Mr. Turtola’s CyberEnglish Blog

What Saint Thomas Aquinas College has to say about the Socratic  Method.

From The Socratic Method and its Effect on Critical Thinking by Max Maxwell

A Definition of the Classic Socratic Method:

The Classic Socratic Method uses creative questioning to dismantle and discard preexisting ideas and thereby allows the respondent to rethink the primary question under discussion (such as ‘What is virtue?’). This deconstructive style of the Socratic Method is ‘Socratic’ precisely to the extent that the weight of the actual deconstruction of a definition rests in the respondent’s own answers to more questions, which refute the respondent’s previously stated answer to the primary question. The result of the Classic Socratic Method is, by definition, a failure to find a satisfactory answer to the primary question in a conversation. This failure produces a realization of ignorance in the respondent (Socratic Effect) which can, it is hoped, inspire the respondent to dig deep and think about the question with a new freedom that is obtained from discarding a previously held belief. If a satisfactory answer is found, this represents a transition to the ‘Modern Socratic Method.’

The ultimate goal of the Socratic Method is to increase understanding through inquiry. Obtaining an enhanced freedom to think through discarding preexisting bad ideas is the penultimate goal of the classic style of the Socratic Method. The only person who cannot think is the one who thinks she already knows. Through the deconstruction of existing ideas, the classic style of the Socratic Method frees people to think about basic principles and ideas with an enhanced sense of necessity and clarity. In this style of the Socratic Method, for example, there is no point in getting deeply into complicated theories of particular applications of justice in society until one can answer a much simpler question like, “What is justice?” In this case, the Classic Socratic Method functions to tear down existing ideas of justice. This works by exposing unknown or unacknowledged ambiguity and complexity, which makes the respondent realize she has more thinking to do. The ‘Socratic Effect’ provides the respondent with the opportunity to rethink justice, or whatever other quality or idea is in focus, after having their previously existing ideas discarded with their full agreement on the basis of their own answers to questions. This classic style of the Socratic Method is described in detail below and is referred to as the ‘Two-Phase Freestyle.’ The classic style of the Socratic Method is notoriously difficult to achieve in real conversation. It is impossible to not notice that Plato had the benefit of being able to write the answers as well as the questions. The full dynamics of how Socrates was able to handle the wide diversity of possible responses to his questions is lost to history. The high level of difficulty in using the Classic Socratic Method explains why this style is almost never used. This difficulty of usage gave rise to the popularity of what I call the ‘Modern Socratic Method.’

Sample Socratic Questions

• Questions about the Question: Can we break this question down? To answer this question, what questions must we answer first?
• Questions of Clarification: What do you mean by ____? Can you give me an example?
• Questions about Assumptions: What are you assuming? What could we assume instead?
• Questions about Reasons: Could you explain your reasons? What would convince you otherwise?
• Questions about Evidence: Do you have any evidence for that? What other information must we know? Who is in the position to know if that is the case?
• Questions about Viewpoints: What would someone who disagrees say? How could you answer that objection?
• Questions about Implications: What are you implying by that? What effect would that have? If this is true, what else must be true?

A typical socratic circle rubric