Interpreters of the Phaedo often cite the Pythagorean context of the dialogue as a source of influence on the demanding conception of philosophy defended therein. Sandra Peterson offers a striking account of that influence: the Pythagorean sympathies of Socrates's interlocutors lead him to defend a conception of philosophy that captures their commitments, but that he himself rejects. Call this the Strong Influence Thesis. Peterson defends SIT by attempting to demonstrate a mismatch between the conception of philosophy espoused by Socrates in (...) the Apology and ‘true philosophy’ as described in the Phaedo. Assessing this defence thus requires a detailed examination of both sides of the comparison. This paper undertakes that task. I argue that when the beliefs and norms that define both philosophical lives are correctly understood, the appearance of a significant mismatch fades away. The life of true philosophy realizes the Apology ideal of caring most about wisdom, truth, and the best possible state of.. (shrink)

The article is about the poetic-practical philosophy of dialog of Lesia Ukrainka, which is manifested in the dramatic creativity of the prominent poetess, her translation activity and the concept of “person-nature relations”. In the text it is shown that Lesia Ukrainka created a new genre of contemporary drama on the basis of application of “Socratic dialog”, which started an important direction in contemporary literature and coincides with a leading trend of world philosophy associated with the paradigmatic turning point from (...) the philosophy of subjectivity to the philosophy of inter-subjectivity. The kinship of the Socratic philosophy of dialog and “Socratic drama” is also referred to. The author also showed that the meaning of Socratic dialog of Lesia Ukrainka in the resolution of the main problems of world outlook of modernity and the role of argumentation, in particular, the method of elenctics, the realization of such notions as “truth” and “verity”, which is particularly important the modern day situation of “posttruth” and “post-morality”. Against the background of the global environmental crisis, it is important to look at the way how Lesya Ukrainka suggests treating nature as a subject and partner in dialogue. This paradigm continues and deepens the Romantic concept of nature as a partner in a conversation and co-creator of the liber mundi ("the book of the world"). It also opens the opportunity to apply hermeneutical methods of understanding nature as a common world (Mitwelt) of communication, love and creativity. The article also analyzes the topic of dialogue between cultures, as well as perception and understanding of another culture as a subject in a dialogue. We can see this focus in Lesya Ukrainka's approach to translation of poetic texts produced by cultures from distant places and epochs. (shrink)

Based on the transcript of a fragment from a philosophical practice session carried by Oscar Brenifier, I flesh out several aspects of this dialogical form of philosophical practice. First, it is a form of interaction grounded in the interlocutors’ interaffection. Second, the main mechanism of carrying through the dialogic interaction is the practitioner’s repeating the other’s words, writing them down, and then questioning them, thus extracting them from the other’s discursive flow and making them shared objects (...) for an intersubjective gaze. Third, this form of dialogue is asymmetrical: while the other is providing the “content”, the practitioner is responsible for explicating it. (shrink)

Philosophical practice, an art of living rooted in ancient traditions, is enriched by modern techniques such as individual counseling, Socratic group dialogues, and organizational consulting. Philosophical counseling, a key aspect of this practice, employs traditional philosophical frameworks and rational reasoning to address clients' concerns, distinguishing itself from psychotherapy while respecting individual autonomy. The growing Western interest in Asian philosophies also underscores a shared pursuit of wisdom, spirituality, and meaning. This paper examines the development, key (...) features, and leading proponents of philosophical practice, its relationship with academic philosophy, and the tensions between their differing aims and methods. The outlook for philosophical counseling is promising, offering an alternative to medical approaches for existential issues and expanding its scope to personal guidance, conflict resolution, and life‐skill development. Its future trajectory hinges on societal trends toward secularization, the de‐medicalization of mental health, and the increasing recognition of philosophy's intrinsic practical value. (shrink)

This article explores the creative work of Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda from the standpoint of the leading trends in contemporary philosophic thought: a communicative turn in philosophy, neo-Socratic dialogue, and ethics of discourse. Skovoroda’s philosophy is interpreted not only in line with the ‘know yourself’ principle as a method of cognition, but, first of all, within the Socratic dialogue dimension when the methods of maieutics and elentics are used for joint searching for truth and solving moral problems. Skovoroda did (...) not reduce philosophy to life, but he raised life to philosophy; philosophy itself was his life and in the first place, it was the practical philosophy of dialogue. Socratic dialogue appears in the practices of communication with people, in particular in the wandering habitus of the thinker. Wandering is an important element of his philosophy, his life, and his habitus. The wandering nature of Skovoroda’s habitus takes his dialogues beyond epistemology bringing the dialogue into a practical, or rather moral and practical plane. As an educator, Skovoroda draws on the Ukrainian culture habitus and practices and transcends this habitus and thus elevating it to the habitus of reason. This paper asserts the idea of the need and necessity to develop and to practice the neo-Skovoroda’s dialogue as a component of the global trend of dialogic civilization development. (shrink)

The definition of the lowest common denominator of philosophical practices is widely debated: what is the philosophical core that allows us to distinguish them from other activities? Also, is it possible to identify a methodical peculiarity in philosophical practices? Indeed, many philosophical practitioners refer to dialogue as the specific philosophical character marking their professional activity. This statement, which as such is rather naive, is obviously somewhat problematic. However, philosophical practitioners stress the λόγος of dialogue. (...) In addition to investigating how the dialogue is understood in the different philosophical practices, this contribution aims at enhancing the διά, the "between" of dialogue. This dimension, in fact, may be a possible theoretical framework within which to understand philosophical practices as a whole. (shrink)

The term ’risk’ is used in a wide range of situations, but there is no real consensus of what it means. ‘Risk ‘is often stipulatively defined as “a probability for the occurrence of a negative event” or something similar. This formulation is however not very informative, and it fails to capture many of our intuitions about the concept or risk. One way of trying to find a common definition of a term within a group is to use a Socratic (...) Dialogue (SD). This method is fairly new, and it is rather different from the original Socratic dialogues (at least if we are to judge from how they are described by Plato). The best explanation for the name ought to be that it is inspired by the original Socratic dialogues. The SD in its modern form was originally developed as a tool for enabling laymen to perform rather advanced concept analyses under the supervision of a professional philosopher. The formal goal of the method is to find a common way of perceiving of a particular term, or at least to find out exactly how the members of the group differ in their understandings of the term, and why. The largest gain from the process has in practice turned out to be a higher awareness among the participants of different ways of understanding the term, and the ideas and intuitions behind it. This has turned out to be very useful in educational settings, but the method has also been used with great success both in research, and in e.g. business, public administration and nongovernmental organisations. In the present case, a Socratic dialogue on the concept of risk was performed within the framework of a Ph D-course about risk and uncertainty at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Alnarp, Sweden. The participants on the course where all quite familiar with practical issues relating to risks. Both from the course work, and from their own research. (shrink)

