Often "correcting falsehoods" is like trying to talk someone out of believing in God by explaining evolution. Or trying to argue with someone who believes in "systemic white supremacy" by pointing out that Asian-Americans earn more money than white Americans.
I don't know what to do in these situations. You can't talk people out of their values but it is better when people express their values in a moderate way that aligns with empirical facts. Probably there's some polite way to express your disagreement without saying "actually here's why you're wrong".
I think you have to step out of the frame, and twist it sideways to pinpoint a source of disagreement that is not value laden, not a landmine, but can lead them in the direction you want them to go.
Steve Waldman was my entry point to this idea in his blog post on lenses and double cruxes:
The Socratic method is good for that. Instead of saying "you are wrong", you ask a series of questions that induce a contradiction in the other person. This is often deemed as trolling or sealioning when the discussion is unwelcome (which often is), but when people are open-minded it is a respectful way to argue.
I'm one of those who call Socrates a troll. The problem isn't just that it's unwelcome but that it's unproductive. It proves only that the person isn't capable of supporting their own premise, not that the premise is wrong. It doesn't lead to truths on its own, and doesn't point in the direction of improved hypotheses.
Socrates then makes the assertion that he knows nothing, and is therefore immune to such treatment (and is thus superior). He's not putting himself on the line -- exactly the kind of thing that trolls do.
If Socrates asks you what "virtue" is, what can you say except, "I dunno. Why are you asking? What is it you actually want to know?"
Modern Socratic method isn't really all that similar to what Socrates actually did. It's intended to be cooperative, rather than adversarial. It's nominally based on the dialogue in Meno, which is really more about epistemology than about pedagogy (and which draws Socrates to some weird conclusions about past lives).
Even so, it's not really meant to be argumentation. It's not between equals. The teacher leads the student to "discover" the truth that the teacher already knows. Not just knows, but knows so thoroughly that they can guide the student around all of the possible mis-steps.
I'm all for respectful dialogue, but that's not really what either Socrates nor the modern pedagogues who take inspiration from him are doing. I'll be honest that I've got disagreements with the notion of respectful dialogue as well, but they're off-topic here.
> It proves only that the person isn't capable of supporting their own premise, not that the premise is wrong. It doesn't lead to truths on its own,
But that's the only we can aspire to! Any statement exists because somebody is stating it. You cannot really "have" a truth that is not held by anybody; that means that you still have to find it. The Socratic method thus serves to find a person that is able to hold a certain premise, by sieving away all the people who are not. Notice that this does not yet mean than the premise is true, but it is a necessary condition.
> and doesn't point in the direction of improved hypotheses.
I do not know of any systematic method that does that. Do you? It seems to be a purely creative, not inductive, process.
Regarding the "trollishness" character of Socrates I agree with you. If Socrates was born again today, we (the society) would kill him again.
You're correct that science proceeds by creativity, and that it's not at all the rigorous process we often imagine it to be. There are plenty of contemporary philosophers of science who will point that out.
Feyerabend's approach is literally called Epistemological Anarchy. Not a lot of people really follow Feyerabend in that, not because it's wrong but because it doesn't feel very helpful. If all Socrates wants is for us to admit that we're not rigorous, all I can say is, "Yeah, sure. Thanks for telling me what I already knew."
I don't know the truth. Fine. I don't have a truthful way of finding out the truth. Also fine. The track record of science at finding things that are useful isn't really evidence of anything. That, too, is fine.
I suppose Socrates might deserve some special credit for being the first to realize that. Here ya go, here's a Socrates Snack. But it really is kinda old hat to me, even if the people practicing "scientism" still haven't realized that.
They are, perhaps, the ones who really would benefit from Socrates' work, but all I ever got from Socrates' dialogues is "No, that's a pretty stupid assertion right on the face of it, do I really need to spend 50,000 words watching this guy realize that it's stupid?"
Socrates sieves out everybody. Nobody can hold any premise. Which just leaves me right back where I started.
> It proves only that the person isn't capable of supporting their own premise, not that the premise is wrong.
This is a good outcome. It shows everyone else who sees the discussion that they are speaking on a topic that they do not understand, and should be ignored.
Using this tactic it's not difficult to prove that nobody completely understands any topic. Which is true, but unhelpful. It's very easy to show that Socrates doesn't understand the topic he's talking about, and should also be ignored.
What's needed is a different kind of interaction where we acknowledge what we don't know and find ways to reduce our ignorance. There's legitimate disagreement about how to do that; science is not nearly as rigorous a mechanism for that as we're led to believe.
But Socrates' route only leads to "Let's not bother". Which is, arguably, a worthwhile position to consider as well, but Socrates himself never actually brought it up. He'd be perfectly to apply the same approach to Radical Skeptics, prove them wrong, and then go back to find somebody else to bug.
