Thursday, September 25, 2014
Slippery Socrates
There's another example of Socrates' apparent slipperyness at 485c, where (as explained in Bloom's footnote) he evidently expects Glaucon to interpret an ambiguous sentence in one way, while pretty clearly intending the other possible meaning himself. Subtle as this may be, there seems no avoiding the observation that Socrates can be as verbally slippery as any sophist when he chooses -- and he seems so to choose often. Is there, then, such a thing as responsible sophistry, and is that what we should expect of a teacher?
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2 comments:
If we accept that teachers can trick their students, as Socrates often does, the question of responsibility becomes whether a teacher uses their wordplay/trickery/lies to strengthen the student's understanding (by drawing out their real desires, by leading them in a certain direction, etc.), or whether they trick them for rhetorical purposes, to persuade them of a falsehood for some ulterior motive (as we might imagine Thrasymacus doing).
Socrates' intentions, despite his wordplay, seem sincere - he wants to teach. It would seem that the ambiguity is for our benefit, to demonstrate something of Glaucon's character. A wink to the audience. I don't believe that this can be misconstrued as irresponsible. If Socrates were not concerned with reaching the truth, if he were leading the students by the nose to increase his own fame and power in the city, that would be irresponsible "pedagogy" of the worst kind.
Fair enough. But we give teachers a tremendous amount of power by giving them permission to trick students so long as their intentions are pure. Can we so easily know and govern all our own intentions?
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