본 논문의 목표는 소크라테스적 방법의 전형에 따라 넬손과 헥크만에 의해 계승 발전 된 새로운 소크라테스 대화 의 규칙을 소개하고 이를 검토하는 것이다. 이 규칙은 소크라 테스 대화 의 본질을 규정하는 구성적 규칙과 대화의 원활한 진행을 위하여 유용한 수단을 규정하는 규제적 규칙으로 구분된다. 따라서 넬손과 헥크만의 전통으로부터 나온 소크라 테스 대화 는 이러한 규칙을 전체적으로 검토함으로써 개괄될 수 있다. 이와 함께 나는 헥 크만이 제시하는 대화 지도자를 위한 교육적 방책도 살펴볼 것이다. 소크라테스 대화 의 실천에서 일반적으로 대화 지도자는 대화의 목적 달성을 (...) 위해 중요한 위치를 차지하는데, 여기서 그의 임무와 역할을 1) 사회자로서, 2) 조력자로서, 3) 촉진자로서, 4) 조종자로서 규정할 수 있다. 그리고 이를 통해 철학적 산파술이 넬손-헥크만 전통의 소크라테스 대 화 에서 어떻게 이해되어 활용되는지 알 수 있다. (shrink)

Proponents of philosophy for children generally see themselves as heirs to the ‘Socratic’ tradition. They often claim too that children’s aptitude for play leads them naturally to play with abstract, philosophical ideas. However in Plato’s dialogues we find in the mouth of ‘Socrates’ many warnings against philosophising with the young. Those dialogues also question whether philosophy should be playful in any straightforward way, casting the distinction between play and seriousness as unstable. It seems we cannot think of Plato (...) as representing how to engage in dialectic, nor as prescribing a method for doing so. The irreducible textuality of the dialogues defeats any attempt to read them in this way. This is not to criticise the practice of philosophy for children: only to note the ambivalence and instability of the philosophical heritage that it wants to claim. (shrink)

When contemplating the origins of philosophical paideia one is tempted to think of Socrates, perhaps because we feel that Socrates has been a philosophical educator to us all. But it is Plato and his literary genius that we have to thank as his dialogues preserve not just Socratic philosophy, but also the Socratic educational experience. Educators would do well to better understand Plato's pedagogical objectives in the Socratic dialogues so that we may appreciate and utilize (...) them in our own educational endeavors, and so that we may adapt the Socratic experience to new interactive educational technologies. Plato designed his Socratic dialogues to arm students for real world challenges and temptations. First, in both form and function the dialogues attempt to replicate the Socratic experience for their audience. They demand from their readers what Socrates demanded from his students: active learning, self-examination, and an appreciation for the complexity and importance of wisdom. Second, the dialogues challenge the conflation of professional and personal excellence, best exemplified by sophists such as Hippias, and exhort their reader to pursue personal aretê separately from and alongside practical and professional skills or technai. Third, they aim not to transmit some prepackaged formula for success, but to teach students to learn for themselves; that is to love and pursue wisdom. The Socratic dialogues, and philosophic dialogue itself, are educationally important in that they teach us to be philosophers in the literal sense. (shrink)

Abstract: -/- In this paper we discuss how through our bi-weekly Socratic dialogue groups with inmates at the Metropolitan Correctional Center downtown San Diego, we were able to bring the inmates to a sense of aporia or puzzlement. Not only did the dialogues help to uncover assumptions, uncovering the dots, so to speak, but also to help reconnect the dots and see their world from a different perspective. It allowed them to question their lives in a safe and non-judgmental (...) environment. They felt empowered by these dialogues to become their own life’s judges, freeing themselves from feeling oppressed by the judgments of others. (shrink)

How can organisations ‘manage for integrity’?1 Two differing approaches have been called the compliance strategy and the integrity strategy. While the first seeks to instil compliance with externally imposed standards, the integrity strategy seeks to teach ethical decision-making and values as well, so that ‘ethical thinking and awareness…[are]…part of every manager’s mental equipment’. In this paper the Dutch consultant philosopher Hans Bolten reports on how Socratic dialogue has helped managers develop ethical capacities and responsibility. Drawing on research with dialogue (...) members he concludes that organisations that care about ethics cannot rely on abstract moral codes and rules. He argues that they need Socratic dialogue as an instrument if their managers are to shape moral guidelines they both agree upon and can apply in practice. And he shows how dialogue can foster in managers the readiness to give an account of their actions, a readiness implicit in the idea of moral action itself. Thus Socratic dialogue can help create a culture in which morally accountable action is the rule, not the exception, and in which the responsibility to give an account of one’s actions has its rightful place.2. (shrink)

