Re: MARCH TPT, The Socratic Method

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

On Thu, 4 May 2000, Richard Hake wrote, in part, quoting my earlier
posting:

> zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
> U-4. "So we have two Socrates, and the one in Meno is the early one,
> right?  The one closest to being a contemporary report.  So I don't
> understand."
>
> H-4. NO! According to Vlastos,(1) the Meno is from the "TRANSITIONAL"
> (NOT the Early elenctic and not - as I earlier mistakenly stated -
> the Middle) dialogues.  Vlastos thinks that ONLY the Socrates of the
> Early dialogues is the historical Socrates.  If one assumes that
> Vlastos is correct, then the Socrates/Slave-boy dialogue in Meno is
> not the "epitome of the Socratic method" as stated by Cliff Swartz(2)
> in his physics-education-research bashing editorial in the March 2000
> issue of "The Physics Teacher."  More generally, the Socratic method
> should not be dismissed on the basis of its misrepresentation in the
> Meno. In my opinion, and that of others,(2-6) the Meno is an example
> of BAD pedagogy.
        Sorry!  But where do you find support for the conclusion that
Meno is not early (or, for that matter, late)?  Do we just defer to the
characterization of Vlastos as being late and great?
                      ****************

> Vlastos evidently believes that the methods of the historical
> Socrates are to be found only in the Early elenctic dialogues.  I
> think that those methods, unlike those of the Meno, bear at least
> some resemblance to the Socratic method as used successfully by some
> present-day physics teachers(4, 7-12).  According to Arons (ref. 8,
> p. 325):
>
> "What one must learn to do is ask simple, sequential questions,
> leading students in a deliberate Socratic fashion.  After each
> question, one must shut up and listen carefully to the response
> One must learn to wait as long as four or five seconds, and one then
> finds that students having been given a chance to think, will respond
> in sentences and truly reveal their lines of thought.

        I find that 5 seconds is not enough.  I've used 10, measured by
the clock.
        But doesn't this show that the issue of the "real Socrates" is
just a red herring?  For that reason, I've called my version of the labs
"dialogue labs", never mind who invented the style.
> zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
>
>
> U-5.  "What justifies saying that Plato was lying?  That may or may
> not be a permissible conclusion, but I see no such bald statement in
> Vlastos."
>
> H-5. No one that I know of has stated that "Plato was lying."
> Vlastos puts it this way (ref. 1, Chapter 2, p. 52-53):
        Here's the quote from your earlier posting:
*****************************************************
The Socratic Method used so successfully by the above is NOT derived
from the FICTIONAL Socrates of Plato's imagination as depicted in
Meno (1,2), but rather from the REAL historical Socrates as
researched by the late great Gregory Vlastos (7-10)
*********************
        I take "FICTIONAL" to be the opposite of "truthful".

                                Regards,
                                        Jack