excerpted
from Socrates
Café
by Christopher Phillips
Socrates
Café are gatherings around the world where people from
different backgrounds get together and exchange philosophical
perspectives based on their experiences,
The
Socratic method is a way to seek truths by your own lights.It is a
system, a spirit, a method, a type of philosophical inquiry an
intellectual technique, all rolled into one.
Socrates
himself never spelled out a "method." However, the Socratic
method is named after him because Socrates, more than any other
before or since, models for us philosophy
practiced -
philosophy as deed, as way of living, as something that any of us can
do. It is an open
system of
philosophical inquiry that allows one to interrogate from many
vantage points.
Gregory
Vlastos, a Socrates scholar and professor of philosophy at Princeton,
described Socrates’ method of inquiry as "among the greatest
achievements of humanity." Why? Because, he says, it makes
philosophical inquiry "a common human enterprise, open to every
man." Instead of requiring allegiance to a specific
philosophical viewpoint or analytic technique or specialized
vocabulary, the Socratic method "calls for common sense and
common speech." And this, he says, "is as it should be, for
how man should live is every man’s business."
I
think, however, that the Socratic method goes beyond Vlastos’
description. It does not merely call for common sense but examines
what common sense is.
The Socratic method asks: Does the common sense of our day offer us
the greatest potential for self-understanding and human excellence?
Or is the prevailing common sense in fact a roadblock to realizing
this potential?
Vlastos
goes on to say that Socratic inquiry is by no means simple, and
"calls not only for the highest degree of mental alertness of
which anyone is capable" but also for "moral qualities of a
high order: sincerity, humility, courage." Such qualities
"protect against the possibility" that Socratic dialogue,
no matter how rigorous, "would merely grind out . . . wild
conclusions with irresponsible premises." I agree, though I
would replace the quality of sincerity with honesty, since one can
hold a conviction sincerely without examining it, while honesty would
require that one subject one’s convictions to frequent scrutiny.
A
Socratic dialogue reveals how different our outlooks can be on
concepts we use every day. It reveals how different our philosophies
are, and often how tenable - or untenable, as the case may be - a
range of philosophies can be. Moreover, even the most universally
recognized and used concept, when subjected to Socratic scrutiny,
might reveal not only that there is not universal
agreement, after all, on the meaning of any given concept, but that
every single person has a somewhat different take on each and every
concept under the sun.
What’s
more, there seems to be no such thing as a concept so abstract, or a
question so off base, that it cant be fruitfully explored at Socrates
Café. In the course of Socratizing, it often turns out to be the
case that some of the most so-called abstract concepts are intimately
related to the most profoundly relevant human experiences. In fact,
it’s been my experience that virtually any question can be plumbed
Socratically. Sometimes you don’t know what question will have the
most lasting and significant impact until you take a risk and delve
into it for a while.
What
distinguishes the Socratic method from mere nonsystematic inquiry is
the sustained attempt to explore the ramifications of certain
opinions and then offer compelling objections and alternatives. This
scrupulous and exhaustive form of inquiry in many ways resembles the
scientific method. But unlike Socratic inquiry, scientific inquiry
would often lead us to believe that whatever is not measurable cannot
be investigated. This "belief" fails to address such
paramount human concerns as sorrow and joy and suffering and love.
Instead
of focusing on the outer cosmos, Socrates focused primarily on human
beings and their cosmos within, utilizing his method to open up new
realms of self-knowledge while at the same time exposing a great deal
of error, superstition, and dogmatic nonsense. The Spanish-born
American philosopher and poet George Santayana said that Socrates
knew that "the foreground of human life is necessarily moral and
practical" and that "it is so even so for artists" -
and even for scientists, try as some might to divorce their work from
these dimensions of human existence.
Scholars
call Socrates’ method the elenchus,
which is Hellenistic Greek for inquiry or cross-examination.
But it is not just any type of inquiry or examination. It is a type
that reveals people to themselves, that makes them see what their
opinions really amount to. C. D. C. Reeve, professor of philosophy at
Reed College, gives the standard explanation of an elenchus in saying
that its aim “is not simply to reach adequate definitions" of
such things as virtues; rather, it also has a "moral reformatory
purpose, for Socrates believes that regular elenctic philosophizing
makes people happier and more virtuous than anything else. . . .
Indeed philosophizing is so important for human welfare, on his view,
that he is willing to accept execution rather than give it up."
Socrates’
method of examination can indeed be a vital part of existence, but I
would not go so far as to say that it should be.
And I do not think that Socrates felt that habitual use of this
method "makes people happier." The fulfillment that comes
from Socratizing comes only at a price - it could well make
us unhappier,
more uncertain, more troubled, as well as more fulfilled. It can
leave us with a sense that we don’t know
the answers after all, that we are much further from knowing the
answers than we’d ever realized before engaging in Socratic
discourse. And this is fulfilling - and exhilarating and humbling and
perplexing. We may leave a Socrates Café - in all likelihood
we will leave
a Socrates Café - with a heady sense that there are many more ways
and truths and lights by which to examine any given concept than we
had ever before imagined.
