Is there an issue with the Socratic method arguing against points?

Question

So, I've noticed something, looking at the classic example:

Do the gods know everything?

Yes.

Do some gods disagree with others?

Yes.

So gods disagree about what is true?

I suppose they must.

So gods can be wrong?

I suppose so.

Therefore the gods don't know everything.

There are some presuppositions here. The Socratic method shows contradictions between the arguments made, but it doesn't determine which arguments must be false. There's just this assumption that because there is a contraction, the gods don't know everything and that the gods do disagree with each other. By rights, couldn't this exact dialogue be used but the conclusion at the end is "Therefor the gods must not disagree with each other" (and the gods may or may not know everything)?

So far as I can understand, all arguments except for the one in question need to be unquestioningly true for an actual conclusion to come out of this. Is this issue ever addressed or dealt with?

Answer 1

The Socratic method isn't meant to convince people of specific points, the way that modern (Aristotelian-based) logic is. The Socratic method is meant to bring people to understands internal contradictions in their own beliefs, so that they can make their own beliefs more philosophically consistent. In this sense, Socrates was more like a psychologist than a logician, pulling out the various unspoken assumptions that lie behind someone's claim, and then juxtaposing them to show contradiction and inconsistencies.

For example, in the exchange laid out above Socrates would expect the other person to chew over the dialog for a while and then come back with a new claim: e.g., "Ok, Maybe I was wrong, and gods only know everything about their particular domains, but not everything outside that." and then the discussion would have gone off on another line of inquiry, that would expose new unspoken assumptions and inconsistencies. The process might repeat again and again, until the other person develops a new, more robust philosophical perspective.

Socrates was an idealist, so to his mind philosophical thought always converges on the limit point of 'The Good'. His expectation from this method is that every person who undertakes it, starting from whatever understanding they have, will slowly come to appreciate that common standpoint that is the ideal of 'The Good'. He himself has presumptively travelled farther along that path — a presumption that made him quite unpopular with certain of the political elite — and thus understands more than those he typically speaks with. But his method was never to teach people 'The Good' in any direct sense. He taught how to rationalize the thinking process, so that one's worldview becomes more sophisticated and philosophically sound, on the assertion that this would pull everyone up towards that common 'Good'.

Answer 2

Gilbert Ryle noted ‘the rule-governed concatenation of questions, answerable by 'yes' or 'no,' which are intended to drive the answerer into self-contradiction’. He held that this ‘is what should be meant by 'the Socratic Method.' (Gilbert Ryle, Plato's Progress (Cambridge, 1966: 119.)

There are good reasons to think that Socrates uses a variety of methods of argument, so that there is no such thing strictly as ‘the Socratic Method’. I will return to this point.

I assume the quoted passage in the text box is from Euthyphro, 7d – 8a. However, that passage is not quite as you render it. The claim under review – a definition of piety - is that what is agreeable to the gods is pious and right, and what is disagreeable to the gods is impious and wrong (7a). The argument goes that disagreements among human beings are most likely over ethical questions rather than questions of magnitude, number, &., which can be easily settled. It is a fair inference, therefore, that if the gods disagree it is over the same questions. It is accepted that the gods do disagree (7e – 8a). And since they disagree, what is regarded as pious and right by one god is regarded as impious and wrong by another. In that case the same action is both pious and right as agreeable to one god and impious and wrong as disagreeable to another. The definition of piety has in the process of argument yielded a contradiction.

Three points:

1. You are perfectly right that the effectiveness and cogency of this method of argument are situationally and personally specific. Contradiction will not follow, or a different contradiction will follow, depending on the answers the interlocutor gives. Socrates has no control over this. Euthyphro might not have accepted that the gods disagree over anything. In that case, the argument would have had a different outcome.

2. The general assumption behind Socrates’ use of this method of argument - ‘the rule-governed concatenation of questions, answerable by 'yes' or 'no’ - is that people do not know what they think they know. (This assumption is evidenced in Apology, 21e – 22e.) If Euthyphro had really known the nature of piety, he would not have run into the contradiction that hits him at the end of the argument.

3. The argument you quote is an example of eristic concluding in elenchus (refutation). This by no means covers and includes the range of argumentative method deployed by Socrates, who sometimes (a) uses dialectic to chart a progression of hypotheses ‘until you come to something acceptable’ (Phaedo, 101d) and (b) uses elenchus to positive effect as in the case of the slave body in the Meno, 80e – 86c, whom Socrates questions maioutically (like a midwife) to draw from him the solution to a mathematical problem, with the implication that the boy must have acquired the requisite knowledge in a pre-natal state; anamnesis (recollection) is evidently at work since Socrates’ questions have not conveyed any knowledge. (This is not to accept Socrates’ account of things; I merely indicate a method of argument.)

References

G. Ryle, Plato's Progress, Cambridge: CUP, 1966.

Plato: Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper & D.S. Hutchinson, Indianopolis: Hackett, 1997.

Answer 3

Not in this example. It is an example of faulty logic by exposing the contradictions not the assertion. It has nothing to do with Socrates personal beliefs. That example is devoid of context. At that time things like weather and plate tectonics were described as the gods getting rowdy in one way or another. It shows the flaws inherent to the dogma of myth. It doesn't seek to prove or disprove the premise.

Answer 4

no and yes, you are right and wrong. see, I can use the opposite of and the same as the socratic method on you right now. i am emotionally and psychologically manipulating you? or am i telling the truth? or is this all a pointless conversation and we are all idle dreamers? or are we the cutting edge research for our future? anyone out here know the gone series? or the trilogy monster, villain and hero? those are very philosophical...

Answer 5

Yes, I very much agree. The Socratic method is correct as a social device to make people understand, however, it is still wrong because contradictions are the opposite. Ever heard of love-hate relationships? Like in the book Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. There is a gay love-hate relationship in this book, but just because Simon was together with Agatha before he met Baz, does it mean that he does not love Baz because he was "obviously meant to be straight"? No. It also does not mean that he was "obviously meant to be gay". No . It means that he was straight at first, and then changed. People change all the time! People change their opinions, sometimes without speaking their new opinions aloud. (Sometimes, then, when someone does confess their new opinions, this leads to accusations of hypocrisy.)