Does Socrates Have a Method?: Rethinking the Elenchus in Plato’s Dialogues and Beyond

The Socratic method is commonly understood as a style of pedagogy involving cross-questioning between teacher and student. However, there has long been debate among scholars of ancient philosphy about how this method, as attributed to Socrates, should be defined, or whether Socrates can be said to have used any single, uniform method distinctive to his way of philosophizing. This volume brings together essays by classicists and philosophers examining this controversy. The point of departure for many of those engaged in the debate has been the identification of Socratic method with the elenchus as a technique of logical argumentation aimed at refuting an interlocutor, which Gregory Vlastos highlighted in an influential article in 1983. The essays in this volume look again at many of the issues to which Vlastos drew attention, but also seek to broaden the discussion beyond the limits of his formulation. Representing a wide range of approaches in Platonic scholarship, they aim to enliven and reorient the debate over Socratic method so as to set a new agenda for further research.