The Paradoxical Socrates and Education: A Treatise It is in the image of the paradox of Socrates that the education to virtue

is realized. The nature of the discussions that Socrates embarks upon, as told by Plato, fosters the grounds of education so vital to coming to understand the importance of the virtues. He embodies the necessary understanding of the lack of knowledge, which is required to go looking for knowledge, and at the same time an awareness of the need to improve the soul of man. The early dialogues of Platos Socrates include Hipparchus, Minos, Lovers, Cleitophon, Theages, Alcibiades, Laches, Lesser and Greater Hippias, Ion, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo. The famed revivalist of Platonism in the 20th century, Thomas Pangle states that the early dialogues convey with unrivaled force the most puzzling or unexpected, and hence most liberating, dimensions of Platonic philosophizing. These dialogues shake the foundations of conventional assumptions about Socrates and how his method works. So it comes as no surprise that we find that the paradox of Socrates is best illustrated in these works. While it is unnecessary for this work to examine the image of the paradox of Socrates in each of these dialogues some more than others will be used to explain the paradox. Once the paradox is explained it will be argued that the paradox, itself, is the key to education to virtue. What has been emphasized heavily so far on this blog is the need for educating the virtues, particularly in the realm of liberal education. The liberal education should be concerned with producing individuals ready and armed with the civic virtues, and thereby contributing to the well-being of society. It was a goal of mine to assert that it should follow that the virtues be instilled upon entry into society. In a study of Alcibiades Major, it was shown that Socrates apparently failed to educate his interlocutor to virtue, yet I continued to return to the well of that dialogue, so to speak, to see if there may be some philosophical water to draw from it. What was discovered was that Socrates requires his interlocutor to acknowledge that he lacks in some area of knowledge of something. This makes room for Socrates to illuminate their deficiency. It was here that the method of elenchus became inherently important to look at and how it works in educating in the Socratic Method. I started off by considering the importance of the Socratic Method in the classroom. It was determined that the only sound indisputable function of the method to bring the student to understanding the

importance of education is the elenchus. The elenctic method is not a means of coercion, although it may be unsettling, to education, but rather an illumination of knowledge. The knowledge that is produced is unknowing. Knowledge is virtue and the elenchus is the first step toward virtue being produced in the individual. There can be no virtue without knowledge. That is what gives such intensity to Socrates arguments, such urgency in his quest for definition. He makes you feel that the failure to sustain a thesis of find a definition is not just an intellectual defeat, but a moral disaster. In the Euthyphro, the dialogue is named for the interlocutor, he is told that his failure to make a good confident claim to know exactly (5a,15d) what piety is, means not that he is intellectually short of the mark, but morally bankrupt too. I am stating what Socrates believes in as extreme form as Plato allows us. Surely then, there must be an alternative to such a savage doctrine to knowledge? I went looking to see how it was that one of Socrates most loyal followers, see Symposium 216b-223d, Alcibiades experienced Socrates. The traditional subtitle for Alcibiades Major is On the Nature of Man which justifies claims that at one point it was considered to be the greatest of the Platonic corpus and contained all of the philosophy of Plato. A fitting starting point to examine the Socratic education to virtue, I thought. What was concluded from this examination was no more than an example of failure to education. How can it be that Socrates fails to educate, in the sense of resulting in the understanding of whatever, yet claims to understand the needs of the human soul? More generally, if Socrates claims to not know, then how can Socrates educate his interlocutors the virtues, and for that matter you and me? So there seems to be two sides to Socrates. One of the preacher, as Gregory Vlastos puts it [Socrates] is an evangel to proclaim, a great truth to teach: Our soul is the only thing worth saving, and there is only one way to save it: acquire knowledge. There are two points behind this claim to illustrate. What was stated before virtue is knowledge and the subsequent writing is one part. The second is that Socrates believes that if you do have this knowledge, then you cannot fail to be good and act as good as man should. This knowledge is important because what will break the resolution of others, will have no power over the man with Socratic knowledge.

