Influence
of Humanism in the World today
“The Socratic Method”
{Humanist Model for Teaching}
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elenchus redirects here. For the brachiopod genus, see
Elenchus (brachiopod).
Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate) is a dialectic method of inquiry, largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts and first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father of Western ethics or moral philosophy.
It is a form of philosophical
inquiry. It typically involves two speakers at any one time, with
one leading the discussion and the other agreeing to certain assumptions
put forward for his acceptance or rejection. The method is credited to Socrates,
who began to engage in such discussions with his fellow Athenians after a visit
to the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle of Delphi confirmed Socrates to be the
wisest man in
The practice involves asking a series of questions
surrounding a central issue, and answering questions of the others involved.
Generally, this involves the defense of one point of view
against another and is oppositional. The
best way to 'win' is to make the opponent contradict themselves
in some way that proves the inquirer's own point.
Plato famously formalized the Socratic Elenctic
style in prose — presenting Socrates as the curious questioner of some
prominent Athenian interlocutor — in some of his early dialogues, such as Euthyphro or Ion, and the method is most commonly found
within the so-called "Socratic dialogues", which generally portray
Socrates engaging in the method and questioning his fellow citizens about moral
and epistemological issues.
The term Socratic Questioning is used to
describe a kind of questioning in which an original question is responded to as
though it were an answer. This in turn forces the first questioner to
reformulate a new question in light of the progress of the discourse.
Method
Elenkhos (Greek: ἔλεγχος,
a cross-examination for the purpose of refutation), more usually spelled
'elenchus', is the central technique of the Socratic Method. "If you ask a
question or series of questions in which your prospect can readily agree, then ask a concluding question based on those agreements,
you will receive a desirable response".
In Plato's early dialogues, the elenchos is the
technique Socrates uses to investigate, for example, the nature or definition
of ethical concepts such as justice or virtue. According to one general
characterization (Vlastos, 1983), it has the
following steps:
1. Socrates' interlocutor asserts a thesis, for example 'Courage is
endurance of the soul', which Socrates considers false and targets for
refutation.
2. Socrates secures his interlocutor's agreement to further premises,
for example 'Courage is a fine thing' and 'Ignorant endurance is not a fine
thing'.
3. Socrates then argues, and the interlocutor agrees,
that these further premises imply the contrary of the original thesis, in this
case it leads to: 'courage is not endurance of the soul'.
4. Socrates then claims that he has shown that his interlocutor's thesis is
false and that its contrary is true.
One elenctic examination can lead to a new,
more refined, examination of the concept being considered; in
this case it invites an examination of the claim: 'Courage is wise endurance of
the soul'. Most Socratic inquiries consist of a series of elenchai
and typically end in aporia.
Frede (1992) insists that step #4
above makes nonsense of the aporetic nature of the
early dialogues. If any claim has shown to be true then it can not be the case
that the interlocutors are in aporia, a state where
they no longer know what to say about the subject under discussion.
The exact nature of the elenchos is subject to a
great deal of debate, in particular concerning whether it is a positive method,
leading to knowledge, or a negative method used solely to refute false claims
to knowledge.
The Socratic Method is a negative method of hypotheses
elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by
steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. The
method of Socrates is a search for the underlying hypotheses, assumptions,
or axioms, which may subconsciously shape one's opinion,
and to make them the subject of scrutiny, to determine their consistency with
other beliefs. The basic form is a series of questions formulated
as tests of logic and fact intended to help a person or group discover their
beliefs about some topic, exploring the definitions or logoi (singular logos), seeking to characterize the general
characteristics shared by various particular instances. To the extent to which
this method is designed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors'
beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, it was called the method
of maieutics. Aristotle attributed to Socrates the
discovery of the method of definition and induction, which he regarded as the
essence of the scientific method. Perhaps oddly, however, Aristotle
also claimed that this method is not suitable for ethics.
Application
Socrates generally applied his method of examination to
concepts that seem to lack any concrete definition; e.g., the key moral concepts
at the time, the virtues of piety, wisdom, temperance, courage, and justice. Such
an examination challenged the implicit moral
beliefs of the interlocutors, bringing out inadequacies and
inconsistencies in their beliefs, and usually resulting in puzzlement
known as aporia. In view of such inadequacies,
Socrates himself professed his ignorance, but others still claimed to have
knowledge. Socrates believed that his awareness of his ignorance made him wiser
than those who, though ignorant, still claimed knowledge. Although this belief
seems paradoxical at first glance, it in fact allowed Socrates to discover his
own errors where others might assume they were correct. This claim was known by
the anecdote of the Delphic oracular pronouncement that Socrates was the wisest
of all men. (Or, rather, that no man was wiser than Socrates.)
