Meaningful Dialogue

Extract

To indicate the subject of this essay two popular expressions, which everybody uses and professes to understand, have been deliberately chosen. Through this constant use the significance of the words has evaporated, and one is left with little more than a vague indication of goodwill and low-level understanding. Yet a closer study of both terms is rewarding since it leads straight into the mystery of human— and Divine—communication.

For all time the word ‘dialogue’ is linked to the name of Plato, who used this literary form to demonstrate his master’s method of enquiry and develop his own philosophy. For both philosophers the aim is the apprehension of truth. However, this is not handed over to the pupil in a packet to be passively accepted and absorbed. Socrates is conscious that he knows nothing. If he leads his disciples into making contradictory statements, he does not do so in order to overwhelm them at the end with a ready-made solution in the maimer of a deus ex machina. He shares his own thought processes with them, teaching them to examine their preconceived ideas. If the disciple takes this seriously he will learn to think for himself and acquire a sensible approach to philosophical problems. It is fascinating to follow the argument in a dialogue as superficially simple as Euthyphro. Twice the disciple is forced to admit that ‘piety’ is ‘piety’ because it is beloved by the gods, though he has previously agreed to the opposite statement and granted that ‘piety’ had a special excellence which makes it ‘pious’ and consequently beloved by the gods.