Socratic seminar

"The unexamined life is not worth living". -Socrates. Socrates was one of the early classical Greek philosophers who developed theories of understanding the self and the truth and realities that surround him. Born in ancient Athens in 269 BC, he spent most of his years assembling public discussions in order to share his ideas about man, virtues, justice and how life should be lived in a civilized society. In developing his theories of knowledge, he crafted a method of teaching known as the Socratic dialectic. Socrates believed the soul to be the heart of consciousness and moral character. He also strongly believed that man had to understand his true self. To make his audience appreciate these principles, he would motivate his audience, who were seated around him in a circle, to come up with valid truths by presenting a series of philosophical questions. In making use of this method of teaching, Socrates emphasized that it is important for the students to understand the principles and come up with conclusions themselves rather than merely narrating it to them. He would regularly initiate dialogues with his pupils, answering the questions with another question, instead of direct answers. He emphasized that through a disciplined conversation, his students would attain reliable knowledge.

This method of arriving at reliable knowledge by examining ideas logically, usually through the method of dialogue or question-and-answer is the core principle of the Socratic Seminar. The Socratic Seminar is a contemporary application of the dialectic method used by Socrates. In a Socratic Seminar, the participants seek richer understanding of divergent ideals through thoughtful dialogue rather than route memorization. This seminar method is used in order to draw diverse ideas, issues and values and encourage extended discussion. A "text", usually a reading from a related subject matter such as literature, history, science, art or religion, is selected and used to raise relevant questions in the minds of the participants. These questions are usually those which do not have right or wrong answers. This is why usually at the end of a Socratic Seminar, the participants end up with more questions that what they brought up at the beginning of the seminar.

The Socratic Seminar, like the dialectic discussions held by Socrates in ancient Athens has four essential elements: the text or the subject matter which can come from any subject area, the question which is raised in order to initiate disciplined discourse among the participate and rouse their curiosity about the subject and usually has no "right" answer, the leader who poses the initial question and portrays as both leader and participants and the participants who discuss the text at hand, listen carefully to each other and share ideas among themselves.Socrates' method of teaching forced his audience to clarify their ideas resulting on a clear statement of the original intent of the text. The same is with the Socratic Seminar. By successively and progressively discoursing about a subject, the participants are able to share their fullest possible knowledge about a topic. As the question-and-answer went on, the participants would discover the illogical or contradictory statements and thus weed out the incomplete or inaccurate ideas, leaving the verifiable knowledge alone.

The Socratic Seminar makes the participants responsible for the quality of the seminar. A good seminar is when they study carefully the text and the question posed before them, listen actively to each other, share thoughtfully their ideas and questions to the questions and answers presented by the others and run through the text to find evidence to support their conclusions. Unlike other types of seminars, the Socratic dialectic allows them to think out loud and learn from each other by the open exchange of ideas. As the seminar goes on, the participants discover the excitement of coming across the essential conclusions and the eagerness to examine ideas in a rigid but thoughtful manner.