THE SOCRATIC METHOD IN THE 'LYSIS, MENO, AND GORGIAS: ' A PEDAGOGICAL INTERPRETATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

When viewed within the dramatic contexts of the Lysis, Meno, and Gorgias, the Socratic Method of teaching emerges as a complex set of methods used by Socrates to promote interaction on the personal, pedagogical, and philosophical levels of Plato's dialogues. The typical portrayal of the Socratic Method as a single method, elenchus, accounts for the interaction on the philosophical level of Plato's dialogues where Socrates cross-examines his fellow discussants with an aim at refutation. However, that is not the only level upon which Socrates interacts. He also engages his fellow discussants on the personal and pedagogical levels which cross-cross with the philosophical one to create a dramatic context for Socrates' philosophical efforts.;This interpretation of the Socratic Method of teaching is the focal point of this study which begins in Chapter One with an appraisal of the interpretive difficulty faced by three Platonic scholars--Richard Robinson, Gregory Vlastos, and Julius Stenzel--in their efforts to interpret the Socratic Method. For example, whereas Richard Robinson allows his philosophical sensibilities to dominate his literary critical ones in his study of elenchus in Plato's Earlier Dialectic, Gregory Vlastos allows his literary critical sensibilities to govern his philosophical ones in his study of Socrates in "The Paradox of Socrates." Although employing both sensibilities simultaneously in his study of "The Literary Form and Philosophical Content of the Platonic Dialogue," Julius Stenzel fails to explain with the form/content distortion the all-important interconnection between two contexts.;In Chapter Two, a strategy for meeting the difficulties encountered by these three scholars unfolds in an interpretive approach which involves simultaneous use of both philosophical and literary critical sensibilities and the employment of a threefold distinction for explaining the interconnection between the philosophical and dramatic contents of Plato's dialogues. To apply the threefold distinction between three levels of interaction--the personal, pedagogical, and philosophical--in the dialogues requires (1)returning elenchus to its dramatic contexts and introducing psychological and ethical terms to describe the personal level of interaction which supports it use and (2)outlining two theories of learning which underlie Socrates' philosophical discussions as well as introducing pedagogical terms which identify the methods of instruction used by Socrates to engage his fellow discussants on the pedagogical level of interaction. Both steps prepare the way for exploring Socrates' use of elenchus on the philosophical level of interaction.;In Chapter Three, the Lysis, Meno, and Gorgias provide the dramatic contexts within which to execute the interpretive approach to Plato's dialogues outlined in Chapter Two. This approach highlights four significant features of the Socratic Method of teaching--Socrates' notion of the practice of philosophy, friendship, truth and understanding, and the perfection of the soul--which, with the additional feature of Socrates' appeal to god as the authority underlying his teaching, provide the focal points for drawing implications of the Socratic Method for contemporary discussions of teaching and learning in the next chapter.;In Chapter Four, implications of my interpretation of the Socratic Method are drawn for the contemporary issues of general versus specific objectives, person-oriented versus role-oriented pedagogical relationships, the place and importance of epistemology in the activity of teaching, the teacher as model, and authority in teaching. What emerges from outlining the implications of Socrates' method of teaching for these contemporary issues of teaching and learning are a set of questions and projected answers which need follow-up in further studies.