Contributions of Socratic maieutics to dialogical education

Abstract

Education has a vast history that has made it go through different epistemological, pragmatic, and ontological positions, which has enriched his theoretical and practical heritage. Philosophy is, among others, one of the sciences in which education has been supported to think on their being and doing. Especially, one of these currents basis is the philosophical thought on dialogue, that has helped to strengthen the trend of dialogical education both from its contribution and from its criticism, aspects inherent to philosophical reflection. However, it is evident that this trend of education has not sufficiently considered the position of Socratic maieutic in its reflection. For this reason, this article aims to propose some elements for dialogical education from the study of Socratic maieutic, for which a qualitative approach and hermeneutic methodology is used. The main results of the research show that dialogical education broadens its horizon from the Socratic assumptions of maieutic in two aspects: in the first place, maieutic invites to recover the question and the ability to ask oneself, and, secondly, it demonstrates that knowledge, to be significant, must be a conquest and discovery of the student himself mediated by dialogue with himself, with others and with the other.