Scientific vs. Socratic Method: the winner is?

[coberst]

Scientific vs. Socratic Method: the winner is?

 

Hypothetico-deductive model for scientific method from Wikipedia:

“1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.

2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.

3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?

4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.”

 

Deductive and inductive reasoning are the two corner stones of a rational process whereby the individual can ascertain and/or develop rational conclusions about complex questions. When complex questions overflow the narrow boundaries of the natural sciences another form of reasoning is called for.

 

The Socratic Method consists of dialogue followed by dialectical reasoning.

 

Dialectical reasoning forms the only process available for examining complex problems associated with multiple agents attempting to develop communicative action plans. Our newspapers are constantly filled with discourse about such problems; examples are abortion, stem cell research, Iraq war, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, America’s polarized electorate, etc. When many agents must come together to seek a majority judgment for the determination of an acceptable goal then dialectical reasoning is called for.

 

Dialogue is a technique for mutual consideration of such problems wherein solutions grow in a dialectical manner. Through dialogue each individual brings his/her point of view to the fore by proposing solutions constructed around their specific view. All participants in the dialogue come at the solution from the logic of their views. The solution builds dialectically i.e. a thesis is developed and from this thesis and a contrasting antithesis is constructed a synthesis that takes into consideration both proposals. From this a new synthesis, a new thesis is developed.

 

When we are dealing with problems well circumscribed by algorithms the personal biases of the subject are of small concern. In problems in which there are agents with varied concerns and varied world views, without the advantage of paradigms and algorithms, the biases of the problem solvers become a serious source of error. One important task of dialogue is to illuminate these prejudices which may be quite subtle and often out of consciousness of the participant holding them.

 

When we engage in a dialogue what happens? The first thing we find is that dialogue is unlike anything in which we have previously been involved. Group discussions generally digress quickly into verbal food fights and nothing positive is accomplished. Discussions become venues for shouting at one another. The most important thing discovered--provided you wished to advance your thinking so as to develop a means for solving intractable problems--is that skills and attitudes not presently possessed must be developed.

 

Under our normal cultural situation communication means to discourse, to exchange opinions with one another. It seems to me that there are opinions, considered opinions, and judgments. Opinions are a dime-a-dozen. Considered opinions, however, are opinions that have received a considerable degree of thought but have not received special study. A considered opinion starts out perhaps as tacit knowledge but receives sufficient intellectual attention to have become consciously organized in some fashion. Judgments are made within a process of study.

 

In dialogue, person ‘A’ may state a thesis and in return person ‘B’ does not respond with exactly the same meaning as does ‘A’. The meanings are generally similar but not identical; thus ‘A’ listening to ‘B’ perceives a disconnect between what she said and what ‘B’ replies. ‘A’ then has the opportunity to respond with this disconnect in mind, thereby creating a response that takes these matters into consideration; ‘A’ performs an operation known as a dialectic (a juxtaposition of opposed or contradictory ideas). And so the dialogical process proceeds.

 

A dialogical process is not one wherein individuals reason together in an attempt to make common ideas that are already known to each individual. ”Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together.” Dialogical reasoning together is an act of creation, of mutual understanding, of meaning.

 

Dialogic can happen only if both individuals wish to reason together in truth, in coherence, without prejudice, and without trying to influence each other. Each must be prepared to “drop his old ideas and intentions. And be ready to go on to something different, when this is called for…Thus, if people are to cooperate (i.e., literally to ‘work together’) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”

 

The quotations used here are from On Dialogue written by “The late David Bohm, one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers this century, was Fellow of the Royal Society and Emeritus Professor of Physics at Birkbeck College, University of London.

 

Bohm is convinced that communication is breaking down as a result of the crude and insensitive manner in which it is transpiring. Communication is a concept with a common meaning that does not fit well with the concepts of dialogue, dialectic, and dialogic.

 

I claim that if we citizens do not learn to dialogue we cannot learn to live together in harmony sufficient to save the species.

[Rade]

.....When complex questions overflow the narrow boundaries of the natural sciences another form of reasoning is called for.....

 

You set up a false dualism. Answers to complex questions require reasoning based on a dialectic of (1) scientific method and (2) dialog. If you attempt to finds ways for humans to live in harmony with nature, and you do not include reasoning based on the scientific method in the equation, you will end up with chaos, not harmony.

