THE IRONY OF SOCRATES. Socrates throughout his life put to the test many of those who had the glory of being wise and knowing something. A distinctive feature of Socratic conversations was irony.

This is evidenced by the dialogues of Plato, among which there are almost none where Socrates did not ironize, did not express his subtle mockery.

He constantly belittled himself and exalted others, pretending that he did not understand anything about the subject of discussion, and asked his interlocutor whose wisdom would undoubtedly enlighten him, Socrates, on the path of truth. Further, getting assent from the interlocutors at the beginning of the conversation, Socrates inconspicuously led them into a dead end, confusing and forcing them to abandon their previous yes. The greater the ironic buy-in, the more sensitive for the ironized was the loss during the conversation of those illusory virtues that the dangerous interlocutor subtly slipped to him as a trick and skillfully dispelled.

The course of the Socratic conversation gradually and imperceptibly eroded its initial assumption, which in the end turned out to be untenable in this case. His irony was a veiled mockery of the self-confidence of those who imagined themselves to be knowledgeable.

But his goal was not to expose and destroy, but to help a person become free, open to the truth, make him realize his ignorance and think about the way of life. It engendered in the souls of people a sense of the ideal, some kind of inner experience of higher realities. He wanted, with the help of his irony, to actively intervene in human life, change it and consciously improve it. In this Socrates fundamentally differed from the sophists, for whom the dispute was aimed at achieving the external effect of victory over the opponent.

So Socrates talked with philosophers, sophists, politicians, military leaders, poets, sculptors, artists, artisans, merchants, getters, freemen and slaves, influential citizens of the policy and ordinary people, men and women, old men and young men, people timid and arrogant, mediocre and ingenious, with friends and enemies, Athenians and foreigners, day and night, in military campaigns and at home, at liberty and in prison. And about everything he talked about gods and people, policy and laws, mind and stupidity, knowledge and ignorance, good and evil, good and justice, freedom and duty, virtues and vices, wealth and poverty, friendship and mutual assistance, self-knowledge and education, soul and body, life and death.

The interlocutors and topics of conversations changed, but the essence remained the same, fully armed with a reasonable word. Socrates was in a constant search for truth, justice, morality.

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The Socratic Phenomenon

Until now, philosophers are trying to approach its solution. Like a certain Sphinx, it towers over the entire ancient world. A skillful master of questions, fraught with a paradoxical answer. I know that I .. In essence, Socrates still remains incomprehensible. It is difficult to put it into some clear and simple characterization.

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It is instructive for a business person to get acquainted with the style of dispute of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. A distinctive feature of his way of conducting dialogue was irony. The irony of Socrates is a hidden mockery of the self-confidence of those who imagine themselves to be "knowledgeable." Pretending to be an ingenuous simpleton, asking questions all the time, Socrates led his interlocutors to a dead end, revealed their ignorance, showed that they do not have true knowledge, although they claim to. However, the irony of Socrates differs significantly from ordinary irony. Her goal is not just to expose and destroy someone, but to help a person to know himself, to become free, to show his creative potential.

The "naive" questions of Socrates were designed to cause confusion in the soul of a person, to make him think about his life. Many believed that Socrates deliberately conducts a conversation in such a way as to simply confuse the speaker with him. According to Plato, one of the interlocutors of Socrates, the Thessalian Menon, says:

I, Socrates, even before meeting you heard that you only do what you yourself are confused and confuse people. And now, in my opinion, you have bewitched and enchanted me and spoke so much that I have a complete confusion in my head. And yet, in my opinion, if you can joke, then you are very similar both in appearance and in everything to a flat sea stingray: after all, he numbs anyone who approaches him and touches him, and now, it seems to me, you did to me the same - I'm numb. In fact, my soul was numb, and my tongue was taken away: I don’t know how to answer you. After all, I spoke about virtue a thousand times in every way to different people, and very well, as it seemed to me, but now I can’t even say what it is at all.