Although "the Socratic method" is commonly understood as a style of pedagogy involving cross-questioning between teacher and student, there has long been debate among scholars of ancient philosophy about how this method as attributed to Socrates should be defined or, indeed, whether Socrates can be said to have used any single, uniform method at all distinctive to his way of philosophizing. This volume brings together essays by classicists and philosophers examining this controversy anew. The point of departure for many (...) of those engaged in the debate has been the identification of Socratic method with "the elenchus" as a technique of logical argumentation aimed at refuting an interlocutor, which Gregory Vlastos highlighted in an influential article in 1983. The essays in this volume look again at many of the issues to which Vlastos drew attention but also seek to broaden the discussion well beyond the limits of his formulation. Some contributors question the suitability of the elenchus as a general description of how Socrates engages his interlocutors; others trace the historical origins of the kinds of argumentation Socrates employs; others explore methods in addition to the elenchus that Socrates uses; several propose new ways of thinking about Socratic practices. Eight essays focus on specific dialogues, each examining why Plato has Socrates use the particular methods he does in the context defined by the dialogue. Overall, representing a wide range of approaches in Platonic scholarship, the volume aims to enliven and reorient the debate over Socratic method so as to set a new agenda for future research. Contributors are Hayden W. Ausland, Hugh H. Benson, Thomas C. Brickhouse, Michelle Carpenter, John M. Carvalho, Lloyd P. Gerson, Francisco J. Gonzalez, James H. Lesher, Mark McPherran, Ronald M. Polansky, Gerald A. Press, François Renaud, and W. Thomas Schmid, Nicholas D. Smith, P. Christopher Smith, Harold Tarrant, Joanne B. Waugh, and Charles M. Young. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy)Rosamond Kent SpragueFrancisco J. Gonzalez. Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Pp. 418. Paper, $29.95.What this rich and independent-minded book asks us to do is to give serious consideration to the question, "What, in Plato's view, are we doing (...) when we philosophize?" (1) If we employ our own conceptions of philosophy as the models for formulating and discussing specific Platonic questions, we may be imposing upon him ways of thinking that are foreign to his thought. To do this is particularly distorting in the case of dialectic.Gonzalez has chosen to confine himself to the early and middle dialogues, so that his book is a direct challenge to the work of Richard Robinson. Of the important views that have more recently arisen, Gonzalez allies himself most nearly with the non-doctrinal approach, but not to the extent of embracing scepticism. There is much philosophical knowledge in the dialogues, but such knowledge is primarily non-propositional. As for the esotericist and the developmentalist, both are misguided in proceeding on the assumption that Plato is attempting to formulate definitions and to arrive at a systematic philosophy; they regard the dialogues as treatises, which they are not. As Gonzalez quite justly inquires, "can there be any form of writing less suited to presenting a systematic philosophy than Plato's dramatic dialogues?" (4)In contrast to Robinson, who relies on the analysis of passages taken out of context, Gonzalez focusses mainly on whole dialogues, taking them to be dramatic portrayals of dialectic at work. He begins with detailed studies of the Laches and Charmides. In both cases, Socrates starts with ordinary knowledge (in the persons of the title characters), but "clearly intends to transcend it" (20). Neither will he accept "the 'sophistic' understanding that attempts to substitute definitions for this experience" (21) on the part of Nicias and Critias. The knowledge sought by Socrates by means of the dialectical method is shown to thave three characteristics: it is "knowledge how," it is "self-knowledge," and it is "non-propositional" (61).The next chapters consider three presuppositions of Plato's dialectic: words (in the Cratylus), arguments (in the Euthydemus), and images (in Republic X). All three are necessary to the dialectical enterprise, but, like ordinary knowledge in the aporetic dialogues, are transcended.Gonzalez' confrontation with Robinson naturally requires that he address the topic [End Page 113] of the method of hypothesis in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic. This is a method that does yield propositional results, but it remains at the level of poion ti and fails to provide similar knowledge of the ti. Gonzalez' interpretation of the divided line is of particular interest here: as he sees it, dialectic is not intended as simply an extension continuous with the method of hypothesis. To take it this way is, with Robinson, to collapse dialectic into mathematics, making the former as deductive as the latter. The good (which "is not for Plato an exclusively moral term" 216) is "already there before the inquiry as the ground of its possibility" (236); this is what "unhypothesized" means. The movement of thought is circular, but not with a vicious circularity; "reflexivity" is the term preferred.To my mind the most rewarding and most convincing section of the book is the concluding chapter on the philosophical digression in the Seventh Letter. (The issue of authenticity is not significant, since, if the Letter is a forgery, "this forger had a better understanding of Plato than many other scholars, both ancient and contemporary" (246). Although "the subject of this wisdom simply cannot be expressed in words" (252) (and here Gonzalez emphasizes that Plato means spoken as much as written words), there is no contradiction in being able to talk or write about it. If "our only means of attaining true knowledge of a thing have the defect of being unable to express this nature" (263), Plato suggests an up and down movement which transcends this defect. The nature of this movement he describes as tribein, a process... (shrink)

ABSTRACT Philosophy may be accused of being an exclusive theoretical enterprise. Although it is concerned with the important issues of life it may appear to be a purely academic matter pursued by few educated scholars and therefore somehow detached from everyday way of being of people uneducated in philosophy. In the field of the philosophy of sport, the essential ambition is to provide relevant insights into a vast area of sport that will promote our philosophical understanding and knowledge of (...) the relevant topics. This paper offers another perspective on the role of philosophy in sport. I argue that philosophy is not just about reflecting from an academic distance, but the process of philosophizing could be situated within the sporting practices. This type of relationship between philosophy and sport is already apparent in ancient Greece where philosophers (such as Pythagoras or Socrates) liked to be engaged in physical exercises and to combine them with philosophical discussions with athletes. The article explores a practical role of philosophy in sport, namely the process of philosophical thinking and dialogue with athletes and their coaches. It offers insights into methodology, goals, benefits, and limits of using philosophy in practice. I reflect on my personal experience of being a mental coach and philosophical consultant in sport in the Czech Republic. The aim of this article is to demonstrate the relevance of using philosophy (philosophical practice) in the sporting environment. In doing so, I reflect on the nature and purpose of philosophical thinking and its possible relation to sport psychology and mental coaching. (shrink)

Since the appearance of Plato’s Dialogues, philosophers have been preoccupied with the identity of Socrates and have maintained that successful interpretation of the work hinges upon a clear understanding of what thoughts and ideas can be attributed to him. In Descent of Socrates, Peter Warnek offers a new interpretation of Plato by considering the appearance of Socrates within Plato’s work as a philosophical question. Warnek reads the Dialogues as an inquiry into the nature of Socrates and in doing so (...) opens up the relationship between humankind and the natural world. Here, Socrates appears as a demonic and tragic figure whose obsession with the task of self-knowledge transforms the history of philosophy. In this uncompromising work, Warnek reveals the importance of the concept of nature in the Platonic Dialogues in light of Socratic practice and the Ancient ideas that inspire contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

This book explores five Platonic dialogues: Lysis, Charmides, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and the Republic. This book uses Socrates’ narrative commentary as its primary interpretive framework. No one has engaged in a sustained attempt to explore the Platonic dialogues from this angle. As a result, it offers a unique contribution to Plato scholarship. The portrait of Socrates that emerges challenges the traditional view of Socrates as an intellectualist and offers a holistic vision of philosophical practice.

