The Socratic method – an ethic of patience, humility, inquiry, doubt – acts to counteract politicized, social media-fueled decay of social discourse. It won’t change one’s opinions but how they are conceived and updated.
Socratic philosophy identifies happiness with virtue and so wisdom (knowledge). Consistency of behavior with thinking is supreme in the search for truth. Failure of will is merely failure to act on knowing better.
The Stoics thought that if equanimity were reached, it would be so via Socrates. The Skeptics, mistrusting of claims to certainty, nonetheless share Socrates views’ that virtue is a matter of knowledge.
Elements:
• Elenchus: introduces possibility of inconsistency – consistency being vital to establishing knowledge
• Systole / diastole: consistency of apparently different things, and differences of seemingly similar things. What generalizations hold and why might they fail?
• Analogy: vivid imagery doesn’t make it helpful. Analogies look like observations but more often make claims
• Numbers: large ones are unhelpful, ‘one truthful witness’ is sufficient, screening out social pressure
• Ignorance: use feignment to build up, to flesh out argument before arguing against something
• Aporia: raise questions until paralysis is reached. Truths isn’t consistent with the ability to discuss
Tactics: all propositions sprout implications for testing
• Use the offered principle to challenge the preceding claim
• Challenge the new claim
• Push for path to the new claim as generalized from the preceding claims.
Examples
• Clarify: what do you mean by? Can we say it another way?
• Probe assumption(s): what are you assuming? How did you choose that assumption? What might have been chosen instead?
• Assess reason and evidence: how do we know? Why is that true? What would change one’s mind?
• Identify the viewpoint/perspective: what’s the implication? The effect? The alternative?
• Identify consequences: why is this important? How can we find out? What generalizations can we draw?