This side of Socrates offers much to gain for the individual, but do you really think that Socrates will disseminate that knowledge easily? How could he, if he claims to not have knowledge? Plato illustrates Socrates saying the positive knowledge claim of not knowledge, in private dialogues, but also in his most public of all, the Apology (21d). The only reason he may be wiser than any other man is because he does not think that he has knowledge which others think they have but havent. Stranger still yet, Socrates dies confidently that no evil thing can happen to a good man (41d) but if he is right then isnt he too damned? This is the paradox of Socrates. Socrates says things (his disclaimer of moral knowledge) which contradict the role of preacher and teacher of the care of the soul and acts in ways that seem to not fit these roles either. Socrates characteristic activity is the elenchus, literally, the refutation. Just look back at this for a longer discourse on elenchus. But was so perplexing not only to his interlocutors, but also to me is why doesnt he take his opportunities, to preach his gospel, which are abundant in the dialogues? I think the Apology explains again why this is so. At 20e-21a, Socrates tells the story of the oracle at Delphi, who historically speaks in riddles, says that there are none wiser than Socrates. He then sets off searching for the wiser. This illustrates a portrait of Socrates that is known to his fellow citizens as a destructive critic, confirming our paradox. Socrates is a man who says the care of the soul is the most important thing in the world, and his life mission to get others to see it. But Socrates says very little of the improvement to his interlocutors soul, but rather forces them into a forsaken pigeonhole. There Socrates will undoubtedly expose his interlocutors failure to state exactly what he claims he knows. The second side of Socrates is the searcher. This was foreshadowed at the mentioning of the oracle at Delphis preposition. Socrates says to Protagoras Dont think that I have any other interest in arguing with you, but that of clearing up my own problems as they arise (Prt. 348c). Again in the Charmides dialogue he says to Critias And what if I am? How can you think that I have any other interest in refuting you, but what I should have in searching myself, fearing lest I might fool myself, thinking I know something, when I dont know (Chrm. 166c-d)? And I think Vlastos describes correctly what

this means Moments like these are rare in the dialogues. Further he writes that [Socrates] is a man whose every word is deliberate, and seems calculated to conceal more than reveal [so we] are left unprepared for moments like these, and apt to discount them as irony. What is meant by the searching side of Socrates is that when he claims to not having knowledge he leaves open the truth of anything can always be reexamined in the company of any person truly willing to raise questions and join in the investigation. Here I would like to step away from the paradox of Socrates to realize how it connects to education. The paradox of Socrates, however puzzling it may be, gives us a good look at the intentions of Socrates method in educating the virtues. There are some seductive and very human qualities in the dialogues that propel us toward joining Socrates. When you consider the two sides of Socrates, on their face seem utterly destructive to the individuals well-being, but ultimately come back around to a constructive rationale that appeals to the human. In a seductive sense, what was unveiled in the Alcibiades Major was that there needs to exist an erotic longing for something that the individual lacks. This longing will propel the individual past the sting of refutation to strive to know, discover, and be refuted willing, all for the sake of knowledge of that thing they lack in. Socrates method champions this type of education. The paradox of Socrates is very human too. The beliefs we cling to and leave unexamined to even ourselves are what is most interesting to Socrates. Socrates method gets directly to those unexamined beliefs and rocks them to the ground. The paradox is why we let him in and also why we detest him. In this way the paradox also seduces us to bring our beliefs to the surface. Just like Alcibiades, although Socrates methods to get to Alcibiades may have been unsound for a preacher, Socrates elicits from Alcibiades an unwavering passion. By bringing shame to a haughty aristocrat that had a golden parachute big enough so that his feet would never touch the ground is punctured by Socrates paradox and elenchus. Thus, I am asserting that the paradox of Socrates, in conjunction with elenchus, does the majority of heavy lifting in educating the virtues.