Plato’s character Socrates is clearly a sophisticated logician. Why then does he fall, at times, into the most elementary fallacies? It is, I propose, because the end goal for Plato is not the mere acquisition of superior understanding but instead a well-lived life, a life lived in harmony with oneself. For such an end, accurate opinions are necessary but not sufficient: what we crucially need is a method, a procedure for ridding ourselves of those opinions that are false. Now learning (...) a method is a very different business from learning a set of ideas. It requires not just study but practice, and practice is precisely what Plato’s dialogues, thanks to the layer of irony between author and protagonist, make possible. If we have a predisposition for detecting and are interested in resolving conflicts within a set of beliefs—if, that is, we instinctively posit logical consistency as a desideratum in life—then we stand to learn, when we read the dialogues, not only what to think but also, and far more importantly, how to think. (shrink)

This book explores dialogue as a transformative form of philosophical practice by unveiling the method behind the unique dialogue developed by mystic and thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). While Krishnamurti himself generally rejected the cultivation of systems and techniques, Shai Tubali argues that there are easily identifiable patterns through which Krishnamurti strove to realize his dialogical aims. For this reason, he refers to this method, whose existence has evaded Krishnamurti’s followers and scholars alike, as the Krishnamurti dialogue. He suggests (...) that these discursive patterns serve to broaden our understanding of the possibilities of philosophical and religious dialogues and further illuminate established forms of dynamic discourse, such as the Socratic method. Inspired by Pierre Hadot’s revolutionary reading of the classical Greco-Roman texts, the author centers his attention on Plato’s Socratic dialogues and the guru–disciple conversations in the Hindu Upanishads, which fall within the scope of what may be termed ‘the transformative dialogue’: dialogues that have been written with the intention of bringing about a transformation in the mind of the interlocutor and reader and reorienting their way of life. This text appeals to students as well as researchers and suggests that the Krishnamurti dialogue is not only a continuation and development of the transformative dialogue, but that it also amalgamates ingredients of classical Western philosophy and South Asian mysticism. Moreover, this type of dialogue encourages readers to revisit the lost practice of transformative philosophy, in that it reveals new pathways of philosophical and religious inquiry that bear thought-provoking practical implications. (shrink)

This paper seeks to identify the role of play in the design and function of Socratic dialogue as practiced in community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) in classrooms. It reviews the ideas of some major play theorists from various fields of study and practice—philosophy, cultural anthropology, evolutionary psychology, cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and education—and identifies the epistemological, ontological, and axiological judgments they share in their analyses of the phenomenon of play. It identifies five psychodynamic dimensions in which the (...) class='Hi'>Socratic play of “following the argument where it leads” can be identified: the “play space,” the “time of play,” “the rules of the game,” “the stakes in play,” and “play and power.” Finally, it suggest that there is a historical relationship between the reconstruction of Socratic dialogue in CPI and the cultural reconstruction of “child” in post-modern philosophy, with special attention to Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s notion of “becoming-child” as emblematic of an emergent “post-human” style of subjectivity. (shrink)

English summary: This text presents a collection of papers, drawn from a colloquium held in Aix-en-Provence, that question the revival of interest in practical philosophy and strive to appreciate its meaning and ambition, based off the exemplary figure of Socrates. This text hopes to present a better understanding of both the Socratic dialogues and our present day and age. French description: Les annees 80 ont vu emerger un art de philosopher, plus soucieux de pratique de vie que de construction (...) speculative. Ce regain d'interet pour la philosophie pratique, et notamment pour la discussion et la deliberation philosophiques, renouant avec le dialegesthai socratique, conduit a une reflexion fondamentale sur la fonction de la parole philosophique, une parole qui est aujourd'hui amenee a se produire en des lieux nouveaux et sur des questions qui sont d'abord de nature ethique et politique. Le present collectif, issu d'un colloque qui s'est tenu a Aix-en-Provence, recueille diverses contributions qui toutes s'interrogent sur ce renouveau et s'efforcent d'en apprecier le sens et l'ambition, en le rapportant a la figure exemplaire de Socrate philosophant sur l'agora. Cette rencontre d'une philosophie de nature academique et d'une pratique philosophique ouverte a chacun contribue a une meilleure comprehension des dialogues socratiques et a une meilleure intelligence du temps present. (shrink)

This article is about a relationship between the Socratic practice of philosophy and the aesthetic practice of watching and appreciating film. The conclusion that I defend is that certain narrative films, like the elenctic method in the hands of Socrates, are philosophical tools for examining our cognitive and emotional life and thus for gaining insight into aspects of our character. In the early sections of the article I construct an analogy between the practice of watching (...) narrative film and the practice of self-examination through dialogue and reflection. I argue that good aesthetic practice in film appreciation is analogous to good philosophical practice in the manner of Socrates, and I treat the elenchus as a method of self-examination rather than of conceptual analysis and Socrates himself as an examiner of people rather than of abstract concepts. In the later sections I discuss three films directed by Christopher Nolan—Memento, The Prestige, and Inception —as paradigm cases of Socratic film. I argue that these films show us something about ourselves by prompting extemporaneous emotional responses and cognitive judgments that we come, reflectively, to reject. (shrink)

In this book, 34 renowned philosophical practitioners from 20 different countries present a variety of dialogue methods for philosophical practice, which have never before been published in such a compact and compiled form. By having Socrates and his method of maieutics (the art of midwifery of the soul, as he called it) as one of its main sources of inspiration, the book offers different methodological approaches in order to prompt people to wonder, to reflect, to change perspective, (...) and to think differently; in short, to make people philosophize about life and the way they live it. (Series: Report of the Global Ethic Initiative Austria / Schriftenreihe der Initiative Weltethos Osterreich - Vol. 9) [Subject: Philosophy]. (shrink)

In pragmatist social theory communities faced with significant troubles or opportunities inquire after their advantage and reconstruct their habits and their environments. Three programs of philosophical practice—Socratic Dialogue, the Philosophy Café and Philosophy for Children—cultivate citizenly virtues necessary for this process. They facilitate dialogue and open-ended inquiry, give practice in cognitive and social skills, and institute shared authority. However, certain factors limit the programs’ effectiveness for citizenship education. They tend to construe social problems and opportunities in (...) strictly discursive terms; they do not encourage empirical experiment with philosophical judgments; and they do not extend the shared governance of the dialogue to other aspects of social life. None of these are limitations of the programs’ stated objectives. (shrink)

