Socratic Method In Education

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The Socratic Method is a type of cooperative and constructive argumentative discussion between two or more individuals; it can also be defined as a different type of inquiry used by the educational systems for philosophy and education. For example, it typically is used in classrooms where there are open ended discussions, this is to ensure that students are able to ask questions to help them better understand the topics at hand. Unlike lectures, the instructor will give a topic for the class to discuss, and then will ask the students for their thoughts and opinions on the matter. The Socratic method was originally named after the great Greek Philosopher, Socrates, who lived in Athens, whose time was close to 2,500 years ago (around 470 to 399…show more content…
In this theory, he wrote in attempts to answer questions about reality and how we perceive it. The story begins by Socrates asking one of his student/followers to imagine a cave, a cave where there are several prisoners that are all chained up to a wall. Along with their bodies being chained, their head and necks are, too. This would prevent them from being able to look at anything other than the stone wall that was in front of them. They have been chained here for their entire lives so far and have not been able to experience anything other than the cave they are in the outside world. On this wall, were shadows that were cast from behind them. Behind the prisoners, is a walkway that people use to carry multiple different things two and fro, such as vases, and statues; behind that, is a fire that is always lit so that shadows will be made on the walls. Along with serving the purpose of projecting those shadows, it also hides an exit so that if for some reason one of the prisoners were to be let go, they would not be able to use the exit as they are trapped behind the fire. After some time, the prisoners started to name the shadows that they were seeing, as they have never had the chance to see the life that is behind them, and their reasoning for this is simply for the desire of knowledge of what life truly has to hold for them. Plato says to Socrates, “What…show more content…
The philosophical system that was being used and dominated by the Scholastics, who sought to answer philosophical questions that were very abstract, and this was mainly done on the bases of the teachings they received from Aristotle. Descartes was greatly dissatisfied with this way of philosophy because he thought that it was pointless, and it was unable to be accommodative to the results of the rising mechanistic physics, which sought to account for natural phenomena in mathematical terms. Eventually, this dissatisfaction drove him to the idea that philosophy was in need of a full fundamental reboot; and this would be accomplished through building a new strong, and stable foundation. He was persistent in wanting to base the new way of philosophy off of certain and unshakeable beliefs. This has also been named, “The Descartes’s radical doubt”. Through this, he wanted to subject all of our common beliefs to this radical doubt that he had created, and then see which of those beliefs held true through such doubt, and then would later be accepted with absolute
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