The Socratic Elenchus

Gregory Vlastos
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 79, No. 11, Seventy-Ninth Annual Meeting of the American
Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. (Nov., 1982), pp. 711-714.
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THE SOCRATIC ELENCHUS

71 1

U'e now have available to find the credence of the Ks the methods
first explored by von Neumann and ~ o r ~ e n s t e r n . ~ '
Simply putting Bolker together with von n'eumann-Morgenstern
to get a representation theorem for causal decision theory is rather
profligate with respect to structural conditions. Recent unpublished work of Brad ~ r m e n d suggests
t~~
that we can do better using
results of Hernstein and hlilnor and of ~ i s h b u r n . * ~
COSCL~SIOS

There are ways of comparing the causal and evidential paradigms,

other than asking "What would you consider the rational choice in
such and such a situation?" Some of these ways, I believe, generate
questions of real theoretical interest.
BRIAN SKYRAIS

University of California at Irvine

T H E SOCRATIC ELENCHUSX
H E SOCRATES of my paper is the "Socrates" of Plato's
earlier dialogues where, in my view, Plato recreates the
philosophical method and doctrines of the historical figure.
I focus on what I take to be Socrates' main instrument of philosophical investigation, which I call "standard elenchus." I distinguish this from "indirect elenchus," so called (by Richard Robinson and others) because here the refutand may be used as a premise
i n its own refutation. Here Socrates is uncommitted to the truth of
the premise-set from which he deduces the negation of the refutand. T h i s mode of argument is a potent instrument for exposing
inconsistency within the interlocutor's beliefs. But it cannot be expected to establish the truth or falsehood of any particular thesis.
For this Socrates must turn to standard elenchus.
I argue that this is a search for moral truth through two-party
J . von Xeumann and 0. hlorgenstern, Theory of Game.r and Ecotzomzc Behavlor
(Princeton: University Press, 1947).
22
Disse~tationin progress, Unive~sityof Illinois at Chicsgo Circle.
23
I. S . Hernstein and J , h l i l n o ~ ,"An Axiomatic Approach to hleasurable LTtility," Econo,r~etr~ca,
xxr (1953): 291-297, and P. C. F i s h b u ~ n ,"A hlixtu~e-setAxiomatization of Conditional Subjective Expected Utility," Econonzetrzca, sr.1 (1973):
1-25.
*Abstract of a paper to be presented i n a n P symposium of the same title, December 29, 1982. K i c h a ~ dKraut will comment; his papel is not available at this
time.
0022-362X 821791 1/07] 1$00 50

E.

1982 T h e Journal of Philoroph\, Inc

712

THE J O U R X A L OF PHILOSOPHY

question-and-answer adversative argument, which normally proceeds as follows:

1. The interlocutor, "saying what he believes," asserts p, which Soc-

rates considers false, and targets for refutation.

2. Socrates obtains agreement to further premises, say 9 and r, which
are logically independent of p. T h e agreement is ad hoc: Socrates
does not argue for 9 or for r.
3. Socrates argues, and the interlocutor agrees, that 9 and r entail not-p.
4. Thereupon Socrates claims that p has been proved false, not-p true.

Novel features of this analysis are the following:

I. Since only moral truths are debated, the elenctic method is not
itself investigated elenctically. As a purely moral inquirer Socrates
abstains on principle from inquiry into the theory and method of
moral inquiry. For the same reason he does not use the elenctic
method to investigate the logical conditions of the right answer to
a "What is F?" question. These he lays down and demands compliance. T h e interlocutor is not portrayed as having dissenting
views about them, but as needing instruction on their very rudiments, which Socrates is ever ready to provide.
11. Observance of the "say what you believe" rule is vital, for this
is what marks off decisively the practice of elenchus from that of eristic. In the latter, where the prime object is to win the argument,
one can say anything that will yield a debating advantage. In the
former, where the prime object is to discover truth, one does not
have that option. One must say what one believes even to the detriment of one's fortunes in the debate. One must prefer to be refuted-to lose the argument-if what one believes is not true. (Exceptionally, the rule may be waived: as a pzs aller, to induce a
worsted opponent to stay in the argument and face the music.)
111. T h e premises q and r obtained at 2, from which Socrates deduces the negation of p a t 3, are logically unsecured within the argument. T h o u g h Socrates has undoubtedly reasons for each of
them, he does not bring those reasons into the argument. He asks
the interlocutor whether he agrees, a n d if he gets agreement he goes
on from there. So in elenctic argument the question of referring to
a court of last appeal for settling philosophical disagreement does
not arise. In particular, there is n o appeal to what Aristotle takes to
serve this purpose: None to those "primary," necessary, self-evident
truths which he regards as the foundation of demonstrative argument, a n d none to "what is commonly believed" (ta endoxa),
which is for Aristotle the foundation of dialectical argument. If
this fundamental feature of the elenchus is missed, it will be con-

