OF PSYCHIC MAIEUTICS AND DIALOGICAL BONDAGE IN PLATO’S
THEAETETUSacting in the service of the god of Delphi, especially insofar as Apollo is
Artemis’ twin brother.^23 The translation, it would seem, is complete.
Yet two features of Socrates’ art remain outstanding. One Socrates
himself calls “the greatest part” of psychic maieutics, namely, his capac-
ity to determine “whether the thought of the youth gives birth to an im-
age and a falsehood, or something fruitful and true” (150b9– c3). This
critical function has no parallel among midwives. The other outstand-
ing feature of the account is not explicitly recognized as a difference by
Socrates, but has become the source of much controversy. Socrates says
that as midwives are no longer capable of bearing children, he is “barren
of wisdom” (agonos sophias; 150c4). He also says that he “has no wisdom”
(150c6), that the god “prevents [him] from generating” (gennan; 150c8),
and that he is “not completely wise” (ou panu ti sophos; 150d1).^24 Later
in the dialogue, Socrates repeats that he is incapable of generating the
wise things of which he is offering a taste to Theaetetus (157d1). How
are we to understand these claims in light of the fact that midwifery de-
pends on prior experience of conceiving and bearing offspring?
It seems that three broad interpretive strategies are possible here.
The fi rst is to take Socrates’ remarks to mean that he has never given
birth to any psychic offspring of his own, and that he therefore lacks
the experience necessary to practice his own art. Thus, the account of
psychic maieutics is contradictory, or at least paradoxical. The second is
to again take Socrates to mean that his soul has never given birth, but
to infer that Socrates here implicitly assimilates himself to the status of
the divine. That is, Socrates, like Artemis, needs no prior experience in
order to bring to light and test the psychic offspring of others. And this
would be one very good reason for keeping psychic maieutics secret, on
this of all days. The third possibility is to distinguish between Socrates’
claims to have never brought forth any wisdom of his own, and the claim
to have never given birth to psychic offspring without any further quali-
fi cation, and thus avoid the conclusion that either Socrates is superhu-
man, or he is offering an incoherent account of himself.^25
I take the distinction between Socrates’ claims about his lack of
wisdom and any claim about psychic offspring without any further qual-
ifi cation to be crucial. It seems that psychic maieutics is not primarily
concerned with wisdom at all, but with bringing thoughts or opinions
to clarity such that they can be refl ected upon. More signifi cant in this
respect is that it seems that the majority of psychic offspring turn out to
be wind-eggs—and insofar as this is the case, there is no reason not to
include Socrates among those who have come out with various opinions
only to fi nd that they are untenable. Note, however, that this only means
t hat one is not forced to conclude t hat Socrates’ account is cont radictor y
or paradoxical on its own terms. Socrates’ ambiguous relationship with