5 Nussbaum,Cultivating Humanity, 38.
6 Nicholas C. Burbules,“Book Review–Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal
Educationby Martha C. Nussbaum,”Harvard Educational Review69/4 (1999), http://hepg.org/her-
home/issues/harvard-educational-review-volume-69-issue-4/herarticle/_150.
7 Jacques Derrida,Monolingualism of the Other, or, The Prosthesis of Origin, Patrick Mensah, trans.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 39.
8 Derrida,Monolingualism, 14.
9 Jacques Derrida,Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, Rachel
Bowlby, trans. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 133.
10 Stephen Gilbert Brown,Words in the Wilderness: Critical Literacy in the Borderlands(Albany: SUNY
Press, 2000), 95. For more on the phenomenon of the mimicry of colonial subjects, see Homi K. Bhabha,
The Location of Culture(London: Routledge, 1994).
11 As Frank argues, Socrates’approach shifts poetic authority from the poets to their auditors and
interpreters. Jill Frank,Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’sRepublic (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2018), 50–80.
12 This difficulty is discussed, e.g., in Matt Copeland,Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative
Thinking in Middle and High School(Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2005), 65–7.
13 On“equivalences of experience,”see Eric Voegelin,“Equivalences of Experience and Symbolization in
History,”inTheCollected Works of Eric Voegelin,Vol. 12: Published Essays, 1966– 1985 ,Ellis Sandoz, ed.
(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990), 115–33.
14 For a more comprehensive comparison of the two traditions of learning/teaching, see Roger G. Tweed
and Darrin R. Lehman,“Learning Considered within a Cultural Context: Confucian and Socratic
Approaches,”American Psychologist57/2 (2002): 89–99.
15 Ference Marton, Gloria Dall’Alba and Tse Lai Kun,“Memorizing and Understanding: The Keys to the
Paradox?”inThe Chinese Learner: Cultural, Psychological, and Contextual Influences, David A. Watkins
and John B. Biggs, eds. (Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre; and Melbourne: Australian
Council for Educational Research, 1996), 69–84.
16 Joe Greenholtz,“Socratic Teachers and Confucian Learners: Examining the Benefits and Pitfalls of a Year
Abroad,”Language and Intercultural Communication3/2 (2003): 124. To be clear, this characterization of
Western learning may speak more to the contemporary emphasis on individualism and inclusivity than to
the Socratic context, in which interlocutors are encouraged not to express their opinions mindlessly but
rather to submit them to rigorous examination.
17 Greenholtz,“Socratic Teachers,”123.
18 Interestingly, one study finds this is true not only of non-European students, but also of Eastern European
students.Eventhough Eastern European students share the Socratic cultural heritage of their Western
European peers, the legacy of communist rule in Eastern European school systems has made a significant
mark on how Eastern European students approach education, making them less comfortable with ques-
tioning and stating their own views in the classroom. Ulrich Kühnenet al.,“Challenge Me! Commun-
icating in Multicultural Classrooms,”Social Psychological Education15 (2012): 59–76.
19 Jonathan Gorry,“Cultures of Learning and Learning Culture: Socratic and Confucian Approaches to
teaching and Learning,”Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the
Social Sciences4/3 (2011): 15.
20 Erin Ryanet al.,“When Socrates Meets Confucius: Teaching Creative and Critical Thinking Across
Cultures Through Multilevel Socratic Method,”Nebraska Law Review92 (2013): 289–348.
21 For an overview of these critiques and a response, see Jennifer L. Rosato,“The Socratic Method and
Women Law Students: Humanize, Don’t Feminize,”Southern California Review of Law and Women’s
Studies7 (1997): 37–62.
22 Leigh Kathryn Jenco,“‘What Does Heaven Ever Say?’A Methods-Centered Approach to Cross-Cultural
Engagement,”American Political Science Review101/4 (2007): 744.
23 In numerous dialogs, Plato depicts Socrates objecting to Athens’imperial ambitions and the appetites it
unleashes. This is clearest, e.g., inGorgias515e–517a, 519a–b, and in the silence on Athens’empire in the
funeral oration of Plato’sMenexenus. Also see Mary P. Nichols,“Philosophy and Empire: On Socrates and
Alcibiades in Plato’sSymposium,”Polity39/4 (2007): 502–21.
24 Christopher Meckstroth,“Socratic Method and Political Science,”American Political Science Review
106/3 (2012): 648.
25 Andrea P. Goldinet al.,“From Ancient Greece to Modern Education: Universality and Lack of General-
ization of the Socratic Dialogue,”Mind, Brain, and Education5/4 (2011): 180–85.
26 Here I am challenging standard postmodernist accounts of Plato that present him as an absolutist thinker.
Onmyinterpretation (which I cannot fully defend here), though Plato does not share the postmodernist
Is Socrates Culturally Imperialistic? 135