Tully attacks the use of the Socratic method in law schools. (Warning: Strong language!) The method, I’ve always thought, is misnamed. Socrates asks questions of people who claim to know something; he doesn’t call on Athenians who have come to learn from him and make no such claim. Moreover, he asks questions that tease out implications of the views of his interlocutors. He doesn’t ask questions like “What are the facts of Skinner v. Oklahoma?” or issue commands like “Describe the argument of Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson.” Perhaps that’s why philosophers, who see themselves as following in the footsteps of Socrates, never use the so-called Socratic method.