The article deals with the practical philosophy of Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda from the point of view of the leading trends of modern philosophical thought: the «rehabilitation of practical philo- sophy» and the communicative turn in philosophy, the components of which are the neo-Socratic dialogue, the philosophy of communication, and the ethics of discourse. The interpretation of Skovoroda’s philosophy is carried out not only in accordance with the principle «know yourself» as a method of knowledge, but primarily in the (...) dimension of the Socratic dialogue, when the methods of morals and elenctics are used in the joint search for truth, solving moral problems. The dialogic nature of Skovoroda’s method consists in searching for the truth together with other people through argumentation, the truth that also appears as a moral category. The article shows the actualization of Skovoroda’s philosophy in the pre-Soviet, Soviet and modern periods of the study of his work in independent Ukraine. The main thesis of the work consists in the statement that Skovoroda did not reduce philosophy to life, but raised life itself to philosophy. Philosophy was his life — a practical philosophy of life that formed his dialogical habitus. Socratic dialogue appears in philosophy, in everyday practices of communication with people, in particular, in the itinerant habitus of the thinker. Traveling is an important element of his philosophy, his life, and his habitus. The itinerant nature of Skovoroda’s habitus takes his dialogues beyond epistemology, transferring the dialogue to a practical, or rather, moral-practical plane. Skovoroda as an educator, relying on the habitus of Ukrainian culture and dialogic practices, transcends this habitus, elevating it to the habitus of reason. The work asserts the opinion about the need and necessity to develop and practice neo-skovorodinian dialogue as a component of the worldwide trend of development of dialogic practical philosophy and dialogic civilization. The article shows not only the significance of Skovoroda’s philosophy as a historical-philosophical phenomenon, but also its role in modern philosophical research in Ukraine, as well as the national liberation struggles of the Ukrainian people in the fight against Russia’s aggressive policy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 266-267 [Access article in PDF] Gary Alan Scott, editor. Does Socrates Have a Method? Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato's Dialogues and Beyond. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Pp. xiii + 327. Cloth, $45.00. This is an anthology of sixteen essays concerning the topic of Socratic method and closely related issues that influence the interpretation of Plato's dialogues. (...) Three of the essays, in part, have been previously published with new material added by the authors for this volume. These are by Lesher, McPherran, and Schmid. Nine essays are versions of papers given at a conference of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy in October 1997. The four remaining essays are original contributions written by authors who respond critically to the essays in their respective sections. The book is divided into four parts, each with three essays followed by a critical response.The editor, Gary Alan Scott, does a fine job of introducing the various problems associated with the use of the phrase "the Socratic elenchus" as a convenient label. This phrase seems almost unavoidable when talking about Socrates' dialectical method due to the influence of Vlastos's 1983 paper entitled "The Socratic Elenchus." Vlastos furthered an unfortunately narrow tradition that cast Plato's Socrates' versatile and psychologically sensitive practice of philosophy into a mold, restricting it to a single identifiable logical procedure, in which Socrates refuted his interlocutors by using their agreement to premises to overturn their original theses.Vlastos conceived of the Socratic method as mainly a truth-seeking method. His central focus was to explain how Socrates used "the elenchus" to seek the truth given that the logic of the procedure could only detect inconsistency in the interlocutor's beliefs. Vlastos was preoccupied with the question of how Socrates acquired and confirmed his true moral beliefs. Vlastos was far less concerned with understanding the full scope and depth of Socrates' philosophical method than with how to justify what Vlastos perceived to be the positive results of the truth-seeking method, understood as "constructive" moral doctrine. The concern with truth led Vlastos to deal directly with the thorny problems connected with Socrates' use of fallacious argumentation, irony, and the possibility of deception in Socratic method. Such issues, in my view, are the interesting issues which Vlastos confronted. However, very few scholars (including those in this volume) have given these issues the attention they deserve, whether or not they have accepted Vlastos's model of the elenchos.Scott's anthology recognizes both the critical attention that Vlastos's interpretation received and his powerful impact on how certain issues of Socratic method have been discussed, and continue to be discussed, by Plato scholars. Particular attention to this topic is [End Page 266] given, in the essays of Part Two, by Carpenter and Polansky; Benson; McPherran; and Brickhouse and Smith. As Scott notes (6-7), there is a deliberate effort by most contributors to break with the tradition, and re-think old assumptions about the Socratic method associated with Vlastos's model. The current lack of consensus between scholars seems to be a desirable effect because it expands and stimulates discussion, especially about what terms one ought to use in talking about Socratic method.The essays in Part One, by Lesher, Ausland, and Tarrant, with critical commentary by Young, help familiarize the reader with the historical and linguistic contexts associated with the term elenchos and its cognates, as examined by Lesher, and with the contrast between elenchos and exetasis, as examined by Tarrant. In his article, Ausland shows how "many features of Socratic dialectic" are similar to courtroom practices (40), while also noting the differences in Socrates' approach and aim which set his method apart from such practices (42-3).The last two sections illustrate the work being done on specific dialogues by authors who are breaking new hermeneutical ground in Platonic scholarship. These essays turn the reader's attention both toward the innovative features of Socratic method, which most readers would welcome... (shrink)

Socrates was not a moral philosopher. Instead he was a theorist who showed how human desire and human knowledge complement one another in the pursuit of human happiness. His theory allowed him to demonstrate that actions and objects have no value other than that which they derive from their employment by individuals who, inevitably, desire their own happiness and have the knowledge to use actions and objects as a means for its attainment. The result is a naturalised, practical, and demystified (...) account of good and bad, and right and wrong. Professor Reshotko presents a freshly envisioned Socratic theory residing at the intersection of the philosophy of mind and ethics. It makes an important contribution to the study of the Platonic dialogues and will also interest all scholars of ethics and moral psychology. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore three autobiographical narratives that Plato’s Socrates tells: his report of his conversations with Diotima, his account of his testing of the Delphic oracle, and his description of his turn from naturalistic philosophy to his own method of inquiry.1 This Platonic Socrates shows his auditors how to philosophize for the future through a narrative recollection of his own past. In these stories, Plato presents us with an image of a Socrates who prepares others to do philosophy (...) without him. In doing so, Plato’s Socrates exhibits philosophical care for his students. In the first part of the paper, I briefly discuss Socrates’ overall narrative style as Plato depicts it in the five dialogues that Socrates narrates. I then analyze each of these autobiographical accounts with an eye toward uncovering what they reveal about Plato’s presentation of Socrates’ philosophical practice.2 Finally, I offer a brief description of what it might mean to practice philosophy as care for self and care for others in a Socratic fashion. (shrink)

