The main method Socrates uses in the dialogues is termed as the maieutike, which translates to 'of the mid-wife'. Socrates notes in the dialogue with Theaitetos that his own mother, Phainarete, was a midwife, and his own work really is similar, although more complicated in his view.
By this he explains that he means he is also not bringing something of his to life (his own ideas), but helps other people he talks to to examine their still unborn ideas, and bring them to the light and develop them. Or note if they are not actual ideas, but 'idols' (eidola), which they must be rid off.
It is not very far-fetched to claim that the previous philosophers have a far more constructive, and hypothesis/argument-based work, while Socrates appears to mostly wish to examine if the views he is listening to are actually logical as the thinkers proposing them deem them to be.
Ultimately, in the Platonic works, Socrates is more likely to end each dialogue by having highlighted enough of the ambiguousness in the discussion that the other thinkers have to accept they overstated their original basis for elaborating on set views they had. Parmenides is a notable exception in this type of development, cause that dialogue ends with Parmenides helping Socrates to examine if his idea of Eide (Categories/Archetypes) is really worthy of being further developed.
Socrates has been termed a decadent figure, and already himself named his own philosophy somewhat similarily, or at least easily accepted that he misses the vigor to develop his own ideas as set as the teachings and arguments of most other philosophers. While this at least in significant part is not a negative position (cause it rests on his view and research of logic which leads him to cancel the supposed validity of other people's 'good basis' for arguing their own views), in another part it seems very negative, and a modern philosopher who famously termed Socrates as decadent was F.Nietzsche.
While Nietzsche would later on term his own self (partly) as decadent philosophically too, and a little later just collapse after watching a horse being harmed and forced to try to carry impossible loads- an image which was right out of the Crime and Punishment chapter about Raskolnicov's feverish dreams that he had read a little prior to that real event of his own life), it still seems very valid to attach the connotation of decadence to a mind which (despite being of high intelligence) is not involved in actual birth or formation of an individual theory.
At any rate Nietzsche also commented that the presocratics were an amazing advancement of logic and thought, which almost was wiped out by the one figure of Socrates, working his way as an eroding element on the mololiths of previous philosophy dating back to the 7th century BC, and likely wounding what was to come after his own death in 399 BC, following his trial in the city now reduced to a wall-less satellite of Sparta.
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You can discuss about Socrates (and mostly his method), or note or ask similar things.
By this he explains that he means he is also not bringing something of his to life (his own ideas), but helps other people he talks to to examine their still unborn ideas, and bring them to the light and develop them. Or note if they are not actual ideas, but 'idols' (eidola), which they must be rid off.
It is not very far-fetched to claim that the previous philosophers have a far more constructive, and hypothesis/argument-based work, while Socrates appears to mostly wish to examine if the views he is listening to are actually logical as the thinkers proposing them deem them to be.
Ultimately, in the Platonic works, Socrates is more likely to end each dialogue by having highlighted enough of the ambiguousness in the discussion that the other thinkers have to accept they overstated their original basis for elaborating on set views they had. Parmenides is a notable exception in this type of development, cause that dialogue ends with Parmenides helping Socrates to examine if his idea of Eide (Categories/Archetypes) is really worthy of being further developed.
Socrates has been termed a decadent figure, and already himself named his own philosophy somewhat similarily, or at least easily accepted that he misses the vigor to develop his own ideas as set as the teachings and arguments of most other philosophers. While this at least in significant part is not a negative position (cause it rests on his view and research of logic which leads him to cancel the supposed validity of other people's 'good basis' for arguing their own views), in another part it seems very negative, and a modern philosopher who famously termed Socrates as decadent was F.Nietzsche.
While Nietzsche would later on term his own self (partly) as decadent philosophically too, and a little later just collapse after watching a horse being harmed and forced to try to carry impossible loads- an image which was right out of the Crime and Punishment chapter about Raskolnicov's feverish dreams that he had read a little prior to that real event of his own life), it still seems very valid to attach the connotation of decadence to a mind which (despite being of high intelligence) is not involved in actual birth or formation of an individual theory.
At any rate Nietzsche also commented that the presocratics were an amazing advancement of logic and thought, which almost was wiped out by the one figure of Socrates, working his way as an eroding element on the mololiths of previous philosophy dating back to the 7th century BC, and likely wounding what was to come after his own death in 399 BC, following his trial in the city now reduced to a wall-less satellite of Sparta.
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You can discuss about Socrates (and mostly his method), or note or ask similar things.
(Xenophon does not deal much with philosophy).