Socrates used this claim of wisdom as the basis of his moral
exhortation. Accordingly, he claimed that the chief goodness consists in the
caring of the soul concerned with moral truth and moral understanding, that
"wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every
other blessing, both to the individual and to the state", and that
"life without examination [dialogue] is not worth living". It is with
this in mind that the Socratic Method is employed.
The motive for the modern usage
of this method and Socrates' use are not necessarily equivalent.
Socrates rarely used the method to actually develop consistent theories,
instead using myth to explain them. The Parmenides shows Parmenides using the
Socratic Method to point out the flaws in the Platonic theory of the Forms, as
presented by Socrates; it is not the only dialogue in which theories normally
expounded by Plato/Socrates are broken down through dialectic. Instead
of arriving at answers, the method was used to
break down the theories we hold,
to go "beyond" the axioms and postulates we take for granted.
Therefore, myth and the Socratic Method are not meant by Plato to be
incompatible; they have different purposes, and are often described as the
"left hand" and "right hand" paths to the good and wisdom.
Law school
The Socratic Method is widely used
in contemporary legal education by many law schools
in the
The employment of the Socratic Method has some uniform
features but can also be heavily influenced by the temperament of the
teacher. The method begins by calling on a student at random, and asking
about a central argument put forth by one of the judges (typically on the side
of the majority) in an assigned case. The first step is to ask the student to
paraphrase the argument, in order to ensure that the student has read and has a
basic understanding of the case. (Students who have not read the case, for
whatever reason, must take the opportunity to "pass," which most
professors allow as a matter of course a few times per term.) Assuming the
student has read the case and can articulate the court's argument, the teacher
then asks whether the student agrees with the argument. The teacher then
typically plays Devil's advocate, trying to force
the student to defend his or her position by rebutting arguments against it.
These subsequent questions can take a few forms. Sometimes
they seek to challenge the assumptions upon which the student based the
previous answer until it breaks. Further questions can also be designed to
move a student toward greater specificity, either
in understanding a rule of law or a particular case. The teacher may attempt to
propose a hypothetical situation in which the student's assertion
would seem to demand an exception. Finally professors use the Socratic method to allow students to come to legal principles on
their own through carefully worded questions that spur a particular train of
thought.
One hallmark of Socratic questioning is that typically
there is more than one "correct"
answer, and more often, no
clear answer at all. The primary goal of the Socratic method
in law schools is not to answer usually unanswerable questions, but to explore
the contours of often difficult legal issues and to teach students the critical
thinking skills they will need as lawyers. This is often done by altering the
facts of a particular case to tease out how the result might be different. This
method encourages students to go beyond memorizing the facts of a case and
instead focus on application of legal rules to fungible fact patterns. As the
assigned texts are typically case law, the Socratic method,
if properly used, can display that judges' decisions are usually
conscientiously made but are based on certain premises, belief, and conclusions
that are the subject of legitimate argument.
Sometimes, the class ends with a quick discussion of
doctrinal foundations (legal rules) to anchor the students in contemporary
legal understanding of an issue. In other classes the class simply ends and
students are forced to figure out for themselves the legal rules or principles
that were at issue. For this method to work, the students are expected to be
prepared for class in advance by reading the assigned materials (case opinions,
notes, law review articles, etc.) and by familiarizing themselves with the
general outlines of the subject matter.
Psychotherapy
The Socratic Method has been adapted for psychotherapy,
most prominently in Classical Adlerian psychotherapy
and Cognitive therapy. It can be used to clarify meaning, feeling,
and consequences, as well as to gradually unfold insight, or explore alternative
actions.
Training
The method is used by modern management training companies
focusing on behaviour change,
e.g. Krauthammer, Gustav Käser Training
International, Dynargie. In
this case the trainer acts as a facilitator who uses open questions to allow
the participants to reflect on their way of thinking and behaviour,
and then using closed questions to force them to make a
decision towards a change in their thinking and/or behaviour. In sales communication training it is often
referred to as the funnel concept. The open questions help to discover the
needs of the client and the closed questions pin the client
down and get to the 'Yes' to close the deal.
Lesson plan elements for teachers in
classrooms
A skillful teacher can teach students to think for
themselves using this method. This is the only classic method of teaching that
was designed to create genuinely autonomous thinkers.
There are some crucial lesson plan elements to this form of teaching:
• The teacher and student must agree on the
topic of instruction.
• The student must agree to attempt to answer questions from the teacher.
• The teacher and student must be willing to accept any
correctly-reasoned answer. That is, the reasoning process must be
considered more important than pre-conceived facts or beliefs.
• The teacher's questions must expose errors in the students' reasoning or
beliefs. That is, the teacher must reason more quickly and correctly than the student,
and discover errors in the students' reasoning, and then formulate a question
that the students cannot answer except by a correct
reasoning process. To perform this service, the teacher must be very
quick-thinking about the classic errors in reasoning.
