Can Socrates Make You a Better Person?
Can I become a better person by being subjected to the Socratic Elenchus? Becoming a better person has been an important subject for millennia in religion, philosophy, and the modern self-help industry. Techniques range from being beaten for doing bad things, to debates, to listening to hypnotic tapes while you sleep. Elenchus, commonly referred to as Socratic dialogue, is widely known as helping in the learning process. Does this technique also lead to improvements as a person? The context that Socratic dialogue is applied in is important. For instance, you can involuntarily be subjected to questions by police in an interrogation room, or by lawyers in a courtroom. It’s unlikely that such an involuntary dialogue will lead to personal insights or revelations that will help you to improve as a person. However, there are other contexts where the opposite may be true. In an environment where the other person truly has goodwill toward you and where there are no goals other than that of tru