What Socrates can teach us about the art of civilized arguing

guno said:
Our Talmud which is a discussion and back and forth uses the Socratic method , that is how Jews learn to this today, a method of thinking

The Gemara, however, is not just a book of knowledge. It is an art, a discipline, a unique training center for the Jewish mind. Alan Dershowitz once remarked that his exceptional grasp of the finer points of the law was a direct result of his studying Talmud; Toronto philanthropist Albert Reichman, when asked for his secret to being so successful in business, simply remarked, “I study Talmud every day!” The Talmudic – or Socratic – method of study is to attack every subject from all angles, to direct and dissect each aspect, until finally arriving at the Truth. Often, it is not so much the result, as it is the process which is paramount. One studies for the sake of studying, not just to come to hard and fast conclusions.

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/judaisms-secret-weapon-612876
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Dershowitz is a scumbag. Bad example.
 
As if i'd waste my time with anything short of verbally eviscerating you.

On the points i presented, there is no debate. Either you understand it or you're clinically insane. You cant argue with reality itself.
 
Cypress said:
Dialectic is fine if you want to sit around talking about ethics or the meaning of life.

But the primary reason knowledge exploded after the rennassaice is because people like Francis Bacon and his contemporaries realized deduction from first principles were only going to get you so far.

They realized the physics, biology, medicine, teleology of Aristotle and Galen were largely just wrong, even if superficially seemingly well-reasoned.

Only thinkers like Euclid survived scathed into the modern era, because mathematics is the one discipline where deduction works really well.

So beginning with modern thinkers like Bacon and Galileo, inductive logic and reasoning largely replaced deduction as the primary scaffolding underlying modern knowledge.
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yes empirical science is the basis of knowledge, but i was referring to using it as a teaching tool for students-
which i think was the claim of the OP. 'Socrates" would be the facilitator, but students discussions and questions make them think and not just learn
 
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Why isn't Biden President getting his arse kicked about this thread? It's clearly nothing to do with Current Events!?
 
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Now he has a doctoral degree from Columbia University and is a senior lecturer at Columbia’s Center for American Studies and director of its Freedom and Citizenship Program. He is the former director of Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum, the oldest “general education program in higher education,” which he celebrates in “Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.”

This is his “meditation” on liberal education, meaning “education not for making a living but for living meaningfully.” He joins the century-old criticism of the scientific and vocational focus of research universities that are preoccupied with “the production and accumulation of new knowledge” rather than “the cultivation of whole persons.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/31/harvard-classics-socrates-how-to-argue/
 
Ward Farnsworth, dean of the University of Texas School of Law, wrote “The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook” to explain something that is unintelligible to people desensitized by social media and that is unappealing to people intoxicated from inhaling clouds of righteousness on campuses. A democratic culture must be a culture of persuasion, and Farnsworth says that persuasion, properly pursued, is, as Socrates demonstrated, a collaborative process.
 
Social media, Farnsworth writes, amount to “a campus on which atrocious habits of discourse are taught” with “sad and sometimes calamitous” consequences. Social media, he says, exacerbate some dangerous susceptibilities — to demagoguery and moral vanity — that are neither new nor entirely expungable. The Socratic method decelerates reasoning, making space for deliberation when disagreements arise. So, the Socratic method is, Farnsworth says, an antidote to some social pandemics of our day — “fury, ostracism, etc.” These vices “are embedded in human nature” but social media are powerful accelerants of them.

“Socratic habits,” Farnsworth writes, “require patience to develop and use.” They are not developed using “technologies that encourage quick reactions in short bursts” and that foment a cultural shift away from the patience of persuasion.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...cial media, Farnsworth,patience of persuasion.
 
dukkha said:
yes empirical science is the basis of knowledge, but i was referring to using it as a teaching tool for students-
which i think was the claim of the OP. 'Socrates" would be the facilitator, but students discussions and questions make them think and not just learn
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Yes, we had mock debates in college and high school classes.

That is not really the dialectic.

The dialectic is a conversation where both sides are supposedly genuinely committed to examining the truth of things.

A debate is the art of rhetoric used to defend a position. It is ideological.

That is what the Greek Sophists were teaching.

And Socrates and Plato hated Sophocles and Sophistic debate.
 
Cypress said:
Yes, we had mock debates in college and high school classes.

That is not really the dialectic.

The dialectic is a conversation where both sides are supposedly genuinely committed to examining the truth of things.

A debate is the art of rhetoric used to defend a position. It is ideological.

That is what the Greek Sophists were teaching.

And Socrates and Plato hated Sophocles and Sophistic debate.
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Just look at forums like this one. How many times has someone declared that they won the debate against someone else. Pretty meaningless.
 
BidenPresident said:
Just look at forums like this one. How many times has someone declared that they won the debate against someone else. Pretty meaningless.
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Humans get invested in their egos and in being perceived as a winner. Freud got that one right.

On the other hand, I have had some genuine dialogues with friends on this board about the nature of reality and human existence.
 
Matt Dillon said:
Agreed, and removing the Socratic method of teaching from school and replacing it with critical theory turns out idiots that melt when confronted with reality.

I have 200+ years of success examples to argue for teaching by the Socratic method. What's the argument for this teaching by Critical Theory and Critical Race Theory bullshit, hmm?

Yes, I am being adversarial right now over the argument of using the Socratic method. :tongout:
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Instead of just calling Black American History "Critical Race Theory", why don't you just say specifically what should not be taught in public school- and why?

What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid of the American history specific to Black Americans?
 
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