I. S. Lytra

Our aim in this paper is to argue that Socrates is an intellectual character builder. We show that the Socratic Method, properly understood, is a tool for developing the intellectual character of students. It motivates agents towards the truth and helps them to develop the cognitive skills to gain knowledge of the truth. We further elucidate this proposal by comparing the Socratic Method, so understood, with the widely held contemporary view that the epistemic aim of education is the development of the intellectual virtues.

Irony is commonly defined as ‘the use of words that say the opposite of what you really mean, often as a joke and with a tone of voice that shows this’. Expanding the term’s focus from being merely linguistic to also including ironic action and serving philosophical conceptualisation, the same applies for Socratic irony, which is furthermore traditionally related to mockery and deceit and, therefore, inextricably connected to a negative overtone and an unfavorable portrayal of Socrates when he exercises it. My research aims to reevaluate the significance of the philosophical use of eironeia as a phenomenon in Socrates’ methodology and support the claim that Socrates used all his tools – eironeia included – in an attempt to serve a novel pedagogical scheme, that of building his interlocutors’ epistemic character. This thesis attributes to Socratic eironeia a definitional refinement and a justified characterization as an epistemic device that can and should be fruitfully inserted in contemporary education. Socrates’ methodology is chiefly pedagogical but not in a conventional way since Socrates admits that he was not a teacher – at least not in the ordinary sense. He was, however, a certain type of educator, an ‘architect’ of the interlocutors’ intellectual character. In this epistemic mechanism eironeia works as a ‘sting’ and serves the purpose of enhancing the agent’s motivational feelings not to give up inquiry – after the state of aporia created by the elenchus hits them – but rather to eagerly desire to keep searching for truths. Firstly, my thesis focuses on eironeia’s refinement and presents a defense against the misjudgment of the concept as a linguistic phenomenon, which merely indicates a twist between words, actions and meanings with a connotation of mockery, deceit or humiliation. I will develop the unpopular theory that well-known scholars suggested when they innovatively separated the concept of eironeia from mockery and brought it closer to its interpretation as a device for profitable philosophical quest. And since in philosophy novel interpretations tend to flag disputes, I present an overview of the debate on whether eironeia can have constructive applications or not. Second, I proceed in justifying eironeia’s beneficial character through Aristotle’s understanding of Socrates as an eiron, focusing on eironeia’s function as a speech act and delineating its motivational aspect when employing it in a conversation with an agent, or a student. I establish that Socrates was not an arrogant boaster, as often stated, but rather a self-depreciator who intentionally understates his authority as part of his method. After embracing eironeia’s positive nature, my thesis moves on to defend Socrates’ knowledge of the good against the assertion that his ignorance was honest and, consequently, his eironeia not significantly deep. For the purposes of this argumentation I appeal to Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics and his particularist understanding of morality, which further illuminates Socrates’ method when considering the nature of virtue, hence the nature of his subject teaching. Finally, this brings my thesis to the position of defending Socrates as a teacher not in the commonly held sense but as a peculiar type of educator that builds our epistemic character. The last section of this research enhances our understanding of Socratic Intellectualism and the crucial role it plays in decoding his technique, especially when camouflaged behind the eiron’s mask. Conclusively, I introduce Socrates as an Intellectual Character Builder, who uses eironeia essentially as a motivational tool to enhance the addressee’s disposition to discover truths and not give up in their inquiry. I shall call his technique The Socratic Challenge.