If the Socratic method entails submitting one’s ideas to continuous examination, then, as
Nussbaum proclaimed, Socratic education may very well thrive in pluralistic learning environ-
ments. As Meckstroth argues,
Past a certain threshold of precision, rigor will benefit more by expanding the range of
competing views one explicitly refutes and by increasing the sensitivity and imagination with
which one enters into each of those views’internal logics in order to be as certain as possible
that one’s supposed proofs do not rely on any tendentious assumptions one’s interlocutors
could coherently reject.^29A culturally diverse classroom may thus be the ideal environment for a Socratic discussion. By
including a range of participants, such a class offers greater potential for exposing an idea to
multiple forms of critique. While this may not result in the idea being overturned, the process of
submitting a truth to scrutiny from various angles makes it more likely that any ideas that endure this
test will contain at least some element of truth. No wonder, then, that Socrates engaged foreigners
and that Plato himself traveled widely and welcomed foreigners into his Academy. Of course, one
might still accuse Socratic teachers of being philosophic imperialists if by philosophic culture one
means practicing self-examination. But, again, if this is a form of imperialism, it is one completely
dependent on the willingness of students to take up the provocation to self-examination.
Conclusion
In defending the Socratic method against the three critiques discussed in this chapter–the
“linguistic imperialism,”“normative imperialism,”and“philosophic imperialism”critiques–Ido
not mean to downplay the concerns they raise. Certainly these are serious concerns and just as a
good Socratic teacher will submit his ideas to examination, so should he submit the Socratic method
itself to examination. Nonetheless, even a good critique deserves to be examined. That is what this
chapter set out to do. Though I hope to have persuaded that the Socratic method is not merely a
defensible teaching method for culturally diverse contexts, but in fact a method that is well-suited
for such contexts, Socratic teachers or those considering using the Socratic method in their
classrooms should give thought to the potential problems that the cultural imperialism critique
illuminates. Even if Socrates himself cannot be justly accused of acting imperialistically, is it
possible that other teachers could misuse the Socratic method to pursue, consciously or uncon-
sciously, imperialistic aims? This question is well worth asking of ourselves before and as we use
the Socratic method in our own classrooms.
Notes
1 See, e.g., Evan Peterson,“Teaching to Think: Applying the Socratic Method Outside the Law School
Setting,”Journal of College Teaching & Learning6/5 (2009): 83–8; and Douglas R. Oyler and Frank
Romanelli,“The Fact of Ignorance: Revisiting the Socratic Method as a Tool for Teaching Critical
Thinking,”American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education78/7 (2014): 1–9.
2 See, e.g., James C. Overholser,“Guided Discovery: Problem-Solving Therapy Integrated Within the
Socratic Method,”Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy43/2 (2013): 73–82; James C. Overholser,
“Positive Psychotherapy According to the Socratic Method,”Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy45/
2 (2015): 137–42; and Gavin I. Clark and Sarah J. Egan,“The Socratic Method in Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy: A Narrative Review,”Cognitive Therapy and Research39/6 (2015): 863–79.
3 Allan Bloom,The Closing of the American Mind:How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and
Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987).
4 Martha C. Nussbaum,Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 33.134 Rebecca LeMoine