Liberal has started 23 threads in MPSIMS during the past two years.
His average number of responses is 25, with several of his topics attracting replies in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Whether this means they all ‘fell like a rock off the page’ is arguable, but I’d just like to point out that by my own standards his threads are popular beyond belief.
Question – doesn’t socratic debate involve asking a student a question, hearing the answer, and then asking said student to consider the opposite side of the issue?
My buddy Steve Wright who read 'em in the original Greek in response to a similar question (on another board) by me said:
And if it’s a choice of trusting Lib or Steve, um…there’s really no choice actually.
We thought you were the one bringing pie. 
I’ll bring pie – what kind do you prefer? (And I prefer German potato salad myself)
I don’t really have anything to say about the main topic here, but I can’t let a philosophy question like this go by. 
Not exactly. The Socratic Method involves helping someone to find the truth by asking them questions about what they have already said. (As opposed to just flat out telling them whatever it is you want them to learn.) In an educational setting this method is often used to help the student think about the real reasons for something they have just accepted/memorized as a fact. Probably the simplest form of this is asking “Why?” when a student has stated a fact in answer to a question.
In a debate or philosophical discussion the Socratic method is most often used as a way to lead someone to the realization that their position is self-contradictory or otherwise poorly thought out. It doesn’t necessarily involve considering another side of the issue, it’s a way of getting at the weaknesses of a particular position.
Here’s an example from Socrates himself. In his dialogue with Euthyphro, Socrates asks for a definition of “piety”. Euthyphro claims to be a very pious man, so Socrates suggests that maybe Euthyphro can help him understand what it means to be pious. Euthyphro makes several attempts to provide a definition, such as “piety is what the gods like”. Socrates asks if all the gods like the same things, and Euthyphro must admit that the Greek pantheon is not in perfect agreement about everything. Socrates asks if one act can be both pious and impious at once (say Zeus approves but Hera doesn’t, a common enough occurrence in Greek myth), and Euthyphro agrees that this is an illogical contradiction. He refines his definition to say that piety is what ALL the gods like. If all the gods agree that an act is good, it must be pious. Socrates asks whether an act is pious because all the gods like it or whether all the gods like it because it is pious. After some discussion Euthyphro agrees that it isn’t being liked by the gods that makes an act pious, but that the gods like that which is already pious. So his definition is a circular one – piety is what the gods like, because the gods like things that are pious.
Euthyphro tries a few other definitions, but further questioning by Socrates reveals that they all come back to “piety is what the gods like, because the gods like things that are pious”. Eventually Euthyphro says “Uh, I just remembered I had an appointment I had to get to…” and takes off.
That’s the kind of shit Socrates was eventually executed for. I think the Athenians had been way too patient with him, actually.
Not really. A Socratic debate is setting up an argument, and then arguing the opposite side rather poorly in another persona.
Drove me crazy when I would find nasty little misrepresentation, misquotes, and logical fallacies that no-one else cared about.
(Unless I’m confusing him with Plato. I’m deliberately rather hazy on the details of the Greek philosophers.)
I guess what I meant is, it doesn’t involve arguing with oneself – or does it? (It’s been a while since I took philosophy – history was always my area of expertise!)
Welcome back, Liberal.
So the term “sock” is actually an abbreviation of “Socrates”?
If it is, and then the Greeks have some ‘splainin’ to do – socks with sandals are a MAJOR fashion no-no. (Unless they’re birkenstocks and you’re going with the grunge-look)
Even Socrates didn’t need to stoop to writing weak-ass arguments against himself under another name, though! At least you were 100% sure it was coming from Socrates…
I’m going to ask this question again, although I know I’m whistling into the dark here, because the question has been asked and not answered probably a thousand times over the past few years. What the fuck does Liberal need to do before he gets banned? The guy has lied about being banned here, lied about being banned at other places, lied about socking at other places, lied about being near death for Og’s sake, posted myriad "fuck you"s at the admin and mods here, and started more drama than any poster in the history of this board. I’m straining to think of anybody else who could get away with even ONE of the above without getting hit by the ban stick.
