Seite - 751 - in The Complete Plato

THEAETETUS: The instruction which you mean, Stranger, is, I should imagine, not the teaching of handicraft arts, but what, thanks to us, has been termed education in this part the world. STRANGER: Yes, Theaetetus, and by nearly all Hellenes. But we have still to consider whether education admits of any further division. THEAETETUS: We have. STRANGER: I think that there is a point at which such a division is possible. THEAETETUS: Where? STRANGER: Of education, one method appears to be rougher, and another smoother. THEAETETUS: How are we to distinguish the two? STRANGER: There is the time-honoured mode which our fathers commonly practised towards their sons, and which is still adopted by many— either of roughly reproving their errors, or of gently advising them; which varieties may be correctly included under the general term of admonition. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: But whereas some appear to have arrived at the conclusion that all ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise is willing to learn any of those things in which he is conscious of his own cleverness, and that the admonitory sort of instruction gives much trouble and does little good— THEAETETUS: There they are quite right. STRANGER: Accordingly, they set to work to eradicate the spirit of conceit in another way. THEAETETUS: In what way? STRANGER: They cross-examine a man’s words, when he thinks that he is saying something and is really saying nothing, and easily convict him of inconsistencies in his opinions; these they then collect by the dialectical process, and placing them side by side, show that they contradict one another about the same things, in relation to the same things, and in the same respect. He, seeing this, is angry with himself, and grows gentle towards others, and thus is entirely delivered from great prejudices and harsh notions, in a way which is most amusing to the hearer, and produces the most lasting good effect on the person who is the subject of the operation. For as the physician considers that the body will receive no benefit from taking food until the 751