Maieutics

The maieutics (from the Greek μαιευτικóς, maieutikós, «expert in deliveries»; μαιευτικη´, < i>maieutiké, "technique of assisting in childbirth") is the method applied by Socrates through which the teacher makes the student, through questions, discover knowledge.

Like the midwife, Socrates performs three main or fundamental functions: awakens and soothes the pain of childbirth, manages difficult deliveries well and causes, if necessary, abortion; the process is painful due to the cruel questions of the Socratic method, but this triggers enlightenment, in which the truth starts from the individual himself. The invention of this method of knowledge dates back to the 4th century BC. C. and is generally attributed to the historical Socrates in reference to the work Theaetetus, by Plato.

Maieutics is the second phase of the Socratic method. The first is the so-called Socratic irony, in which the teacher feigns ignorance on the matter to be dealt with, initially extolling the qualities of his interlocutor to, later, make him understand that what he thought he knew was not really true. knows it and that his knowledge was based on prejudice or custom.

Next would come maieutics, which is the pedagogical action of the method. The technique consists of asking the interlocutor questions through which he discovers general concepts that help him see the light.

Etymology

"Maieutics" is a Greek word (μαιευτική); said "maieutiké" and which is translated as obstetrics, that is, the one that deals with midwifery or obstetrics. Socrates' mother, Fenáreta, was a midwife.

Socrates modified the medical meaning that maieutics had and redirected it to the philosophical realm. While the real meaning of maieutics is "the art of sharing", Socrates focused it on "the art of helping to give birth to knowledge". The Socratic style consists in that, based on questions, the interlocutor meditates and finds the answers himself.

Possible origin

The only documents that attribute the invention of maieutics to Socrates are Plato's dialogues The Banquet and Theaetetus. Therefore, it is not historically proven that Socrates was its inventor. But in current philosophy it is believed that he is the author of this method and this is found in books about Socrates written by his disciple Plato.

Its fundamental theme is the question: What is knowledge? Theaetetus, a young student of mathematics and related sciences, proposes three definitions that are rejected by Socrates. Knowledge cannot be defined either as perception or as true opinion, nor as an explanation accompanied by true opinion. Socrates refutes these arguments from a critical point of view, that is, he only questions what Theaetetus proposes through questions and does not formulate a concept of knowledge.

From this dialogue comes a traditional definition of knowledge, which considers it as justified true belief.

Techniques: maieutics and Socratic irony

This technique is an evolution of the technical knowledge of Orphism, which is based on the belief in the theory of reminiscence and the practice of catharsis, especially developed in Pythagoras.

Maieutics consists of the belief that there is knowledge that is accumulated in consciousness by tradition and the experience of past generations. Therefore, in maieutics the individual is invited to discover the truth that is latent and unconscious in him, while irony, historically created by Socrates, fights in the individual what is wrong in what he thinks he knows and what he believes to be true, when in fact it is false.

Irony is directed at those people who pretend to know, but are actually ignorant, while maieutics is directed at those who believe they are ignorant without being so.

Presented by Socrates

In philosophy, the concept of maieutics is linked to the historical figure of Socrates.

The first text by Plato (in chronological order) that relates maieutics to the character Socrates is The Banquet. Socrates, repeating the words of the priestess Diotima, says that every man's soul is pregnant and he wants to give birth. However, this birth cannot take place, says the beautiful Diotima. It is precisely the role of the philosopher to help give birth to the soul (the "midwife"), and this light is beauty, which is defined as the λóγος. From this birth comes the word "mayéutica, which translates as "the midwife".

The second Platonic dialogue to understand the maieutics placed on the character of Socrates is Theaetetus. He reminds the character of this name that his mother, Fenáreta, was a midwife, and warns him that he himself also deals with obstetric art; only his art applies to men and not women, and he deals with their souls and not their bodies. For just as the midwife helps to give birth, but does not give birth herself, so the art of Socrates consists not in giving the same knowledge, but in helping the soul of those questioned to give birth to the knowledge of that they are pregnant

In a simple and coherent definition, maieutics is answering questions with more questions; In this way, an end is reached, an end in which the answer is given by the disciple himself.