713

T H E S O C R A r I C ELENCHUS

flated with ordinary dialectical argument from endoxa. So it is in

one of the landmark studies in the field, the volume on Socrates in
Eduard Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen: Zeller is misled by his reliance on Xenophon. T h e mistake has been frequently repeated,
most recently in W. K. C. Guthrie's History of Greek Philosophy,
volumes 3 and 4. In these and many other works the elenchus disappears from view.
IV. My interpretation of the elenchus has affinities with that of
Richard Robinson, Norman Gulley, and Terry Irwin, all three of
whom recognize that the elenchus is used by Socrates not merely
destructively, to expose his adversaries' "conceit of knowledge,"
but also constructively, to provide rational support for his own
moral doctrines. But I differ from each in important ways. I reject
Robinson's claim, which has been widely influential, that Plato
"habitually thought and wrote as if all elenchus consists in reducing the [interlocutor's] thesis to a self-contradiction" the claim is
textually baseless. I disagree with Gulley's view that elenchus
makes implicit appeal to self-evidence2:Socrates allows himself the
use of premises which are anything but self-evident and may even
be contra-endoxic. I dissent from Irwin's view that "not all [of Socrates'] positive doctrines rely on the elenchus; some rely on the
analogy between virtue and craftH3:the arguments by which Socrates draws conclusions from that analogy are themselves elenctic.
I also dissent from his view that Socrates "normally" imposes certain constraints on what the interlocutor can say in arguing
against him" (ibid., p. 39): the textual evidence appears to be that
Socrates always allows, indeed requires, the interlocutor to say anything he believes.
V. T h e most radical feature of my understanding of the elenchus
shows u p at 4 in the above analysis: Socrates claims to prove the
falsehood of the refutand. I accept the burden of proof in holding
that Socrates really makes this claim, so unjustified in point of
logic, o n the face of it, since from the fact that not-p is entailed by
the conjunction of q and r (for neither of which has any argument
been given), all that follows is that p is inconsistent with those
premises, so that if the interlocutor chooses to stick by the premises
he must consider p false; whereas what Socrates is driving for is
universally valid, true, results whose discovery is "a common good
for practically all mankind" (Charmides 166D). Is Socrates really

':

'Richard Robinson, Plato's Earlier Dialectic (New York: Oxford, 1953), p. 28.
2 N ~ r m aG
n ulley, T h e Philosophy of Socrates (New York: St. Martin's, 1968), pp.
43/4.
'Terence Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory (New York: Oxford, 1977), p. 37.

714

T H E JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

claiming to get such results, or should suggestions of his to that effect be discounted as hyperbole? I argue that the claim is made in
dead earnest and then proceed to ask how Socrates could have felt
entitled to make it. I argue that it was predicated on two assumptions of his which can be teased out of some of his remarks i n the
Gorgias:
A. Every person's set of beliefs always includes a subset of beliefs which
entails the negation of each of that person's false moral beliefs.
B. T h e set of moral beliefs held by Socrates at any given moment is
consistent.

From A and B Socrates would naturally infer that his own set of
moral beliefs is the true set. For if it contained any false moral belief then, by A, it would include beliefs entailing the negation of
that belief, a n d then it would be inconsistent, contrary to B. O n
these assumptions, to prove the inconsistency of the opponent's
thesis with the premises to which Socrates had agreed would be to
prove that thesis inconsistent with the true set and, hence, to prove
it false.
For A and B Socrates could have had only inductive evidenceprobable inference from his own experience in elenctic argument.
T h e inference is doubly insecure-glaringly so i n the case of A,
more insidiously so in the case of B: success i n elenctic argument
need not show that one's own beliefs are consistent; i t may show
only that the opponent's efforts to probe their inconsistencies have
been blocked by one's superior dialectical skill. Socrates could
hardly be unaware of these hazards. T h i s must contribute to his
sense of the fallibility of his method, which I take to be the right
clue to his disavorual of knowledge even concerning beliefs that
have been "clamped down and bound" elenctically "by arguments
of iron and adamant" (Gorgias 508E-509A).
GREGORY I'LASTOS

University of California/Berkeley and the Hastings Center