Theos-Talk Archives (February 1999 Message tt00044)

Hi Darren,

You wrote:

> I'm sort of following the Socratic 'questioning model'. Often I will say
> stuff that I may not necessarily believe in, just to provoke lively debate
> and discussion.

Yes, I like the Socratic model too.  I've always had the feeling that it
works best when applied mainly to ourselves and sparingly to others.  This
way we can develop and learn to articulate our own understanding, and
through sharing it with others we can contribute to the overall
understanding.

When I'm with people who *continually* use the Socratic model on others (and
you probably don't do this), I'm often left with the feeling that I am doing
all the work!  'They' throw out questions, other people do the work of
answering them, only to be met with another round of questions & so on.   It
can be even more frustrating when one discovers the other person doesn't
even believe in the questions they are asking.

The dialogues of Socrates (with Meno and others) were written by Plato - a
good example of this questioning technique taking place *within* the person
and shared for the benefit of others.

Best wishes

Peter


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