The Socratic Method

The Socratic method has a high reputation in many academic circles, but a sound epistemologist knows that reason, as opposed to social exchanges, grounds true knowledge of the specific things that can be known.  As an approach to education, the Socratic method is popularly associated with the style in which Socrates interrogates others in Platonic dialogues.  This method entails at least one person questioning another about some philosophical issue to secure an admission of their stances, which, if they contradict each other, are now out in the open to be targeted for more questioning and possible refutation.  Unfortunately, even though questioning others is indeed a easy way to expose the stupidity of non-rationalists, the popularity of the Socratic method is not owed to any sort of rationalism.  

The method is sometimes regarded as an ideal way to modify ideas by intentionally relying on conversation to regularly provoke unplanned thoughts.  It might appear otherwise to some, but the Socratic method can actually condition people who are not already independently consulting reason themselves to go to others first and to reason later, when reason is accessible no matter who is around them or where they are.  Language and communication are about sharing thoughts, and pretending like people who are not rationalists are even in a position to understand concepts as they are and reason out what follows from them accomplishes nothing but the protection of stupidity.  The Socratic method has been used to perpetuate slavery to fallacies and prioritize a backwards epistemological emphasis on conversation over reason.  Many times, it does not even help irrational people truly come closer to truth.

Of course, rationalists do not need social stimulation to recognize at least things like the inherent truth of sound deductive reasoning and the impossibility of their own existence being a mere illusion.  This is the paradoxical nature of the Socratic method when it is not being used by irrationalists or imbeciles: those who would be the best at it do not need it and are the most likely ones to realize this, while those who might never contemplate their alignment with reason and broader reality on their own are the least self-equipped people for conversations of this kind.  Thinking the process will somehow bestow intelligence and enlightenment upon them, non-rationalists in classrooms and beyond might be eager to discuss topics without thinking about them beforehand.

Reason stands and fallacies deviate from reality with or without conversations or group involvement.  The Socratic method, when used by non-rationalists, is at best a haphazard way for inept thinkers to feel more connected to reality while potentially making minimal advances towards truth, but mostly because of direct, constant promoting from another inept thinker.  When used by rationalists, the contexts in which it would even be useful become far more limited.  Two thorough rationalists would not even have a need to erroneously treat conversation as the instrumental pathway to knowledge in the way, for each one could simply discuss their rationalistic discoveries authentically and without any assumptions or irrational priorities of social stimulation over direct access to reason.

Ironically, the only rationalistically valid use of the Socratic method occurs when a genuine rationalist questions people to prompt them to realize contradictions in their own professed beliefs that the latter could have already identified and eliminated on their own if they themselves embraced rationalism.  This is not to say that rationalists are irrational if they ask questions to other rationalists or realize that some information cannot be obtained by privately reasoning out purely logical facts; this is not the case at all.  I even specifically hope that all rationalists in my life feel invited to ask me questions in person or online as they would like to!  It is just that the only true foundation of reality and knowledge is reason itself, which individuals are free to understand and wield on their own.