For much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an "art of living." This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of (...) these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Why does each of these philosophers—each fundamentally concerned with his own originality—return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterizes the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind. How Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. No tenets are proposed. Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. This, Nehamas shows, is what allowed Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault to return to Socrates as a model without thereby compelling them to imitate him. This highly readable, erudite study argues for the importance of the tradition within Western philosophy that is best described as "the art of living" and casts Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault as the three major modern representatives of this tradition. Full of original ideas and challenging associations, this work will offer new ways of thinking about the philosophers Nehamas discusses and about the discipline of philosophy itself. (shrink)

Jung's Psychology as a Spiritual Practice and Way of Life considers the pioneering depth-psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, primarily as a sage of world-class stature. The authors focus on Jung as an archetypal wisdom teacher, in three important respects: (1) in the post-modern West, primarily in interaction with Friedrich Nietzsche and his Thus Spake Zarathustra and also with theologian Paul Tillich and Zen master Karlfried Graf Durckheim; (2) in his deep spiritual kinship with the timeless universality of Lao-tze and his (...) classic The Tao Te Ching; and (3) in consideration of the future prospects of Jung's psychology in mind/body medicine, especially neuroscience, and in dialogue with quantum speculation. This book contends that Jung's psychology is not primarily a form of psychotherapy in the conventional sense but essentially a dynamic "religious philosophical system" constituting a spiritual practice and way of life. The dialogue format suggests not only Jung's own dialogue or "confrontation" with the Unconscious but also his generally unacknowledged spiritual affinity with the central Western philosophical tradition, a tradition stemming from Socrates and Plato and their devotion to the task of "living the questions.". (shrink)

This paper takes a critical look at the rise of the practice of philosophy in the market place in late modernity. Two main forms of such practice are identified: the practice of Socratic Dialogue in small groups in organisations and one-to-one philosophical counselling of individual 'clients'. The relevance of professionalism for commercialised applied practical philosophy is discussed. Philosophical counsellors in particular may be at risk of engaging with vulnerable individuals who are in need of (...) protection from practitioners who are not trained to deal with their problems. Psychology is the discipline which is most related to practical philosophy and it is growing in ethical awareness. This paper emphasises the importance of ethics for philosophy in practice. There is a pressing need for eternal vigilance by practitioners from such disciplines, whether professionalised or not, in the complex modern'runaway world'. (shrink)

What good is logic? -- Seventeen ways this book is different -- The two logics -- All of logic in two pages : an overview -- The three acts of the mind -- I. The first act of the mind : understanding -- Understanding : the thing that distinguishes man from both beast and computer -- Concepts, terms and words -- The problem of universals -- The comprehension and extension of terms -- II. Terms -- Classifying terms -- Categories -- (...) Predicables -- Division -- III. Material fallacies -- Fallacies of language -- Fallacies of diversion -- Fallacies of oversimplification -- Fallacies of argumentation -- Inductive fallacies -- Procedural fallacies -- Metaphysical fallacies -- Short story : love is a fallacy -- IV. Definition -- The nature of definition -- The rules of definition -- The kinds of definition -- The limits of definition -- V. Second act of the mind : judgment -- Judgments, propositions, and sentences -- What is truth? -- The four kinds of categorical propositions -- Logical form -- Euler's circles -- Tricky propositions -- The distribution of terms -- VI. Changing propositions -- Immediate inference -- Conversion -- Obversion -- Contraposition -- VII. Contradiction -- What is contradiction? -- The square of opposition -- Existential import -- Tricky propositions on the square -- Some practical uses of the square of opposition -- VIII. The third act of the mind : reasoning -- What does reason mean? -- The ultimate foundations of the syllogism -- How to detect arguments -- Arguments vs. explanations -- Truth and validity -- IX. Different kinds of arguments -- Three meanings of because -- The four causes -- A classification of arguments -- Simple argument maps -- Deductive and inductive arguments -- Combining deduction and induction : socratic method -- X. Syllogisms -- The structure and strategy of the syllogism -- The skeptics objection to the syllogism -- The empiricist's objection to the syllogism -- Demonstrative syllogisms -- How to construct convincing syllogisms -- XI. Checking syllogisms for validity -- By Euler's circles -- By Aristotle's six rules -- Barbara Celarent : mood and figure -- Venn diagrams -- XII. More difficult syllogisms -- Enthymemes : abbreviated syllogisms -- Sorites : chain syllogisms -- Epicheiremas : multiple syllogisms -- Complex argument maps -- XIII. Compound syllogisms -- Hypothetical syllogisms -- Reductio ad absurdum arguments -- The practical syllogism : arguing about means and ends -- Disjunctive syllogisms -- Conjunctive syllogisms -- Dilemmas -- XIV. Induction -- What is induction? -- Generalization -- Causal induction : Mill's methods -- Scientific hypotheses -- Statistical probability -- Arguments from analogy -- A fortiori and a minore arguments -- XV. Some practical applications of logic -- How to write a logical essay -- How to write a socratic dialogue -- How to have a socratic debate -- How to use socratic method on difficult people -- How to read a book socratically -- XVI. Some philosophical applications of logic -- Logic and theology -- Logic and metaphysics -- Logic and cosmology -- Logic and philosophical anthropology -- Logic and epistemology -- Logic and ethics. (shrink)

In several dialogues Socrates criticizes negative comments made against a sophist or the sophists. I show that Socrates’ target really is the sophists’ detractor, not the sophists themselves. From these passages I draw two broader conclusions. First, Plato’s defence of Socrates’ memory sometimes relies on creating a parallel between sophists and Socrates, rather than distinguishing between them and him. Secondly, Socratic philosophical practice has a widely neglected feature: examining and correcting the criticism made by his interlocutors against (...) others. (shrink)

