “Euthyphro,” “Apology,” “Republic” and “Meno.”

In “Euthyphro,” “Apology” and “Meno,” Socrates employs his method to inquire or demonstrate points related to morality. In “Republic,” the Socratic Method is applied primarily to look for the best system of social and political organization.

For example, Plato’s work “Euthyphro,” retells the story of Socrates meeting Euthyphro outside the Athens court. The key theme of their dialogue is the nature of morality.

Logical gaps

Euthyphro is well versed in theology, but Socrates discovers logical gaps in Euthyphro’s reasoning. He employs the Socratic Method to widen those gaps and lead Euthyphro to a situation where he must acknowledge his contradictions.

Socrates often alternated direct questions with poking holes in his opponent’s answers. As soon as he detected any sign of arbitrariness or contradiction, he kept pounding verbally on the weak spot until the opponent’s argument collapsed.

In the case of Euthyphro, Socrates exploited the fact that his opponent claimed to possess very deep knowledge of Athenian theology and ethics. In those cases, Socrates adopted a low-key debating approach by pretended ignorance.

His objective was to challenge his opponent to provide solid arguments and examples, and then test if those can withstand a barrage of sharp questions.

Due to his overconfidence, Euthyphro proved an easy prey for the Socratic Method. “What is morality?” asked Socrates to prompt Euthyphro to give an exact definition. Since Euthyphro failed to come up with a specific answer, Socrates kept asking.

“Morality is the type of behaviour dear to the gods,” replied Euthyphro in his second attempt at formulating a definition; he didn’t realize that the worst one can do in the Socratic Method is to give definitions that refer to third-party’s opinions such as “the gods.”

Socrates detected the weakness in Euthyphro’s argument at once and countered by attacking the link to the third party. “Do you mean that virtues are moral because the gods love them, or that gods love virtues because they are good?”

As of that point, Euthyphro does nothing but digging a wide and deep hole of contradictions. He would have been better off recognizing that his argument makes no sense, but insisted on linking morality to theology.

The correct answer

Like most Plato’s works, Euthyphro does not end up with a knock-out victory for Socrates. We learn that Euthyphro wasn’t as knowledgeable as he claimed to be, but we still do not arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

That’s the principal problem of the Socratic Method: anyone can use it to prove an argument wrong, but not for discovering the right answer; the latter requires philosophical integration at levels that Socrates could not even fathom.

We know that Euthyphro was incorrect when he defined morality as the type of behaviour dear to the gods, but at the end of the debate, we do not know Socrates’ views on this issue nor their philosophical justification.

Only Aristotle (384-322 BC) eventually provided a detailed, integrated explanation of the origins of ethics. He did so in his works “Eudemian Ethics” and “Nicomachean Ethics.” Neither Socrates nor Plato managed to perform that kind of profound integration of non-contradictory ideas.

What did Socrates intend to achieve with his method? Plato reports the answer to this question in his work “Theaetetus.” In a discussion about childbearing and midwives, Socrates argues that he is an intellectual midwife because he helps people give birth to ideas.

Socrates’ metaphor of the midwife is very ingenious, but has little to do with reality. The Socratic Method is great for telling people what’s wrong, what doesn’t work, what doesn’t deliver a good result, etc. However, this does not mean that the Socratic Method will help them identify the truth.

To prove my point, I refer to Socrates’ own explanations of his intellectual midwifery. In “Theaetetus,” he recognizes that he asks questions for which he does not know the answer, but that he hopes, in this way, to push people in the right direction.

In “Theaetetus,” Socrates uses the words “I ask questions for which I do not have sufficient brains to know the answers myself.” I don’t think that he was telling the truth in this case.

Socrates just wanted to play dumb to disarm his opponents emotionally, so that they would incur contradictions. If we are engaging in a debate, would we not prefer our opponent to say what he really thinks and give us his best arguments?

I have never seen anyone employ the Socratic Method and sort out any crucially important question. Debates such as the ones held by Socrates are entertaining, but I doubt that they’ll point anyone to discover the truth, especially in the field of ethics.

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