In The
Gay Science,
Friedrich Nietzsche said, "I admire the courage and wisdom of
Socrates in all he did, said - and did not say." Nietzsche was a
distinguished nineteenth-century classical philologist before he
abandoned the academic fold and became known for championing a type
of heroic individual who would create a life - affirming "will
to power" ethic. In the spirit of his writings on such
individuals, whom he described as "supermen,’, Nietzsche
lauded Socrates as a "genius of the heart. . . whose voice knows
how to descend into the depths of every soul . . . who teaches one to
listen, who smoothes rough souls and lets them taste a new yearning .
. . who divines the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of
goodness . . . from whose touch everyone goes away richer, not having
found grace nor amazed, not as blessed and oppressed by the good of
another, but richer in himself, opened . . . less sure perhaps... but
full of hopes that as yet have no name." I only differ with
Nietzsche when he characterizes Socrates as someone who descended
into the depths of others’ souls. To the contrary Socrates enabled
those with whom he engaged in dialogues to descend into the depths of
their own souls and create their
own life
- affirming ethic.
Santayana
said that he would never hold views in philosophy which he did not
believe in daily life, and that he would deem it dishonest and even
spineless to advance or entertain views in discourse which were not
those under which he habitually lived. But there is no neat divide
between one’s views of philosophy and of life. They are overlapping
and kindred views. It is virtually impossible in many instances
to know what
we believe in daily life until we engage others in dialogue.
Likewise, to discover our philosophical views, we must engage with
ourselves, with the lives we already lead. Our views form, change,
evolve, as we participate in this dialogue. It is the only way truly
to discover what philosophical colors we sail under. Everyone at some
point preaches to himself and others what he does not yet practice;
everyone acts in or on the world in ways that are in some way
contradictory or inconsistent with the views he or she confesses or
professes to hold. For instance, the Danish philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard, the influential founder of existentialism, put Socratic
principles to use in writing his dissertation on the concept of irony
in Socrates, often using pseudonyms so he could argue his own
positions with himself. In addition, the sixteenth-century essayist
Michel de Montaigne, who was called "the French Socrates"
and was known as the father of skepticism in modern Europe, would
write and add conflicting and even contradictory passages in the same
work. And like Socrates, he believed the search for truth was worth
dying for.
The
Socratic method forces people "to confront their own dogmatism,"
according to Leonard Nelson, a German philosopher who wrote on such
subjects as ethics and theory of knowledge until he was forced by the
rise of Nazism to quit. By doing so, participants in Socratic
dialogue are, in effect,"forcing themselves
to be free," Nelson maintains. But they’re not just confronted
with their own dogmatism. In the course of a Socrates Café, they may
be confronted with an array of hypotheses, convictions, conjectures
and theories offered by the other participants, and themselves - all
of which subscribe to some sort of dogma. The Socratic method
requires that - honestly and openly, rationally and imaginatively -
they confront the dogma by asking such questions as: What does this
mean? What speaks for and against it? Are there alternative ways of
considering it that are even more plausible and tenable?
At
certain junctures of a Socratic dialogue, the "forcing"
that this confrontation entails - the insistence that each
participant carefully articulate her singular philosophical
perspective - can be upsetting. But that is all to the good. If it
never touches any nerves, if it doesn't upset, if it doesn't mentally
and spiritually challenge and perplex, in a wonderful and
exhilarating way, it is not Socratic dialogue. This "forcing"
opens us up to the varieties of experiences of others - whether
through direct dialogue, or through other means, like drama or books,
or through a work of art or a dance. It compels us to explore
alternative perspectives, asking what might be said for or against
each.
Keep
this ethos in mind if you ever, for instance, feel tempted to ask a
question like this one once posed at a Socrates Café: How can we
overcome alienation? Challenge the premise of the question at the
outset. You may need to ask: Is alienation something we always want
to overcome? For instance, Shakespeare and Goethe may have written
their timeless works because they embraced their sense of alienation
rather than attempting to escape it. If this was so, then you might
want to ask: Are there many different types, and degrees, of
alienation? Depending on the context, are there some types that you
want to overcome and other types that you do not at all want to
overcome but rather want to incorporate into yourself? And to answer
effectively such questions, you first need to ask and answer such
questions as: What is alienation? What does it mean to overcome
alienation? Why would we ever want to overcome alienation? What are
some of the many different types of alienation? What are the criteria
or traits that link each of these types? Is it possible to be
completely alienated? And many more questions besides.
Those
who become smitten with the Socratic method of philosophical inquiry
thrive on the question. They never run out of questions, or out of
new ways to question. Some of Socrates Café’s most avid
philosophizers are, for me, the question personified.
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