If someone had directly asked Socrates (469-399 BC) how to practise the Socratic method, I fear that no answer would be forthcoming. Socrates would have been puzzled to learn that his practice of asking questions had been baptised “a method.”
Indeed, when analysing the Socratic questioning recorded in Plato’s works, the impression is more chaotic than methodical. In some cases, Socrates pretended that he knew nothing about the subject and asked for clarifications. In other cases, he went to great lengths to prove a detail wrong, but failed to address the underlying principles.
In Plato’s work “Theaetetus,” Socrates described himself as an intellectual midwife because, he explained, he was helping people give birth to ideas.
I concur with Socrates’ argument that, by asking questions, we can generate answers and give birth to ideas, but answers and ideas are not enough. What we need are accurate answers and truthful ideas.
A useful philosophical tool
Socrates never claimed his “method” to be infallible. He did not say that, if we ask lots of questions, we’ll inevitably bump into the truth. In his works, Plato (427-347 BC) implied that Socrates’ manner of inquiry is a useful philosophical tool, but failed to explain the underlying logic.
I contend that neither Socrates nor Plato claimed to possess an infallible method because they were conscious of its erratic character. They knew that their debates often proved chaotic or inconclusive, but they could not explain why.
Their weak, erratic logic had not yet matured into integrated and consistent syllogisms. After Socrates’ suicide in 399 BC, it took two generations until Aristotle (384-322 BC) compiled a treatise on formal logic.
Aristotle was able to grasp why the Socratic method fails in many situations. In some of Plato’s works, like in “Theaetetus,” we see Socrates ask fairly solid questions at the beginning, but when he started to gain ground over his opponent, he suddenly lost steam. At that point, the debate falls flat without reaching a clear conclusion.
The problem is not Socrates’ lack of energy, but his lack of logic. He was able to raise a few questions consistently, but not for a long time. When his opponent started to acknowledge his contradictions, Socrates should have kept going, but he seldom did so. He seldom ended a debate by stating the truth.
Deficiencies of the Socratic method
To make things worse, Socrates loved paradox and practised false modesty. Plato’s work “Apology” contains Socrates’ claim that he is wiser than most individuals because he is willing to acknowledge his ignorance, while others will claim to possess knowledge that they don’t.
Socrates’ argumentation in “Apology” employs the Socratic method, although in a rhetorical manner. He starts by referring to the Oracle of Delphi, which had allegedly labelled Socrates the wisest man on earth.
Then it recounts Socrates’ long search for people wiser than himself. He talked to politicians, poets and artisans, attempting to find someone wiser than himself, but it was to no avail. His search only proved that many people will claim to know what they don’t in order to draw some personal advantages.
Like in other works by Plato, the application of the Socratic method in “Apology” fails to deliver a satisfactory, waterproof, perennial conclusion. I can only wonder if Socrates had fallen prey to delusions of grandeur and was just trying to impress his audience.
How to make the Socratic method waterproof
I view the deficiencies of the Socratic method as irreparable and endemic. If Plato had figured out how to practise Socrates’ method in a waterproof manner, he would have presented his findings, but he didn’t.
Nonetheless, as an old German proverb says, we should not throw the baby with the bathwater. There are parts of Socrates’ method that deserve to be salvaged, but we need to spell them out. The rest should be discarded as worthless and wasteful, so that we don’t fall into the temptation of putting it into practice.
What’s the strong part of the Socratic method? The desire to find the truth and discard misrepresentations, prejudice, myths, and self-serving distortions. Life is full of them, I fear, and vast numbers of conversations revolve around them.
Socrates is praised, still today, for his willingness to call a spade a spade. That’s more than his contemporaries would do if their comfort or social status would be threatened by defending an unpopular opinion.
I endorse the general admiration for Socrates in this regard, but I cannot close my eyes to the superficiality of some of his questions. If we want to practise the Socratic method and draw some benefits from doing so, it is not sufficient to ask random questions. What we need are logical, well focused questions.
How do we practise the Socratic method correctly? We need to identify the core issue from the beginning of the debate, and focus our questions on that issue. We should not allow tangents or distractions to enter the discussion because those will drive us away from the truth.
Aristotle would have called the core issue “the essence” and described it as the particularity that sets a specific concept or idea apart from a generic one.
For instance, in Plato’s work “Theaetetus,” the essence is the validation of morality. Such validation has little to do with the midwife comparison employed by Socrates. Unfortunately, his debate went sideways and never came back to the essence.
In Plato’s “Apology,” the essence is absolving Socrates from the criminal charges raised by Anytus and Meletus. Unluckily, Socrates went on various tangents, such as invoking the Oracle of Delphi as a witness of his great wisdom.
The correct manner to employ the Socratic method is to ask questions that identify, define or restate the essence of the issue at hand. We should not allow the debate to drift aimlessly or go into tangents that will bring us far away from our destination.
If you are interested in applying rational ideas in all sorts of situations, I recommend my book “Consistency: The key to permanent stress relief.”