Socrates 'Midwifery In Plato's Theaetetus'

In Plato’s Theaetetus, Socrates presents the argument that, while he himself holds no wisdom, what he practices is something akin to midwifery, in that he helps deliver the wisdom of those in his company, much like a midwife helps to deliver a baby. Socrates is intent on demonstrating that his influence is a positive one. Is his company the good sort to keep? Is his practice a honed art – like midwifery? Perhaps. I intend to examine the supporting evidence; we will look at Socrates’ following arguments: 1) how his labours deliver truth, 2) his own lack of wisdom, and, 3) the effect of his company on others in the past, all with quick glimpses into a few others of Plato’s recorded dialogues.
Socrates has a very particular method of obtaining …show more content…
While his initial goal is to teach those in his company to think, and to produce noteworthy thoughts, it is the long-term goal, it seems, to have them produce fact. Socrates aims to make others think – but I will remind you of this quote from Socrates, “ […] the most important thing about my art is the ability to apply all possible tests to the offspring, to determine whether the young mind is being delivered of a phantom, that is, an error, or a fertile truth,” (Theaetetus, 150b-c). Once a ‘fact’ has been produced, he either help to determine if it is true (or otherwise help the producer of the aforementioned ‘fact’ to refine it, therefore making it a truth), or he will help to determine it to be false. It is at this point that his job is complete. So, we have either been delivered a truth, or an error; but, as the error has been determined to, in fact, be and error, no harm has been done. Either something positive has come from his labours (that is to say, his questions), or nothing has come from it at all, which has done no harm to …show more content…
Does he have a positive effect on those in his company? While he is long gone and we cannot possibly hope to have a definitive answer, we can merely examine the facts – his recounted relationships with others. While we can revisit the previous points of wisdom and philosophical practices to find some semblance of an answer. However, that would merely beg the question. Let us, instead, return to the passage from Theaetetus.
Socrates states that, “ […] God compels me to attend to the travail of others, […]” (Theaetetus, 150c), meaning that he feels as though he must help others. As he’s stated before in Apology (25c-26a), after being accused of intentionally corrupting youth, it is better to live among good people. He would never intentionally corrupt another, especially the youth, for a corrupted neighbor could only do harm unto him, and no person should ever do something that could only cause harm to themselves, as long as they are of sound