There has been a renewed interest in pedagogy, teaching, and student learning in political science,
with a focus on topics like flipping the classroom and active learning.^2 Surprisingly absent in this
discussion is the Socratic method, one of the oldest ways whereby teachers educate students. This
book remedies this situation. It examines how the Socratic method is employed in the Platonic
dialogs, how it is similar and different from contemporary pedagogical accounts, and how it can
be adopted in today’s classroom. Although aimed primarily for those in political science, this
collection has broad appeal to anyone interested in the Socratic method.
When looking at previous works on the Socratic method, we encounter two types of books:
- how-to manuals that are written for secondary school teachers; and 2) highly technical works of
political philosophy where the Socratic method is secondary to the broader concerns of the authors.
Examples of the first type are Nelson’sSocratic Method and Critical Philosophy; Gower and
Stokes’Socratic Questions; Seeskin’sDialogue and Discovery; Nehamas’The Art of Living;
Valla’sSocratic Citizenship; Eisele’sBitter Knowledge; Jenks’How Plato’s Theory of Truth
Explains the Socratic Method; Schlosser’sWhat Would Socrates Do?; and Sebell’sThe Socratic
Turn.^3 There are also works where the Socratic method is the main subject of inquiry but they fail to
show how the ideas can be translated into the classroom, such as Scott’sDoes Socrates Have a
Method?; Cain’sThe Socratic Method; and Sintonen’sThe Socratic Tradition.^4
The second type of works about the Socratic method is entirely practical, devoid of any philo-
sophical consideration, and aimed at secondary school teachers: Whipple Jr.’sSocratic Method and
Writing Instruction; Saran and Neisser’sEnquiring Minds; and Kreeft’sSocratic Logic.^5 Other
books in this category that focus on fostering group discussion are Gross’Socrates’Way;
Copeland’sSocratic Circles; and Wilberding’sTeach Like Socrates.^6 And with respect to the study
of law, the emphasis is on the Socratic method’s effectiveness (or lack thereof) as a pedagogical
technique.^7 The works in this group lack any theoretical grounding of the Socratic method and
thereby neglect the larger philosophical and pedagogical debates that surround it.
Providing a fresh, scholarly, and practical account of the Socratic method, this book synthesizes
the strengths of the previous literature by integrating the theoretical considerations of the Socratic
method with the practical aspects of teaching in the classroom. In this work, we have invited a
mixture of established and rising scholars to provide a broad perspective of the Socratic method. We
have organized the volume into three sections: 1) The Socratic Method in Plato’s Dialogs; 2) The
Socratic Method and Other Approaches; and 3) The Socratic Method in the Classroom.
In the first chapter of the first section, Marlene K. Sokolon shows how Socrates employs a
mixture of stories, appeals, and argumentation to persuade his interlocutors, whereas in“Socratic
Method and Existence”Barry Cooper investigates howelenchusis understood in both theApology
and theEuthyphroas a type of transformative learning. In“GuidingErosToward Wisdom in
Alcibiades I,”Vanessa Jansche looks at how the Socratic method requires a realignment of one’s
erostoward philosophy. Ann Ward concludes this section by reconciling different aspects of the
Socratic method from theApologyand theMeno. What we discover from these chapters is that the