This is way harder than it sounds. You can ask the followup questions, but too often, they'll get answered. Contradictions, even pointed out, aren't contradictions to them. Hitting a contradiction in the first place requires that the person being questioned applies a consistent model to the questions, and most of the time, they're not. And getting over that requires admitting that they're wrong.
When I am relating such conversations to my SO, it's often with the (modified) phrase "you can drown a horse in water, but you can't force it to drink."
In most social situations, it is the opposite of that.
Or at least, the way most people perceive the Socratic method is the opposite of that.
In the communications books I've read, the emphasis is to ask questions only out of genuine curiosity, and on top of that, find ways to signal it (including with body language). Never ask questions to make a point. Never ask what could be perceived as a leading question. Even if you are genuinely curious, but don't signal it well, chances are high the other party will interpret it as you trying to make a point and will respond poorly.
In sum: Have a conversation. Express your perspective. Ask questions only if you don't understand.
Bad Question: "If that were true, how would it explain Y?"
Instead: "The trouble I'm having with that perspective is that it doesn't seem to square well with Y."
The latter is expressing your perspective, and is seen as a contribution to the conversation. The former isn't.
> In the communications books I've read, the emphasis is to ask questions only out of genuine curiosity
Then these books are presenting a pastel-colored, declawed, decaffeinated version of the Socratic method. This may be useful and sane advice, but Socratic method it is not. Recall that Socrates was an annoying, unkind person known as the "gadfly", who was hated by many people, and who was ultimately condemned to death by his thought-provoking questions. On the dialogues, you'll see that he does not follow at all the childish advice of your "communications books".
> Probably there's some polite way to express your disagreement without saying "actually here's why you're wrong".
And you said "The Socratic method is good for that."
And also:
> This is often deemed as trolling or sealioning when the discussion is unwelcome (which often is), but when people are open-minded it is a respectful way to argue.
And then in your response to me you say
> On the dialogues, you'll see that he does not follow at all the childish advice of your "communications books"
So let's discuss:
You suggest the Socratic method is useful when people are open minded. You then go ahead and assert the books are childish, without even knowing which books I'm referring to. Nor is it even clear what "childish" means - it's essentially a statement void of meaningful content. If you advocate for the Socratic method, claim it is useful primarily when people are open minded, and in this whole discussion you exhibit close-mindedness, how often do you think the method will be useful at large? I have little hope in it, and I lost too many years of my life practicing it. It was only when I experienced failure after failure did I learn that the problem wasn't with others, but with my approach. Instead of conveniently labeling people (e.g. "close minded"), I needed to improve myself.
Fully open minded people are rare. 10% would be a serious overestimate. A lot more are open minded in some areas, but open minded on most things? Extremely rare - even amongst academics. Moreover, it is usually the areas in which they are close minded that need to be discussed and addressed. I would rather search for a method that has a higher chance of working on "close mindedness" because that is the majority of situations. And in my observation, such methods work even on open minded folks.
And this isn't even getting to the issue where the person asked for a "polite" way, and you emphasize that Socrates was anything but.
I was not being very deep here. It is mostly a matter of context.
The Socratic method is widely used in a scientific or technical context, where a person is expected to answer to outlandishly skeptical claims against their proposal. This is considered routine if it is (sometimes implicitly) agreed upon; but to an outsider it may appear to be extremely aggressive and impolite. Mathematics is an extreme case of this, were normal mathematical dialogue often takes this form, with one person trying desperately to find holes in the proof of another. But what is a good taste discussion style between mathematicians cannot be safely applied to "regular" people who will surely react as if you were attacking them in bad faith. This is when the hemlock mob comes to kill you.
Indeed, if you want to get the results Socrates did, by all means, follow his advice. Not all your interlocutors will be able to locate hemlock quickly, though :-)
> Or trying to argue with someone who believes in "systemic white supremacy" by pointing out that Asian-Americans earn more money than white Americans.
White Supremacy is the belief that white people are inherently superior to everyone else and should dominate, regardless of how much money anyone makes. There are plenty of poor white supremacists.
> The term white supremacy is used in some academic studies of racial power to denote a system of structural or societal racism which privileges white people over others, regardless of the presence or the absence of racial hatred. According to this definition, white racial advantages occur at both a collective and an individual level (ceteris paribus, i. e., when individuals are compared that do not relevantly differ except in ethnicity). Legal scholar Frances Lee Ansley explains this definition as follows:
>By "white supremacy" I do not mean to allude only to the self-conscious racism of white supremacist hate groups. I refer instead to a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources, conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.
This makes sense to me, and doesn't seem related to how much money Asian Americans make.
Have you heard of redlining? It might make "systemic white supremacy" make more sense in an American context. If you've heard of Martin Luther King Jr, this is why he was assassinated.
I don't know what to do in these situations. You can't talk people out of their values but it is better when people express their values in a moderate way that aligns with empirical facts. Probably there's some polite way to express your disagreement without saying "actually here's why you're wrong".