Socratic Dialectic, Method and Piety

Socratic Dialectic, Method, and Piety

This essay will discuss the nature of Socrates inquiries in to the way humans ought to live. This paper will begin by looking at Socrates' understanding of the good life and the importance of self-knowledge. It will then look at the theory of learning that the Socratic dialectic fosters, along with Socrates' theory of the natural goodness of human nature. Using Plato's story of Euthyphro, it will show the practical nature of Socrates' task of making people think for themselves and understand their own fallibility through the destructive process of the Socratic dialectic. Finally, it will strip the story of Euthyphro of its details and demonstrate the step-by-step process of the Socratic method.

The ultimate aim of Socrates' philosophical method is ethical. Skeptical of the conflicting theories regarding the physical world of whom "some conceived existence as a unity, others as a plurality; some affirmed perpetual motion, others perpetual rest" (Internet), Socrates instead focused on moral questions of how we ought to live. Socrates firmly believed the words adorning the wall of the Oracle at Delphi, "Know thyself", and held that ignorance is the root cause of evil and that by stripping away misconceptions and self-conceits, people can come to a better understanding of the good.

Socrates firmly believed in the importance of education, and as opposed to the rote learning seen in classrooms today, he believed the only way was for a student to think it through for himself. Socrates had little to offer in the form of "practical intelligence" or moral truth, though he did stand for a new, critical way of living. His philosophy on human nature is that Ð''no one does wrong willingly' (Magee) and an immoral act is a consequence of ignorance, not perversity. According to Socrates, to do wrong is to turn a blind eye to Ð''the truth that misconduct results in harm to oneself' (Magee), which no one can truly will. In order to achieve the goal of happiness, or Ð''eudemonia', people must conduct themselves morally. However, self-deceit and flattery blinds people to their ultimate ignorance, paving the way for misguided evil to take place. In Plato's Euthyphro, the improper use and understanding of moral concepts becomes a dangerous thing, as he set about to indict his father in the name of a virtue he cannot define.

The method used to bring one closer to the Ð''eidos', or universal definition of a moral term, such as Ð''courage', is what is called dialectic. The dialectic is used to raise questions about certain accepted moral ideas. Because Socrates believed that evil stemmed from ignorance, he used a Ð''cross-examination' technique to allow his opponent to realize independently the error of his own moral claim. In his method, he would challenge anyone with a pretence to knowledge. For example, in the story of Euthyphro, Socrates undermines Euthyphro's moral claims by questioning what he actually knows about piety. In most of Plato's dialogues, it becomes clear that neither Socrates nor the other person knew the meaning of the term. Socrates was dealing not just with ignorance, of which he gladly admitted himself, but Ð''ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge' (Vlastos) and Ð''false conceit of wisdom' (Vlastos). Dispelling misconceptions is, according to Socrates, important if one is to come closer to universal moral truths.

The first process in the dialectical method is the destructive process, where the idea is to prove the original claim is problematic or contradictory. A good example of this is in the story of Euthyphro, who claims he must press murder charges against his father, despite his family ties, as it is the only pious course of action. Seeing that the Socratic method is reliant on the student's own thinking, Socrates adopts his typical guise of ignorance to draw out answers from Euthyphro. After all, the reason he questioned and cross-examined his fellow citizens was not so he could convey some new and revolutionary truth in the way a teacher would, but only to Ð''point out the path along which it (truth) might be found' (Vlastos). The point in the story of Euthyphro is that Socrates gets him to examine his own knowledge of the word Ð''pious' and to realize that to embody piety, he must have the knowledge to what it is. In response, Euthyphro claims that piety is that which pleases the gods. To Euthyphro, Socrates asks "What about the gods,

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