Socrates was a philosopher. Anyway I bought this book because I wanted to understand more about his philosophical ideas of the world, his paradigm that he uses to see through. Sometimes I forget that people write books about other people to sway people against these people who they write about. It’s very subtle but sometimes it’s just plain mean and really obvious. What do you think about how this author is writing about this person called Socrates? In my opinion, in the first sentence, he isn’t being unbiased about how Socrates taught people. And then it’s really through the whole page. Do you think that I am over reacting? I think I accidentally bought this man’s opinion of Socrates, instead of just buying the information of what Socrates said and it’s completely biased against him.
In the first sentence the phrase ‘Socratic method’ is in quotation marks and that implies that the people who are disciples of the Socrates method of philosophy understand it to be larger than what it should be, or more important and that his opinion of Socrates is that he isn’t all that and shouldn’t be seen as anything important.
Then the author states that Socrates taught people through using leading questions to get them to the point of what Socrates wanted them to believe just for the benefit of getting followers, like some sort of cult leader. I might be going somewhat overboard in putting that idea into this first page but I don’t think that it’s far off. It seems that the author felt that compelling people into understanding is too invasive, too quick, like selling an opinion and not giving people a chance to think about it. But the author seems like he doesn’t like the requirement of having to think for yourself as a Socratic student, he wants the student to be able, and allowed to sit passively while the teacher tells the student what to think because the non-Socratic teacher tells the student everything they need to know without the student having an opinion, or “outburst” of thought. He really thinks that these questions are “leading”.
In my opinion they are not leading, yes the thought process is already there about the philosophy given by the teacher so that the student will stay on the right track of understanding the philosophy at the end and then they can disregard it or take it in. All people learn differently and that is why ‘group think tanks’ are important. In those situations questions are usually asked, correct? In order to understand something people talk to each other and ask questions. These can be categorized as conversations. When the student understood the philosophy through that type of questioning did Socrates make the student become his disciple?? That would be the error not the actual questions being asked in order to get to the correct understanding of that philosophy.
Soc-ru-teez
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