Σωκρατικῶς εἰς ἑκάτερον is the phrase of Cicero, ad Atticum ii. 3.
[93] Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 40.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his Essay on Liberty, has the following remarks, illustrating Plato’s Dialogues of Search. I should have been glad if I could have transcribed here many other pages of that admirable Essay: which stands almost alone as an unreserved vindication of the rights of the searching individual intelligence, against the compression and repression of King Nomos (pp. 79-80-81):—
“The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to or defending it against opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefits of its universal recognition. Where this advantage cannot be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a substitute for it: some contrivance for making the difficulties of the question as present to the learner’s consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient champion eager for his conversion.
“But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost those they formerly had. The Sokratic dialectics, so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this description. They were essentially a discussion of the great questions of life and philosophy, directed with consummate skill to the purpose of convincing any one, who had merely adopted the common-places of received opinion, that he did not understand the subject — that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed: in order that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school-disputations of the middle ages had a similar object. They were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it — and could enforce the grounds of the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests had indeed the incurable defect, that the premisses appealed to were taken from authority, not from reason; and as a discipline to the mind they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the ‘Socratici viri’. But the modern mind owes far more to both than it is generally willing to admit; and the present modes of instruction contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or of the other.… It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic — that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result, but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical departments of speculation. On any other subject no one’s opinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active controversy with opponents.”
Result called Knowledge, which Plato aspires to. Power of going through a Sokratic cross examination; not attainable except through the Platonic process and method.
Another matter must here be noticed, in regard to these Dialogues of Search. We must understand how Plato conceived the goal towards which they tend: that is the state of mind which he calls knowledge or cognition. Knowledge (in his view) is not attained until the mind is brought into clear view of the Universal Forms or Ideas, and intimate communion with them: but the test (as I have already observed) for determining whether a man has yet attained this end or not, is to ascertain whether he can give to others a full account of all that he professes to know, and can extract from them a full account of all that they profess to know: whether he can perform, in a manner exhaustive as well as unerring, the double and correlative function of asking and answering: in other words, whether he can administer the Sokratic cross-examination effectively to others, and reply to it without faltering or contradiction when administered to himself.[94] Such being the way in which Plato conceives knowledge, we may easily see that it cannot be produced, or even approached, by direct, demonstrative, didactic communication: by simply announcing to the hearer, and lodging in his memory, a theorem to be proved, together with the steps whereby it is proved. He must be made familiar with each subject on many sides, and under several different aspects and analogies: he must have had before him objections with their refutation, and the fallacious arguments which appear to prove the theorem, but do not really prove it:[95] he must be introduced to the principal counter-theorems, with the means whereby an opponent will enforce them: he must be practised in the use of equivocal terms and sophistry, either to be detected when the opponent is cross-examining him, or to be employed when he is cross-examining an opponent. All these accomplishments must be acquired, together with full promptitude and flexibility, before he will be competent to perform those two difficult functions, which Plato considers to be the test of knowledge. You may say that such a result is indefinitely distant and hopeless: Plato considers it attainable, though he admits the arduous efforts which it will cost. But the point which I wish to show is, that if attainable at all, it can only be attained through a long and varied course of such dialectic discussion as that which we read in the Platonic Dialogues of Search. The state and aptitude of mind called knowledge, can only be generated as a last result of this continued practice (to borrow an expression of Longinus).[96] The Platonic method is thus in perfect harmony and co-ordination with the Platonic result, as described and pursued.
[94] See Plato, Republic, vii. 518, B, C, about παιδεία, as developing τὴν ἐνοῦσαν ἑκάστου δύναμιν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ: and 534, about ἐπιστήμη, with its test, τὸ δοῦναι καὶ δέξασθαι λόγον. Compare also Republic, v. 477, 478, with Theætêt. 175, C, D; Phædon, 76, B, Phædrus, 276; and Sympos. 202 A. τὸ ὀρθὰ δοξάζειν καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ἔχειν λόγον δοῦναι, οὐκ οἶσθ’ ὅτι οὔτε ἐπίστασθαι ἐστιν; ἄλογον γὰρ πρᾶγμα πῶς ἂν εἴη ἐπιστήμη;
[95] On this point the scholastic manner of handling in the Middle Ages furnishes a good illustration for the Platonic dialectic. I borrow a passage from the treatise of M Hauréau, De la Phil. Scolastique, vol. ii. p. 190.
“Saint Thomas pouvait s’en tenir là: nous le comprenons, nous avons tout son système sur l’origine des idées, et nous pouvons croire qu’il n’a plus rien à nous apprendre à ce sujet: mais en scolastique, il ne suffit pas de démontrer, par deux ou trois arguments, réputés invincibles, ce que l’on suppose être la vérité, il faut, en outre, répondre aux objections première, seconde, troisième, &c., &c., de divers interlocuteurs, souvent imaginaires; il faut établir la parfaite concordance de la conclusion enoncée et des conclusions precédents ou subséquentes; il faut réproduire, à l’occasion de tout problème controversé, l’ensemble de la doctrine pour laquelle on s’est déclaré.”