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Five Steps of the Socratic Method

The Socratic method has five characteristics: it is skeptical, conversational, conceptual or definitional, empirical or inductive, and deductive. Socrates would engage in dialogue to uncover opinions and truths, subject notions to criticism to develop more adequate conceptions, seek precise definitions as the first step in problem solving, test definitions against examples, and deduce implications to evaluate definitions.

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318 views7 pages

Five Steps of the Socratic Method

The Socratic method has five characteristics: it is skeptical, conversational, conceptual or definitional, empirical or inductive, and deductive. Socrates would engage in dialogue to uncover opinions and truths, subject notions to criticism to develop more adequate conceptions, seek precise definitions as the first step in problem solving, test definitions against examples, and deduce implications to evaluate definitions.

Uploaded by

aptureinc
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The Socratic Method

The method which Socrates employed in his


philosophical analyses had five distinct
characteristics.

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Fives Steps in the Socratic Method

w Skeptical
w Conversational
w Conceptual or definitional
w Empirical or inductive
w Deductive

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Skeptical

w Real or professed ignorance of the truth of the matter


under discussion.
w This is the Socratic irony which seemed to some of his
listeners an insincere pretense, but which was
undoubtedly an expression of Socrates' genuine
intellectual humility.
w Socrates skepticism is shared with the Sophists and, in
his adoption of it, he may very well have been
influenced by them.
w Sophistic skepticism was definitive and final, but the
Socratic is tentative and provisional;
w Socrates' doubt and assumed ignorance is an
indispensable first step in the pursuit of knowledge.

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Conversational

w Dialogue not only as a didactic device, but is a


technique for the actual discovery of opinions amongst
men, there are truths upon which all men can agree,
Socrates proceeds to unfold such truths by discussion or
by question and answer.
w Beginning with a popular or hastily formed conception
proposed by one of the members of the company or
taken from the poets or some other traditional source,
Socrates subjects this notion to severe criticism, as a
result of which a more adequate conception emerges.
w His method, in this aspect, is often described as the
maieutic method. It is the art of intellectual midwifery,
which brings other men's ideas to birth. It is also known
as the dialectical method or the method of elenchus.
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Conceptual or Definitional

w Sets as the goal of knowledge the acquisition of


concepts, such as the ethical concepts of justice, piety,
wisdom, courage and the like.
w Socrates tacitly assumes that truth is embodied in
correct definition. Precise definition of terms is held to
be the first step in the problem solving process.

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Empirical or inductive

w The proposed definitions are criticized by reference to


particular instances.
w Socrates always tested definitions by recourse to
common experience and to general usages.

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Deductive

w A given definition is tested by drawing out its


implications, by deducing its consequences.
w The definitional method of Socrates is a real
contribution to the logic of philosophical inquiry.
w It inspired the dialectical method of Plato and exerted a
not inconsiderable influence on the logic Aristotle.

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