[coberst]

I suspect that most of us are willing to agree that, broadly speaking, we have ‘fact knowledge’ and ‘relationship knowledge’. I would like to take this a step further by saying that I wish to claim that fact knowledge is mono-logical and relationship knowledge is multi-logical.

 

Mono-logical matters have one set of principles guiding their solution. Often these mono-logical matters have a paradigm. The natural sciences—normal sciences—as Thomas Kuhn labels it in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” move forward in a “successive transition from one paradigm to another”. A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. “In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant.”

 

Multi-logical problems are different in kind from mono-logical matters.

 

Socratic dialogue is one technique for attempting to grapple with multi-logical problems; problems that are either not pattern like or that the pattern is too complex to ascertain. Most problems that we face in our daily life are such multi-logical in nature. Simple problems that occur daily in family life are examples. Each member of the family has a different point of view with differing needs and desires. Most of the problems we constantly face are not readily solved by mathematics because they are not pattern specific and are multi-logical.

 

Dialogue is a technique for mutual consideration of such problems wherein solutions grow in a dialectical manner. Through dialogue each individual brings his/her point of view to the fore by proposing solutions constructed around their specific view. All participants in the dialogue come at the solution from the logic of their views. The solution builds dialectically i.e. a thesis is developed and from this thesis and a contrasting antithesis is constructed a synthesis that takes into consideration both proposals. From this a new synthesis a new thesis is developed.

 

“When we are dealing with mono-logical problems well circumscribed by algorithms the personal biases of the subject are of small concern. In multi-logical problems, without the advantage of paradigms and algorithms, the biases of the problem solvers become a serious source of error. One important task of dialogue is to illuminate these prejudices which may be quite subtle and often out of consciousness of the participant holding them.”

 

Our society is very good while dealing with mono-logical problems. Our society is terrible while dealing with multi-logical problems.

 

Do you not think that we desperately need to understand CT, which attempts to help us understand how to think about multi-logical problems? Do you not think that it is worth while for every adult to get up off their ‘intellectual couch’ and teach themselves CT?

When we attempt to solve problems in physics we have the logic (principles) of the prevailing paradigm to direct our efforts. We have a single logic (set of principles) to guide us.

 

When we encounter an ethical problem we almost always have to deal with economic considerations, religious considerations, perhaps legal considerations, etc. Each one of these domains of knowledge has its own set of principles, its own logic.

 

Thus in solving problems in a normal science, one with a paradigm, we have a monological problem. When we deal with many other types of problems that we encounter in living we must deal simultaneously with several domains of knowledge each with its own logic, thus we have multilogical problems.

 

Monological is single logic, multilogical is more than one logic.

 

Quote from Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World by Richard Paul

[lawcat]

Socratic method of "teaching" is best IMO. But it is very impractical for two reasons. First, socratic teaching of simple truths takes a lot of time compared to scientific method, where truths are simply stated and examination of proofs is discretionary in individual. Second, socratic teaching requires expert teachers who know and understand proofs in the broad context of the subject, and are skilled verbal examiners. There are very few such people.

[coberst]

Socratic method of "teaching" is best IMO. But it is very impractical for two reasons. First, socratic teaching of simple truths takes a lot of time compared to scientific method, where truths are simply stated and examination of proofs is discretionary in individual. Second, socratic teaching requires expert teachers who know and understand proofs in the broad context of the subject, and are skilled verbal examiners. There are very few such people.

 

I agree with much of what you say.

 

Perhaps we need a dual track teaching system. We can teach youngsters the facts regarding the natural sciences and also teach them how to think critically and how to be a self-learner.

 

For such a dual track system we need some teachers who have the training and education required for teaching students how to deal with monological problems such as are encountered in the natural sciences and other teachers who can teach them so that they can handle the tasks of self learning and of dialogical thinking and communicative action that will be facilitated by teaching the Socratic method.

 

Of course all this must be supported by parents who have the capacity to comprehend the importance of both learning methods. Therein lay the rub. How do we convince adults, who have never learned such things, that they must become more intellectually sophisticated such that they can recognize that schools are more than child care facilities?