• If the teacher makes an error of logic or fact, it is acceptable for a
student to correct the teacher.
Since a discussion is not a dialogue,
it is not a proper medium for the Socratic Method. However, it is helpful — if
second best — if the teacher is able to lead a group of students in a
discussion. This is not always possible in situations that require the teacher
to evaluate students, but it is preferable pedagogically, because it encourages
the students to reason rather than appeal to authority.
More loosely, one can label any process of thorough-going
questioning in a dialogue as an instance of the Socratic Method.
Dictionary.com
Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
Socratic Method – noun
The use of questions, as employed by Socrates,
to develop a latent idea, as in the mind of a pupil, or to elicit admissions,
as from an opponent, tending to establish a proposition.
American Heritage
Dictionary - Cite This Source
Socratic Method - n.
A pedagogical technique in which a teacher does
not give information directly but instead asks a series of questions, with the
result that the student comes either to the desired knowledge by answering the
questions or to a deeper awareness of the limits of knowledge.
WordNet - Cite This Source
Socratic Method – noun
A method of teaching by
question and answer; used by Socrates to elicit truths from his students.
Influence
of Humanism in the World today
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
CASUISTRY - NOUN:Inflected forms: pl. ca•sui•ist•ries
1. Specious or excessively subtle
reasoning intended to rationalize or mislead.
2. The determination of right and wrong in questions of conduct or
conscience by
analyzing cases that illustrate general ethical rules.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Casuistry (pronounced /ˈkæʒuːɨstri/)
is an applied ethics term referring to case-based reasoning. Casuistry is used
in juridical and ethical discussions of law and ethics, and often is a critique
of principle-based reasoning.
For example, while a principle-based approach might claim
that lying is always morally wrong, the casuist would argue
that, depending upon the details of the case, lying might or
might not be illegal or unethical. For instance, the casuist might conclude
that a person is wrong to lie in legal testimony under oath, but might argue
that lying actually is the best moral choice if the lie saves a life (Thomas
Sanchez and others thus theorized a doctrine of mental reservation).
For the casuist, the circumstances of a case are essential for evaluating the
proper response.
Typically, casuistic reasoning begins with a clear-cut
paradigmatic case (from paradigm, the Greek word παράδειγμα,
paradeigma, "pattern" and
"example", in turn derived from παραδεικνύναι
paradeiknunai, "demonstrate"). In legal
reasoning, for example, this might be a precedent case, such as pre-meditated
murder. From it, the casuist would ask how closely the given case currently
under consideration matches the paradigmatic case. Cases like the paradigmatic
case ought to be treated like-wise; cases unlike the paradigm ought to be
treated differently. Thus, a man is properly charged with pre-meditated murder
if the circumstances surrounding his case closely resemble the exemplar
pre-meditated murder case. The less a given case is like the paradigm, the
weaker the justification is for treating that case like the paradigmatic case.
Western casuistry dates from Aristotle
(384–322 B.C.), yet the zenith of casuistry was from A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1650,
when the Jesuit religious order extensively used casuistry, particularly
in practicing the private, Roman Catholic confessional. The term casuistry
quickly became pejorative with Blaise
Pascal's attack on the misuse of casuistry. In
Provincial Letters (1656–7), he scolded the Jesuits for using casuistic
reasoning in confession to placate wealthy Church donors, whilst punishing
poor penitents. Pascal charged that aristocratic penitents could confess their
sins one day, re-commit the sin the next day, generously donate the following
day, then return to re-confess their sins and only receive the lightest
punishment; Pascal's criticisms darkened casuistry's reputation. Since the
seventeenth century, casuistry has been widely considered a
degenerate form of reasoning. Critics of casuistry focus on its
specious argumentation as intentionally
misleading.
It was not until publication of The Abuse of Casuistry: A
History of Moral Reasoning (1988), by Albert Jonsen
and Stephen Toulmin, that a revival of casuistry occurred. They argue that the
abuse of casuistry is the problem, not casuistry itself. Properly used,
casuistry is powerful reasoning. Jonsen and Toulmin offer casuistry in dissolving the contradictory
tenets of absolutism and relativism: “the form of reasoning constitutive of
classical casuistry is rhetorical reasoning”. Moreover, Utilitarianism
and Pragmatism commonly are identified as philosophies employing
the rhetorical reasoning of casuistry.
Meanings
Casuistry is a method of case reasoning especially useful in
treating cases that involve moral dilemmas. Casuistry is a branch of applied
ethics. Casuistry is the basis of case law
in common law. It is the standard form of reasoning
applied in common law.
