Maieutic

Origin

One allots to maieutic bond with the childbirth, making to Maïa a goddess of the childbirth and Sage-femme S. Maïa, one of the Pléiades, was mother of Hermes, itself father of Pan, God of the Great Whole, in the middle of the orphic tradition.

Techniques: irony and maieutic

This technique is an evolution of orphic know-how , which was based on the belief in the Réminiscence and the practice of the Katharsis, in particular by Pythagore.

The maieutic consists, according to the beliefs of this time and in this tradition, to make be confined the spirits the their knowledge accumulated in former lives. It is intended to make express a knowledge hidden in oneself , whereas the Ironie aims at making identify by the interlocutor a not identified ignorance.

The irony is addressed to the people who claim to know whereas they are in ignorance; the maieutic is applied to the people who are unaware of that they know.

Presentations by Socrate

In philosophy the concept of maieutic is closely related to the character of Socrate.

The first text of Plato (in the chronological order) in whom the concept of maieutic is associated to the character of Socrate is the Banquet . Socrat who repeats the remarks of the priestess Diotima affirms that the heart of each man is pregnant and that she wishes to be confined. However, this childbirth can be done only in the Beauty according to Diotima. It is precisely the role of the philosopher to make be confined the hearts in the Beauty so that it gives birth of the beautiful speeches ( logoi in Greek) and with beautiful works.

The second fundamental text to include/understand the statute of maieutic at Socrate is the Théétète of Plato. Socrate is presented to it in the form of an obstetrician of the spirits, not being able to be confined itself, contrary to Pythagore, which had affirmed themselves not like wise, but like a man liking wisdom. " Besides I have that of commun run with the midwives who I am sterile as regards wisdom, and the reproach that one made to me often question the others without never declaring me on any thing, because I does not have in me any wisdom, is a reproach which does not miss a vérité.".

Socrate affirms a divine inspiration, which makes him say that its disciples never learned anything from (him) and that they found to them-even in them and given birth to many beautiful things. But if they were confined about it, it is thanks to the god and with (him).

But Socrate practices the maieutic one with a whole series of characters in the dialogs presocratic. In the Ménon of Plato for example, Socrate makes a demonstration of the relevance of its questioning. It makes call a young slave and by maieutic questioning leads it to ressouvenir Théorème of Pythagore. The process is the following: accompaniment of by analogy discovered, revolt of the disciple and refutation of the false conclusions which are " aporétiques " i.e. dead ends in the reasoning (of the Greek " Aporia ", dead end, difficulties) ".

In the Phédon, Socrate which is in the previous moments its death, draft of the bond of maieutic with the reminiscence which makes it possible to the philosopher to remember his former existences. This conviction makes it possible Socrate to approach the death of the body with serenity. The process of the thought is by analogy and association of the Ideas, not by reference to the lived experiments. By doing this, it joined the step pythagorician. Its serenity is acquired because it is convinced that it will live the ïles happy (...) and will be honoured by the city if the Pythea allows it (cf Allégorie of the cave)

A modeling

In the Apology for Socrate, this last exposes its relation to wisdom, after having indicated that he believes to have in him wisdom, neither large nor small : (...) I reasoned thus in myself: I am wiser than this man. He can be well made that neither nor me know anything marvellous fort to him; but there is this difference that him, it believes it, though it does not know anything; and that me, if I do not know anything, I do not believe either to know. It thus seems to me that in that at least I am a little wiser, that I do not believe to know what I do not know. (21d-21e).

This dialog of Socrate is nevertheless a work impressed of the wisdom of the rhetorician vis-a-vis the sophist, marked by the exchange with Melitus which shows it to corrupt youth by teaching atheism to him. Socrate confronts it, through questions, with its contradictions. He manages to dismount the argumentation of his indicter, but the majority of the eleven judges condemn wisest of the men .

Four types of relations to the knowledge are thus to take into account -

what one knows that one knows - or marked as tel. Socrate here proceeded with its irony when it wished to transmit the message to his interlocutors that what they claimed to know rested only on prejudices and other ideas without bases; It can be a question here of the false knowledge…
what one knows that one does not know - application of the irony
what one does not know that one knows: and there applied art maieutician of the philosopher;
what one does not know that one does not know - all the field of unimaginable by each one and justifying the intervention of the philosopher, illustrated by accompagement exposed in the Allégorie of the cave, of the Livre VII of the Republic of Plato: maieutic.

The maieutic questioning, associated with the irony known as socratic, consists in the accompaniment of the reflection of its interlocutor to enable him to express the ideas that it has into clean.

The first two types are subjected to the doubt, in the idea that:

what one says that one knows that one knows is only belief
and what one knows that one does not know also leaves the open door to the frauds

The skepticism which results from this will also open the breach with the doubt of Rene Descartes and with the zetetician S.

Nowadays

The maieutic term of , laicized, generally includes the techniques of questioning aiming at allowing a person a setting in words of what it has of the evil to express, feel, or that of which it has evil to become aware (emotion S, Désir S, Envie S, Motivation…). It is thus used in bond with the empathic techniques developed by Carl Rogers, centered on the affect (listening activates or listens benevolent) or the techniques of Médiation, with the Alterocentrage , term created by Jean-Louis Lascoux, mediator.

References

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