Hall of Fame
Socrates (469-399 BC)
Most professionals in learning will have heard of the ‘Socratic
method’. Fewer will know that he never wrote a single word
describing this method. Fewer still will know that the method is
not what it is commonly represented to be, and even fewer may know
that he was one of the few teachers who actually died for his craft,
executed by the Athenian authorities for supposedly corrupting the
young.
How many have read the Socratic dialogues? How many know what he
meant by his method and how he practised his approach? Socrates,
in fact, wrote absolutely nothing. It was Plato and Xenophon who
recorded his thoughts and methods through the lens of their own
beliefs. We must remember, therefore, that Socrates is in fact a
mouthpiece for the views of others. In fact the two pictures painted
of Socrates by these two commentators differ hugely. In the Platonic
Dialogues he is witty, playful and a great philosophical theorist,
in Xenophon he is a dull moraliser.
Socratic method
The idea that Socrates was an intellectual midwife to people’s
own thoughts is his great educational principle. His mother was
indeed a midwife but he was among the first to recognise that, in
terms of learning, ideas are best generated from the learner in
terms of understanding and retention. Education is not a cramming
in, but a drawing out.
What is less well known is the negative side of the Socratic method.
He loved to pick intellectual fights and the method was not so much
a gentle teasing out of ideas, more the brutal exposure of falsehoods.
He was described by one of his victims as a ‘predator which
numbs its victims with an electric charge before darting in for
the kill’. He even describes himself as a ‘gadfly, stinging
the sluggish horse of Athens to life’.
He was roundly ridiculed in public drama, notably by his contemporary,
Aristophanes in Clouds, where he uses the Socratic method to explore
idiotic ideas using petty hair-splitting logic. This negative side
of Socrates is well described by Woodbridge in The Son of Apollo,
‘Flattery, cajolery, insinuation, innuendo, sarcasm, feigned
humility, personal idiosyncrasies, browbeating, insolence, anger,
changing the subject when in difficulties, faulty analogies, telling
stories which make one forget what the subject of the discussion
was. His great joy was simply pulling people and ideas to pieces.
Socratic philosophy of education
Beyond the famous Socratic method, he did have a philosophy of
education. It included several principles:
1. Knowledge and learning as a noble pursuit
2. Learning as a social activity pursued through dialogue
3. Questions lie at the heart of learning to draw out what they
already know, rather than imposing pre-determined views
4. Learning must be pursued with a ruthless intellectual honesty
In practice, these noble aims were marred by a spitefulness. He
would claim that he taught nothing as he had nothing to teach, but
this conceals his true desire to overcome and intellectually destroy
his opponents.
Conclusion
If we were to behave like Socrates in the modern school, college,
university or training room, we’d be in front of several tribunals
for bullying, not sticking to the curriculum and failing to prepare
students for their exams. Not to mention his pederasty. (We can
perhaps put this to one side as a feature of the age!) So think
again when you use the phrase ‘Socratic method’ it’s
not what it seems.
His lasting influence, is the useful idea, that for certain types
of learning, questioning and dialogue allows the learner to generate
their own ideas and conclusions, rather than be spoon-fed. This
has transformed itself into the idea of discovery learning, but
there have been severe doubts expressed about taking this method
too far. We wouldn’t want our children to discover how to
cross the road by pushing them out between parked cars!
Bibliography
Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, E Hamilton, Princeton.
(Thaetetus is the key dialogue on the search for knowledge.)
Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Classics (trial and condemnation)
Aristophanes The Clouds, Penguin Classics (satire of Socrates)
Ferguson J (1970) Socrates, , Macmillan (excellent source book)
Woodbridge F (1929) The Son of Apollo, Boston (good commentary)
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