display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
164 | It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate [Socrates] |
Full Idea: It is legitimate to play the devil's advocate. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Phaedrus 272c |
1647 | In Socratic dialogue you must say what you believe, so unasserted premises are not debated [Vlastos on Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates' rule of "say only what you believe"….excluded debate on unasserted premises, thereby distinguishing Socratic from Zenonian and earlier dialectics. | |
From: comment on Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.14 |
115 | Socrates was pleased if his mistakes were proved wrong [Socrates] |
Full Idea: Socrates: I'm happy to have a mistaken idea of mine proved wrong. | |
From: Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Gorgias 458a |
22099 | The method of Socrates shows the student is discovering the truth within himself [Socrates, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: Socrates tended to prefer the method of questioning, for this made it clear that the student was discovering the truth within himself. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 7 | |
A reaction: Sounds like it will only facilitate conceptual analysis, and excludes empirical knowledge. Can you say to Socrates 'I'll just google that'? |
5844 | Socrates always proceeded in argument by general agreement at each stage [Socrates, by Xenophon] |
Full Idea: When Socrates was setting out a detailed argument, he used to proceed by such stages as were generally agreed, because he thought that this was the infallible method of argument. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Xenophon - Memorabilia of Socrates 4.6.16 | |
A reaction: This sounds right, and shows how strongly Socrates perceived philosophy to be a group activity, of which I approve. It seems to me that philosophy is clearly a spoken subject before it is a written one. The lonely speculator comes much later. |
11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not surprising that Socrates sought essences. His project was to establish formal reasoning, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. | |
From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b22 | |
A reaction: This seems to reinforce the definitional view of essences, since definitions seem to be at the centre of most of Socrates's quests. |
19463 | Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer] |
Full Idea: In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii) | |
A reaction: I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this? |