Socrates + Teaching Methods

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorCollege, Undergraduate February 2008

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One of the oldest, and still most powerful, teaching tactics for fostering critical thinking is what we know today as Socratic thinking. Socrates, who we know only through Plato, was known as "the man who knew nothing". This consequently made him the wisest man in Greece in around 400 b.c. He did not answer the questions of his students. Instead, he provoked more thought by returning a question with another question, rather than an answer. Socrates had rigid opinions about the Grecian Government system. Greece was the first known nation that practiced a democracy, a system that Socrates opposed and thought would bring the downfall of the country.

Much controversy continues over Socrates' attitude of Democracy. It is also strange to think that the original democracy killed a man for exercising freedom of speech and religion, presumably because it's citizens did not like what he was teaching. At that time, pure democracy was a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assembled and administered their government in person.

According to Plato, Socrates believed that the people and the government could not be trusted with an absolute and arbitrary authority any more than a dictator could. Such a democracy was a compromise and was accepted, but the majority could not be trusted to be morally superior because it may have been more susceptible to abusing the system than other forms of known government. Basically, the citizens of Greece would not be able to control their cravings for more freedom. He believed that a government run by the people would become more and more liberal as it tried to meet the needs and wants of it's people. Too much freedom would lead to chaos and mass destruction because its people would not know how to conduct themselves in such...