In education

Maieutics, as a method of knowledge, has been especially important in education, since it compares the philosopher with the educator, like that of a midwife who carries the child to light. The maieutics uses dialogue as a dialectical instrument to reach knowledge.

The basic idea of the Socratic method of teaching is that the teacher does not instill knowledge in the student, since he rejects that his mind is an empty receptacle or drawer in which the different truths can be introduced. In the Socratic school, the disciple seeks knowledge through dialogue with the teacher.

In psychoanalysis: Jacques Lacan

Other disciplines and sciences have been inspired by the maieutic method. In the 20th century, Jacques Lacan understood psychoanalysis mainly as a maieutic method through which the analyst (psychoanalyst) favors the analysand (patient) to find his own process, since he is considered as who he really is who has (unconsciously) Knowing what affects you. In such a case, the analyst stimulates the analysand so that he can make what is unconscious conscious.

Paulo Freire

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and influential educational theorist, places great value on words. In his work Pedagogy of the oppressed , he offers us the search for a liberating education, and of course, neo-Socratic , since the awareness-raising communication that he exposes us is eminently maieutic. According to this pedagogue, dialogue is a meeting of men mediated by the world, to pronounce it, not exhausting itself, therefore, in the mere I-you relationship. As an existential requirement, committing to speak to the world through dialogicity, does not imply the imposition of a truth; rather it is a creative act. Hence, to conceive this act within education as a liberating practice, the presence of the "banking educator", "anti-dialogic", is not permissible, since he insists on promoting answers to questions that have not been asked and possibly those answers are dominant., impositors, of apparent truths not subjected to trial. For the educator-student, the dialogue promotes the constant return (not the deposit) of organized, systematized and increased elements. Only dialogue implies critical thinking, thereby potentiating man's capacity for transcendence and creativity when educating within a context of freedom and not of imposition. Contemplates man as a subject and thinking entity that can contribute to the educator, who does not have the absolute truth, and in this way create an educated but not domesticated society, only with this, he considers, we will be able to break with established models and carry out a total transformation. For this reason, for Freire, true education is dialogue.

Other interpretations

Alternatively and recently, we can also find visions that enhance the objective importance (objectual, noethological) of maieutics, establishing an analogy between midwifery in the strict sense and the critical work that philosophy performs in regard to the aporias given in other disciplines (philosophy as "knowledge of knowledge"), scientific, yes, but also technical, artistic, literary, &c. This in order to face hegemonic interpretations (mainly psychological and pedagogical) that maieutics has been receiving for centuries by numerous traditions, conceiving it as a kind of "communication between souls".

Spotlights

Maieutics is necessarily integrated into Socratic irony, which is the first phase of debugging thought from prejudices.

The basic elements of the Socratic dialogue are the question, the answer, the debate and the conclusion. Among these elements is the initial idea, which can be erratic or ignored, and the final idea, which is reached through intellectual discernment.

Phases of the Socratic School

In this sense, three phases can be determined within the Socratic school:

• Socratic irony: In this, the student responds without thinking much about what he says. Usually, the student or disciple thinks what he believes is true, but in reality he has not had time to develop an objective thinking about what he believes. This corresponds to what is known in philosophy as prejudice. The philosopher debated the idea that the disciple has through questions, until the disciple discovered that what he thought was wrong or incomplete.
• The Maya: This is placed on the second level of the democratic process. Free from prejudice, the disciple is invited to continue the dialogue to deepen the coherence of the truth. It is part of the idea that knowledge is latent in human consciousness and that it is necessary to be born, parirlo (partera = mayéutica).
• Alétheia: It's transcription of the Greek word φλθεια, alétheia, which is translated as "truth" or "true"; it is the phase of conclusion in which the student becomes master of the truth he has discovered. The Greek word alétheia it translates literally as "without veil" (φ-λςθεια), taking also the meanings of "not being hidden", "which is evident".