This article considers the nonviolent commitment of philosophy, arguing that “methodological nonviolence” is a normative ideal guiding philosophical practice and that rational dialogue is connected with nonviolence. The paper presents a transcendental argument about the form of nonviolent communication. Even when philosophers argue in favor of justified violence, they make such arguments within a nonviolent practice. The argument is grounded in historical references to ways that philosophers have clarified the philosophical commitment to methodological nonviolence, the ideal (...) unity of means and ends, and the ideal community of inquiry, which is a model of positive peace. While Socrates is treated as a paradigmatic example of methodological nonviolence, Tolstoy’s work is presented as a crucial historical turning point from implicit methodological nonviolence to the more explicit forms that may be found in the works of Jane Addams, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (shrink)

Since 2007, I conduct philosophical walks as individual consultations, teachings or Socratic group exercises. A philosophical walk is intended to make participants think, to deepen thoughts and to become conscious of oneself in relation to the surroundings by walking. It is a form of philosophical practice, facilitating dialogue so that a meaningful story can be obtained. Participants are encouraged to (i) walk in such a way that they obtain space for thoughts and thinking, (ii) conceptualize, (...) (iii) identify a place related to a concept, (iv) question concepts, place and space, and (v) connect concepts with their experience. In this paper, I will describe the method of my philosophical walks and give an example: a philosophical walk at the campus of Nanjing University, China, in 2013. The aim is to provide readers a tool for conducting philosophical walks themselves and walk just like Lao-Tzu, Confucius, Socrates, Aristotle, Nietzsche and many other philosophers have done in order to philosophize and produce concepts related to life, person and place. (shrink)

The contrast between the content of Alcibiades’ speech and the character delivering it is a well-known interpretative difficulty of the last speech of Plato’s Symposium, for Alcibiades reveals important truths about Socrates and his philosophical practice, yet he seems to be the least suited man to do so and praise philosophy. Offering a more positive account of Alcibiades as a character in the Platonic dialogues, I argue that this difficulty can be solved provided one takes into account the (...) political agenda of the Symposium. (shrink)

The fundamental issue regarding Arcesilaus’ skepticism is whether it should be understood as a philosophical position or as a strictly dialectical practice with no doctrinal content. In this paper I argue that it is both by providing an account of the epistemic principles informing his practice along with a positive doxastic attitude that he may consistently take towards those principles. I further show how Arcesilaus may have reasonably derived his Socratic project, including the epistemic principles and (...) his distinctive cognitive attitude, from his reading of Plato’s dialogues, and that this approach enables us to better understand the function of his practical criterion, the reasonable (to eulogon). And finally, I note that since Arcesilaus’ great successor Carneades confronts the same problem regarding the coherence of his Socratic project, a similar interpretative approach may be taken to his practical criterion, the persuasive (to pithanon). (shrink)

In this book, David McNeill illuminates Plato’s distinctive approach to philosophy by examining how his literary portrayal of Socrates manifests an essential interdependence between philosophic and ethical inquiry. In particular, McNeill demonstrates how Socrates’s confrontation with profound ethical questions about his public philosophic activity is the key to understanding the distinctively mimetic, dialogic, and reflexive character of Socratic philosophy. Taking a cue from Nietzsche’s account of “the problem of Socrates,” McNeill shows how the questions Nietzsche raises are questions that, (...) in Plato's depiction, Socrates was aware of and responded to. McNeill also shows how the Republic provides a view of Socratic moral psychology that resembles Nietzsche’s account of human psychology: it deals with the internalized ethical narratives and justificatory schemes through which human beings orient themselves to their world. McNeill argues that this moral psychology not only determines Socrates’s explicit account of different character types and political regimes but also crucially informs his dialectical engagements with his various interlocutors in the dialogues. In addition to contributing a unique perspective to current debates about Socrates’s philosophic methods and the significance of the literary character of Plato’s dialogues, the book offers a far-reaching interpretation of Plato’s presentation of the theoretical and practical activities of the fifth-century Sophists. And in showing how Plato responds to “modern” theoretical challenges, McNeill provides new evidence to question standard views of the differences between ancient and modern conceptions of the self, society, and nature. (shrink)

For much of its history, philosophy was not merely a theoretical discipline but a way of life, an "art of living." This practical aspect of philosophy has been much less dominant in modernity than it was in ancient Greece and Rome, when philosophers of all stripes kept returning to Socrates as a model for living. The idea of philosophy as an art of living has survived in the works of such major modern authors as Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Each of (...) these writers has used philosophical discussion as a means of establishing what a person is and how a worthwhile life is to be lived. In this wide-ranging, brilliantly written account, Alexander Nehamas provides an incisive reevaluation of Socrates' place in the Western philosophical tradition and shows the importance of Socrates for Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Why does each of these philosophers—each fundamentally concerned with his own originality—return to Socrates as a model? The answer lies in the irony that characterizes the Socrates we know from the Platonic dialogues. Socratic irony creates a mask that prevents a view of what lies behind. How Socrates led the life he did, what enabled or inspired him, is never made evident. No tenets are proposed. Socrates remains a silent and ambiguous character, forcing readers to come to their own conclusions about the art of life. This, Nehamas shows, is what allowed Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault to return to Socrates as a model without thereby compelling them to imitate him. This highly readable, erudite study argues for the importance of the tradition within Western philosophy that is best described as "the art of living" and casts Montaigne, Nietzsche, and Foucault as the three major modern representatives of this tradition. Full of original ideas and challenging associations, this work will offer new ways of thinking about the philosophers Nehamas discusses and about the discipline of philosophy itself. (shrink)

Within a supportive learning environment, dialogue can allow for the identification and testing of assumptions and tacit beliefs. It can also illustrate the inadequacies in superficial thinking about ethical problems. Internal dialogue allows us to examine our beliefs, and to prepare and evaluate arguments. Each of these elements is important in the study of business ethics. This paper outlines one teaching technique based on Socratic dialogue, and shows how it can be applied to develop business students' thinking about ethics. (...) After justifying the suitability of this technique, and detailing its key elements, the paper offers for consideration an illustration of how the technique may be applied in a classroom setting, using structured role play. The paper concludes with a “teaching agenda”, offering suggestions for how this technique can be applied to teaching business ethics in an undergraduate, or postgraduate module, where it can examine language, structures and practices. (shrink)

