Now how did Socrates proceed? He compelled the man who was conversing with him to be his witness, and needed no witness besides.
Therefore, he was able to say: “I am satisfied with my opponent as a witness, and let everyone else alone: and I do not take the votes of other people, but only of him who is arguing with me.”
For he drew out so clearly the consequences of a man's conceptions that everyone realized the contradiction and abandoned it.
“Does the man who envies rejoice in his envy?”
“Not at all; he is pained rather than pleased.”
Thus he rouses his neighbor by contradiction.
“Well, does envy seem to you to be a feeling of pain at evil things? Yet how can there be envy of things evil?”
So he makes his opponent say that envy is pain felt at good things.
“Again, can a man envy things which do not concern him?”
“Certainly not.”
In this way he made the conception full and articulate, and so went away. He did not say, “Define me envy”, and then, when the man defined it, “You define it ill, for the terms of the definition do not correspond to the subject defined."
Therefore, he was able to say: “I am satisfied with my opponent as a witness, and let everyone else alone: and I do not take the votes of other people, but only of him who is arguing with me.”
For he drew out so clearly the consequences of a man's conceptions that everyone realized the contradiction and abandoned it.
“Does the man who envies rejoice in his envy?”
“Not at all; he is pained rather than pleased.”
Thus he rouses his neighbor by contradiction.
“Well, does envy seem to you to be a feeling of pain at evil things? Yet how can there be envy of things evil?”
So he makes his opponent say that envy is pain felt at good things.
“Again, can a man envy things which do not concern him?”
“Certainly not.”
In this way he made the conception full and articulate, and so went away. He did not say, “Define me envy”, and then, when the man defined it, “You define it ill, for the terms of the definition do not correspond to the subject defined."
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.12
When I was first introduced to Socrates, somewhere around the age of fourteen, I disliked the old fellow intensely. It felt as if the blowhard was always calling me out, or making me feel ignorant, or damaging my self-esteem, until I gradually realized how this said far more about me than it ever did about him. I attached a smug tone and a condescending smirk to his words, which was nothing but a product of my unruly imagination.
It can be quite a slap in the face to have one’s assumptions challenged, even if the question is offered in good faith. If I can manage to be humble for a moment, I will be grateful for the chance to finally be responsible for myself, leaving behind a dependence on the lazy platitudes and the herd mentality.
On any given day, how often do I use a word, without quite knowing what it means? A bully, of course, will just try to humiliate me for my error, and yet a friend will offer me the opportunity to work it out for myself, through my own thinking, and in my own time. Where the intention is pure, there is never any need for conflict.
Back in high school, I didn’t know how to pronounce “segue” when I was reading aloud, and our class snob wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. I felt certain I had my revenge, however, when she later mangled “boatswain”, but that just proved how I hadn’t really learned my lesson. Decent people thrive by building up, not by tearing down.
More recently, I was using “jealousy” and “envy” in a sloppy manner, at which point someone casually asked me if they meant the same thing. I thought about it for a moment, corrected myself, and was then swept up in a fascinating diversion about the difference between “guilt” and “shame”. It was only much later that I realized how I had been schooled without even being aware of it, much like the time a doctor gave me a shot when I was wasn’t looking.
It is one thing to be scolded for spouting nonsense, and quite another to be motivated into discovering my mistake through my own personal reflection. I think of it like approaching the problem from the inside instead of from the outside, by addressing the causes over hacking away at the effects, or by doing it for myself rather than having it done for me.
Beyond merely feeling envy, there was a time when I would actually take a certain delight in it, a sort of perverse satisfaction in being grossly dissatisfied. Now if you had yelled at me for trying to live a contradiction, or laughed at me for being so pathetic, I would probably have taken it as another excuse for a pity party. But if you had taken the time to ask me if it was possible to be pained by something good, or to be laid low by something that wasn’t properly my business, I would probably have reconsidered my bad habits.
The Socratic Method was far more than a parlor trick. It was a way to help people to help themselves.
When I was first introduced to Socrates, somewhere around the age of fourteen, I disliked the old fellow intensely. It felt as if the blowhard was always calling me out, or making me feel ignorant, or damaging my self-esteem, until I gradually realized how this said far more about me than it ever did about him. I attached a smug tone and a condescending smirk to his words, which was nothing but a product of my unruly imagination.
It can be quite a slap in the face to have one’s assumptions challenged, even if the question is offered in good faith. If I can manage to be humble for a moment, I will be grateful for the chance to finally be responsible for myself, leaving behind a dependence on the lazy platitudes and the herd mentality.
On any given day, how often do I use a word, without quite knowing what it means? A bully, of course, will just try to humiliate me for my error, and yet a friend will offer me the opportunity to work it out for myself, through my own thinking, and in my own time. Where the intention is pure, there is never any need for conflict.
Back in high school, I didn’t know how to pronounce “segue” when I was reading aloud, and our class snob wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. I felt certain I had my revenge, however, when she later mangled “boatswain”, but that just proved how I hadn’t really learned my lesson. Decent people thrive by building up, not by tearing down.
More recently, I was using “jealousy” and “envy” in a sloppy manner, at which point someone casually asked me if they meant the same thing. I thought about it for a moment, corrected myself, and was then swept up in a fascinating diversion about the difference between “guilt” and “shame”. It was only much later that I realized how I had been schooled without even being aware of it, much like the time a doctor gave me a shot when I was wasn’t looking.
It is one thing to be scolded for spouting nonsense, and quite another to be motivated into discovering my mistake through my own personal reflection. I think of it like approaching the problem from the inside instead of from the outside, by addressing the causes over hacking away at the effects, or by doing it for myself rather than having it done for me.
Beyond merely feeling envy, there was a time when I would actually take a certain delight in it, a sort of perverse satisfaction in being grossly dissatisfied. Now if you had yelled at me for trying to live a contradiction, or laughed at me for being so pathetic, I would probably have taken it as another excuse for a pity party. But if you had taken the time to ask me if it was possible to be pained by something good, or to be laid low by something that wasn’t properly my business, I would probably have reconsidered my bad habits.
The Socratic Method was far more than a parlor trick. It was a way to help people to help themselves.
—Reflection written in 8/2001
IMAGE: Johann Friedrich Greuter, Socrates and His Students (c. 1650)
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