Socrates objects to Menon, explains his position:

And I’ll say about myself: if this very stingray, leading others into a stupor, is itself in a stupor, then I look like it, and if not, then I don’t look like it. After all, it’s not that I, confusing others, myself clearly understand everything - no: I myself get confused, and confuse others. So it is now - I don’t know anything about what virtue is, and you may have known before, before meeting me, but now you have become very similar to an ignoramus in this matter. And yet I want to think with you and look for what it is.

The ultimate goal of Socratic dialogues and conversations was to find out the truth. Socrates called his method of conducting a dialogue with the help of skillfully posed questions and the answers received maieutics, believing that this form of conversation facilitates the birth of truth, leads the interlocutor to true knowledge. "I know that I know nothing”- the famous statement of Socrates, his creed, the expression of his view of knowledge.

Diogenes Laertes says that Socrates was stronger than his opponents in disputes, so he was often beaten and dragged by the hair, and even more often ridiculed and vilified. But he accepted it all without resistance. Once he even got a kick, but he endured it too, and when someone marveled at this, he answered: “If a donkey kicked me, would I sue him?”

I am devoted to you, Athenians, and I love you, - said Socrates, - ... and as long as I breathe and remain strong, I will not stop philosophizing, persuading and convincing each of you ... After all, I just do what I go and I urge each of you, both young and old, to take care, first and foremost, not about the body and not about money, but about the soul, so that it is as good as possible.

Speaking at the court with criticism of his accusers, Socrates tells how he became a seeker of wisdom. One day, Socrates' friend Herefont, having arrived in Delphi, dared to turn to the oracle with the question: is there anyone in the world wiser than Socrates. The Pythia (prophetress), who, according to legend, spoke on behalf of the Delphic god Apollo, answered him that there was no one wiser.

Hearing about this, Socrates, not considering himself wise, decided to understand what is the meaning of the words of the oracle. He went to a well-known statesman of Athens and, when he talked with him, he realized that he "only seems wise." Socrates tried to prove to him that he "thinks he is wise, but in fact he is not." However, this only aroused the hatred of the statesman and his entourage. This visit made things clear to Socrates:

Leaving there, I reasoned with myself that I was wiser than this man, because, perhaps, we both do not know anything good and sensible, but he, not knowing, imagines that he knows something, and if I I don't know, I can't imagine. In such and such a small way, I think, I will be wiser than he, since if I don’t know anything, I don’t imagine that I know.

After statesmen, Socrates went to philosophers, poets, artisans. All of them, Socrates notes, were good at their job. But the trouble is that "each of them considered himself the wisest also in everything else, even in the most important questions, and this error obscured the wisdom that they had."

Because of this very test, the Athenians, - Socrates continued, - on the one hand, many hated me so much that it is stronger and deeper and cannot be hated, which is why many slanders arose, and on the other hand, they began to give me the nickname of a sage, because those present each time thought that if I prove that someone is not wise in something, then I myself am very wise in this.

But Socrates himself does not claim to be a sage. His wisdom lies precisely in the understanding that he is not the owner of the truth.

In this judgment speech, Socrates compares himself to a gadfly:

It will not be easy for you to find such a person who is simply - although it is ridiculous to say - assigned by God to our city, as to a horse, big and noble, but lazy from obesity and in need of some gadfly to urge him on. So, in my opinion, God sent me to this city, so that, running around all day long, I would wake each of you, persuade, reproach incessantly. It will not be easy for you to find another like it, Athenians, but you can save me if you believe me.

But they did not believe him. Socrates' life ended tragically. Despite his immense popularity, he was brought to trial. He was accused of not recognizing the gods that the city honors, and introducing other, new gods. He was also accused of corrupting the youth. They could not forgive him for constantly “testing” people, revealing their ignorance, that, following his example, young people also “tested” their elders and put them in an awkward position. The authorities could not stand the "good-natured" irony of Socrates and sentenced him to death. Although he had the opportunity to escape from prison, he remained true to his principles to the end and drank the cup of hemlock intended for him (a poisonous plant. - Auth.).