The casuist morality
Casuistry takes a relentlessly practical
approach to morality. Rather than using
theories as starting points, casuistry begins with an examination of cases. By
drawing parallels between paradigms, so called "pure cases," and the
case at hand, a casuist tries to determine a moral response appropriate to a
particular case.
Casuistry has been described as "theory modest" (
Since most people, and most cultures, substantially agree about most pure
ethical situations, casuistry often creates ethical arguments that can persuade
people of different ethnic, religious and philosophical beliefs to treat
particular cases in the same ways. For this reason, casuistry is widely
considered to be the basis for the English common law and its derivatives.
Casuistry is prone to abuses wherever the analogies between cases are false.
Casuistry in early modern times
The casuistic method was popular among
Catholic thinkers in the early modern period,
and not only among the Jesuits, as it is commonly thought. Famous
casuistic authors include Antonio Escobar y Mendoza's Summula
casuum conscientiae (1627),
which had enjoyed a great success, Thomas Sanchez, Vincenzo
Filliucci (Jesuit and penitentiary at St Peter's), Antonino Diana, Paul Laymann (Theologia Moralis, 1625), John Azor (Institutiones Morales,
1600), Etienne Bauny, Louis Cellot,
Valerius Reginaldus,
Hermann Busembaum (d. 1668), etc.
One of the main theses of casuists
was the necessity to adapt the rigorous morals of the Early
Fathers of Christianity to modern morals, which led in some extreme
cases to justify what Innocent XI later called "laxist
moral" (i.e. justification of usury, homicide,
regicide, lying through "mental
reservation", adultery and loss of virginity before
marriage, etc. — all due cases registered by Pascal in the Provincial Letters).
The progress of casuistry was interrupted towards the middle of
the 17th century by the controversy which arose concerning the doctrine of probabilism, which stipulated that one could choose to
follow a "probable opinion," that is,
supported by a theologian or another, even if it contradicted a more
probable opinion or a quotation from one of the
Fathers of the Church. The controversy divided Catholic theologians into two
camps, Rigorists and Laxists.
Casuistry was much mistrusted by early Protestant
theologians, because it justified many of the abuses
that they sought to reform. It was famously attacked by the Catholic and Jansenist philosopher Pascal, during the formulary
controversy against the Jesuits, in his Provincial Letters as the use of
rhetorics to justify moral laxity, which became
identified by the public with Jesuitism; hence the everyday use
of the term to mean complex and sophistic reasoning to justify moral laxity. By
the middle of the 18th century, the name of "casuistry" became
a synonym of moral laxity.
In 1679 Pope Innocent XI publicly
condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti
mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of
Escobar, Suarez and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade
anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication. Despite this papal
condemnation, both Catholicism and Protestantism permits
the use of ambiguous and equivocal statements
in specific circumstances .
Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (d. 1787), founder of the Congregation of the Most
Holy Redeemer, then brought some attention back to casuistry by publishing
again Hermann Busembaum's Medulla Theologiae
Moralis, the last edition of it being published in
1785 and receiving the approbation of the Holy See in 1803. Busembaum's
Medulla had been burnt in
Casuists have often been mistrusted as
too self-serving, and their reasoning
thought too inaccessible. The reasoning is often inaccessible
because successful casuistry requires a large amount of knowledge about
paradigms, and how parallels can be drawn from those paradigms to real life
situations. In modern times, there is a similar tremendous resentment
against lawyers and law. Defenders of casuistry often point out that the
problems are not so much with casuistry itself, but with the improper use of
casuistry. That these problems manifest themselves so often however may make it
appear to some that this form of reasoning is somewhat easier to misuse than it
is to apply correctly.
Casuistry in modern times
In modern times, casuistry has successfully
been applied to law, bioethics
and business ethics, and its reputation is somewhat
rehabilitated. G.E. Moore dealt with casuistry in chapter 1.4 of his Principia Ethica; he claimed that "the defects of casuistry are
not defects of principle; no objection can be taken to its aim and object. It
has failed only because it is far too difficult a subject to be treated
adequately in our present state of knowledge." He also asserted,
"Casuistry is the goal of ethical investigation. It cannot be safely
attempted at the beginning of our studies, but only at the end."
A good reference, analysing the methodological structure of casuistic argument is The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning (1990), by Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin (ISBN 0-520-06960-9).
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source
soph·ist – noun
1. (often initial capital
letter) Greek History.
a. any of a class of professional teachers
in ancient Greece who gave instruction in various fields, as in general
culture, rhetoric, politics, or disputation.
b. a person
belonging to this class at a later period who, while professing to teach
skill in reasoning, concerned himself with ingenuity
and specious effectiveness rather than soundness of
argument.
2. a person who reasons
adroitly and speciously rather than soundly.
3. a philosopher.
|
1535–45; < L sophista < Gk
sophists sage, deriv. of sophízesthai] |