Against the Socratic Method

Abstract

The Socratic Method (e.g. argumentative questioning, answering and refutation) is a limited and potentially a bad pedagogical practice because it is authoritarian and hierarchical. Often praised as neutral, open and welcoming, I make the case that it is not. The Socratic Method may have a future but it would require what I call the dialectical radicalization of it. This would lead to a greater awareness and sensitivity to the contexts of power pertaining to pedagogy that instructor led forms of the Socratic Method have occluded. Hence, I recover the Socratic Method as a mode of intellectual emancipation based on egalitarianism and challenging all forms of authority, especially the instructors. I connect this to a defense of democracy in the classroom.