Ancient Wisdom

"The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge;
secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others" John Locke

"The didactic function of the Socratic method, in aiding us to probe beneath cliche's and conventional dogmas, has long been recognized. In the hands of a skillful teacher it can be of great assistance, enabling the student to cultivate a critical attitude towards generalizations and to discover for himself why his position is untenable and how to reformulate it more adequately. It can easily be abused, however, and often is by self-styled dialecticians who are able only to reproduce Socrates' irony without his wisdom and whose sole purpose is to create confusion and to heap ridicule on an opponent. " Daniel J. Bronstein in Basic Problems of Philosophy 3rd ed. (1964) Prentice Hall