tradition–ignores the openness that Plato’s Socrates shows toward learning from other cultures. It
also defies the very purpose of the Socratic method, which is to encourage self-examination:
There is no more effective way to wake pupils up than to confront them with difference in an
area where they had previously thought their own ways neutral, necessary, and natural:::.In
our complex world, Socratic inquiry mandates pluralism.^4For Nussbaum, the Socratic method works best in multicultural contexts. Nussbaum’s rejection
of the“Great Books”approach does not lead her to adopt the postmodern alternative Bloom attacks,
however. Drawing largely on Derridean deconstruction, left-wing opponents malign the Socratic
method, Nussbaum argues, on the grounds that“logic itself is patriarchal or a tool of colonial
oppression.”^5 Nussbaum finds such criticism insulting to non-Western cultures. Logic, she con-
tends, is not the exclusive legacy of the Western tradition.
Whereas Nussbaum should be commended for attending to a significant critique of the Socratic
method that other advocates of the Socratic method generally neglect, her defense does not go far
enough. This is apparent from subsequent scholarly reviews ofCultivating Humanity. For instance,
in his review of the book for theHarvard Educational Review, Burbules criticizes Nussbaum for
dismissing the view of the Committee on Blacks in the American Philosophical Association that
“black students do not feel comfortable with required courses in formal logic”:
Nussbaum takes any doubts along these lines as expressing the racist idea that“black students
cannot think logically”(p. 177). But perhaps the onus of the debate over why African-
American students are underrepresented in the field of philosophy is not on the students
themselves, but on what philosophers think it means to“think logically,”or on the assumption
that this method represents the only valid basis for arguing and adjudicating different views
about truth and value, or on the possibility that the putatively universal truths explored in
philosophy departments may not in fact speak to the concerns of many individuals and groups.
One need not be a relativist to think that.^6In my estimation, Burbules is correct in his assessment that Nussbaum’s defense of the Socratic
method against the charge of cultural imperialism is too shallow. Though a valuable beginning,
attending to this criticism necessitates more than a few pages of argumentation. It also requires a
more sympathetic and complete presentation of the views of critics than Nussbaum gives.
In this chapter, I consider at greater depth critiques of the Socratic method as culturally
imperialistic. These critiques fall, I argue, into three general categories: the“linguistic imperi-
alism”critique, the“normative imperialism”critique, and the“philosophic imperialism”cri-
tique. The first critique maintains that the Socratic method is culturally imperialistic because it
typically takes place within one language–in Socrates’case, Greek; in contemporary American
universities, usually English–and therefore privileges certain participants and a particular
framework of thought. The second critique arguesthat as a mode of education that values critical
thinking and the input of students, the Socratic method implicitly devalues the norm of respect for
tradition and authority figures embraced in other cultures’educational approaches, such as in the
Confucian tradition. Moreover, by emphasizing the primacy of discourse, the Socratic method
discounts other means of truth-seeking. Finally, the third critique contends that the Socratic
method inherently tries to convert interlocutors to the philosophic way of life and, in doing so,
dismisses the value of other ways of life. This critique fits with a more common, general critique
of the method: that its practitioners merely manipulate their interlocutors into arriving at a pre-
determined set of“truths.”
While taking these criticisms seriously and hopefully doing them justice, my aim is to show
that the Socratic method can be defended against these charges. The general thrust of my
126 Rebecca LeMoine