Refute Thyself: The Socratic Method in Plato’s Republic Book 4

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article I discuss Plato’s use of method in the Republic in light of the Socratic method. I show that in Book 4 this method is a key moment in the conversion from a political way of life (where habits, tastes and beliefs are conditionally deduced from the dominant regime) to the philosophic way of life, in that Socrates’s account of method is never separated from the experience of questioning the dialogue incites. The Socratic account of method differs from our modern conception of method in that it is never presented abstractly or with finality. It is learned by experiencing its application to the constitution of one’s own soul. Socrates’s use of questioning and agreement (i.e., elenchus) prepares the soul to apply the method in a way that reveals the contradictions between the city and the soul and the questions these contradictions raise. I conclude that questioning and method taken together constitute a decisive but often overlooked moment in the philosophic conversion presented in the Republic, and suggest that contemporary political theory would benefit from a return to the method that implicates the questioner herself in the search for knowledge of justice.