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.
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.