This paper deals with two forms of education—Platonic and Socratic. The former educates childhood to transform it into what it ought to be. The latter does not form childhood, but makes education childlike. To unfold the philosophical and pedagogical dimensions of this opposition, the first part of the paper highlights the way in which philosophy is presented indirectly in some of Plato’s dialogues, beginning with a characterisation that Socrates makes of himself in the dialogue Phaedrus. The second part (...) details Plato’s condemnation of writing in the Phaedrus, and draws on the critique by Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze to establish what is at stake in this condemnation. In the third part, the pedagogical and political implications of this condemnation are reviewed, and Plato is placed in a surprising position in relation to his own teacher, Socrates. Finally, through a comparison between childhood and philosophy, the educational value of putting childhood and philosophy together is questioned. Through a number of questions, the paper ends problematising the pedagogical, political and philosophical value of placing the practice of philosophy in the realm of childhood citizenship education. It also recovers the value of philosophy—as a form of questioning and unlearning what we know and affirming the value of not knowing—in a childlike education. (shrink)

It is the thesis of the authors that the caring ethic and moral state of being of nurses ideally suffuses their professional caring and is thus implicit in their ethical decision making. Socratic dialogue is a technique that allows such moral attitudes to be made explicit. This article describes a Socratic dialogue conducted with nurses on the topic: 'What is love in nursing?' The conclusions drawn were based on the belief that the current western-style health care system restricts (...) the practice of nursing in such a way as to limit professional caring and loving possibilities. Nurses who love in the practice of caring go beyond the role definition of the duty of care; they are people who are prepared to think differently about their practice as professionals, and are identified as competent risk takers committed to the betterment of the other. From this dialogue, 'love in nursing' was understood as the willingness and commitment of the nurse to want the good of the other before the self, without reciprocity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Socrates Plays the Buffoon:Cautionary Protreptic in EuthydemusAnn N. MicheliniPlato's Euthydemus is somewhat uninteresting to traditional philosophers, who tend to treat the dialogues from the aspect of their theoretical content.1 The arguments repeatedly presented by Socrates' opponents are below Platonic standards,2 while Socrates carries on only a single, somewhat truncated logos of his own. The dialogue's primary interest lies elsewhere, in the odd use it makes of protreptic or conversionary (...) philosophical rhetoric and in its highly ambivalent examination of Socratic tactics. Socrates' adversaries are a pair of ludicrous charlatans, caricatures of the other fifth-century "Sophists"3 whom Plato satirized; but the tactics of the two brothers, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, are also awkwardly close to those of Socrates himself. No other Platonic dialogue features interlocutors who make a habit of practicing the Socratic question-and-answer mode, and in no other dialogue does Socrates allow anyone but himself to assume the dominant role of interrogator. 4 The "sandwich" format, in which two Socratic discussions [End Page 509] are flanked by three series of arguments by the brothers, both contrasts Socrates and his opponents and points up their similarity.The encounter is marked by its concern for protreptic, the exhortation, pervasive in later philosophical writing, as it is in the fourth-century texts of Isocrates and Xenophon, to leave conventional ways of life and care for wisdom and moral virtue.5 At the beginning of the discussion (274d7-e5), Socrates asks Dionysodorus whether his wisdom can be transmitted to even one person not yet persuaded of its efficacy. Socrates rather tendentiously concludes from Dionysodorus' positive response that the brothers would therefore be best at exhortation to virtue, and throughout the discussion he persists in pushing them to demonstrate their protreptic.6 This desire in turn motivates his self-abasing relation to Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, whom Socrates continually begs, on behalf of his young friend Clinias, to reveal their priceless wisdom and save the boy from bad influences. Not only does Socrates set up the brothers as masters of protreptic but he even offers his own version, showing that wisdom is the key to happiness and concluding that it is "necessary to philosophize" (282d1) in order to be happy. The fact that protreptic language is so little in evidence in Plato's other work implies an exceptional status for Euthydemus, the only dialogue that both employs the terminology of protreptic and focuses on the problems of philosophic exhortation and conversion.The phrase "exhort to philosophy and virtue" is conventional: it appears very frequently in both Xenophon and Isocrates.7 But, while Socrates in Apology describes his vocation in terms of an open protreptic of rebuke and exhortation, his use of the elenchus in the dialogues [End Page 510] is more subtle and tactful.8 More important, the trope of exhortation to virtue is notable for its absence from almost all Platonic texts9 except Euthydemus and the eccentric Clitophon.10 The thematic importance of the phrase in Euthydemus is emphasized by repetition and by overlap between the reported dialogue and its setting, in which Socrates exhorts Crito to join him as a student of the brothers' wisdom, and in which Crito expresses his concerns about the education of his son (, 307a2). In his important work on protreptic, Konrad Gaiser attempted to derive later protreptic from speeches by fifth-century "Sophistic" teachers that were designed to win pupils for training in rhetoric and politics. But, while admonitory or moralizing discourses were composed by figures such as Prodicus and Hippias, as they were by others from Hesiod onward, it does not seem likely that the specifically conversionary protreptic that appears in fourth-century writers derives from thinkers who were primarily concerned with demonstrations of skill. The real source for protreptic is likely to have been the Socratics themselves, writers who used the unconventional Socratic persona both to rebuke immorality and to show the inadequacy of traditional moral concepts. This Socratic protreptic demanded nothing less than a change of life.11Whether the dialogue Clitophon is by Plato or not, it affords a valuable proof that protreptic was associated with Socratic technique: Clitophon, an associate of Thrasymachus in Republic... (shrink)

Marina McCoy defends three interrelated claims about the topic mentioned in her title. First, the distinction between philosophy and rhetoric in the dialogues is not as clear as some commentators seem to think. Second, since philosophy as practiced by Socrates includes important rhetorical dimensions, there is no important methodological distinction between philosophy and rhetoric. Third, it is his virtues—and not any particular method—that differentiate Socrates the philosopher from sophists and rhetoricians. McCoy pursues different aspects of her theses through the Apology, (...) Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Sophist , and Phaedrus.Her approach coheres with that of a contemporary school of interpretation according to which a proper appreciation of the dramatic setting of each dialogue will show that the content of Socratic conversation is not meant to be a body of substantive philosophical doctrine. Rather, Socrates’ quarry is the souls of his interlocutors. McCoy’s contribution to this line of. (shrink)