I’d say Liberal has pictures of Ed Zotti felching a goat, maybe that would explain it. But, Keeeeey-rist, every time the guy posts an overblown “I can’t take you losers anymore and I’m outta here and you turds can blow a fat one and maybe I’m gonna die and I blame my meds (and I don’t joke about that lightly, I’ve been on meds myself but I don’t use them as an excuse for my behavior) and BTW fuck you all sideways” instead of the whole board going “Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya” a certain section of this place is tearful at his departure! And, when he inevitably returns a little while later, pretending nothing happened and acting just as he ever did, that same section of the Dope welcomes him back with open arms! Maybe has pictures of a whole bunch o’ people felching goats…
It depends. The way most Socratic dialogues played out is exactly on the model Lamia gave. Basically, one of Socrates’ friends says they understand something and then Socrates asks leading questions until the friend realizes that their ideas don’t make a lick of sense. People were always ragging on Socrates because he didn’t understand basic stuff like what piety was, and then he showed them that they didn’t know either, so who’s the smarty-pants now, punk?
A less charitable description would be that Socrates went around making people look dumb, and trained up a bunch of students to do the same and there goes the neighborhood.
The obvious connection to sock puppetry is that all this stuff wasn’t written down by Socrates; it was written by his student Plato who wrote the dialogues after the fact. (I believe that all the dialogues were written after Socrates was dead, but the Apology and the Philo may have been written prehumously.) Socrates in the dialogues (and this is more true in the later dialogues, written years after his death) is pretty much a mouthpiece for Plato’s philosophy and Socrates’ friends, all of whose parts are written by Plato, serve mostly to erect strawmen for Socrates to brilliantly knock down.
Socrates (of the dialogue) was pretty much the undisputed heavyweight champion in Strawman Boxing. Scarecrows used to tell their kids that if they didn’t eat their scary breakfast, Socrates would come and scatter their straw to the wind. Under no circumstances was a Scarekid to get into a van with Socrates, even if there was going to be candy and a unicorn ride.
The post was brought to you by the word prehumously, as voiced by Vincent Price.
I like him. And it has nothing to do with the goats, because I know for a fact there were no cameras.
My feelings on Liberal run hot and cold. Sometimes he’s really cool…but just when I think he’s not so bad, he turns around and acts like a complete and utter tool.
A shame, really.
I didn’t notice he’d left.
I see this more as comedy but my psychiatrist is working on that.
Ah, you may be right.
That doesn’t change the fact I still think the guy is a douche.
I think it was Andrew Jackson who once said “You sir, are a white-trash, hillbilly, sociopathic, liar.”
(Not you Shodan… Liberal)
This is where we need to distinguish between a Socratic dialogue and the Socratic method/Socratic debate. A Socratic dialogue is really just a particular structure for a piece of writing. Plenty of people have written Socratic dialogues where they wrote both sides themselves. (Socrates himself often appears as a character.) And as Tenebras points out, nearly everything we know about the philosophy of Socrates actually comes to us through dialogues written by his student Plato. How accurately they reflected the real positions of the people involved is at this point unknowable.
The Socratic method or Socratic debate, however, refers to a conversation between two different people where one of them is making use of Socratic style questioning.
I don’t know what the situation was on the other board, but I don’t see why a sock puppet would be necessary unless one were trying to trick people into thinking that a Socratic dialogue written by one person were a genuine Socratic debate between two different people. It seems like people knew that there was a sock account involved in this case, so I can’t think of any reason for taking the trouble to switch back and forth between two accounts. It’s easier to just write out a Socratic dialogue under one username, indicating which of your characters is speaking:
Socrates: What is a pious act?
**Euthyphro: **A pious act is an act that the gods like.
Socrates: But do all the gods like the same things?
Euthyphro: Well, no…