The irony of Socratic conversations was tested by many devoted friends of Socrates, his faithful students, constant listeners, enthusiastic admirers. Some of them have reconstructed the conversations of Socrates with particular care. These writings have survived to this day and have not lost their significance as a basis for teaching the art of dialogue and exchange of opinions. These include the famous "Dialogues" of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, "Memoirs" of the historian Xenophon.

- an Athenian, born in a simple family, became the most famous ancient Greek thinker of his time. What was the philosophy of Socrates, biography and statements in the material of the article.

Biography of Socrates

Socrates was born into an ordinary family in the 5th century BC. His father worked as a sculptor, and his mother worked as a midwife. The future philosopher studied independently. From his father he took over the skill of a sculptor. He gathered young people who were eager to gain new knowledge. He conducted conversations on walks, squares, influencing the environment. Speaking as a teacher, he did not take money for conversations, considering it unacceptable to trade in wisdom. His biography was conducted by listeners, students and friends, since he himself did not write anything down. Philosophy is set forth in the writings of Xenaphon and Plato. But Plato inserted his own reasoning into the notes, presenting them as discussions between Socrates and the participants in the conversation.

The personality of Socrates is attractive to contemporaries. They formed other philosophical schools. Each continued his teaching. He was seen as the founder of a new philosophy. He was a teacher, a model of a clear mind and inner peace. His outward mediocrity refuted the ingrained notions of the Greeks that a beautiful soul is found only in a beautiful body. The sage's nose was flattened, his nostrils wide and upturned.

He talked with people from different social classes, and for everyone he tried to put the question in such a way that the interlocutor could correctly understand the meaning of what was said. Questions forced the interlocutor to think. Conversations with those who wished led him to the dungeon. He was charged with anti-state activities and serving the demon. The demon was the inner voice that prompted the philosopher to reason and think. He refused to escape from prison, despite an escape plan organized by his students and associates. In the spring of 399 BC. the philosopher drank from the goblet, which contained a poison that paralyzed the breath. Until the last day, he was calm and continued philosophical conversations and reasoning with himself.

The Significance of Socrates' Philosophy

Socrates is remembered by history as a reformer of theoretical and practical philosophy. Aristotle noted that it was Socrates who founded scientific methodology in the form of inductive reasoning and definition.

Socratic Method

The main idea of ​​the Socratic method is the search for truth through conversation or argument. From it came the idealistic dialectic. Dialectics is the art of finding the truth through the disclosure of contradictions in the interlocutor's reasoning and overcoming them. The method is based on two parts:

1. irony.
2. Mayeutics.

The Socratic method is based on systematic questions asked of the interlocutor, the purpose of which was to lead him to an understanding of his own ignorance. It's irony. But the ironic presentation of contradictions is not the essence of the method. The main thing in it is to find the truth through the disclosure of contradictions. Maieutics continues and complements the Socratic method.

The thinker himself said that his method, like a midwife, helps to give birth to truth. Thought is divided into links. From each, a question is formed, to which there is a short, or pre-clear answer. Simply put, this is a dialogue with the interception of the initiative.

We list the advantages of the Socratic method:

1. The attention of the interlocutor is concentrated and not scattered.
2. The illogicality in the chain of reasoning is quickly noticed.
3. The participants in the dispute find the truth.
4. In the chain of reasoning, other questions are resolved that are not related to the original topic.

Socrates' doctrine of goodness

Consider how Socrates understood goodness. Improving the conditions of education is the sacred duty of people. The most important thing is education, both personal and other people. The highest human wisdom is in the ability to distinguish good from evil. Every person should be guided by justice in actions. The doctor will not give useful advice to someone who monitors health. Knowledge is the only good, and ignorance is the only evil. One who follows his pleasures will not be able to keep his body and soul clean. Whoever wants to move the world must first move himself.

Women's love is worse than men's hatred. It is a poison dangerous with sweetness. Wisdom rules the world and heaven. Drunkenness reveals vice, but happiness does not change character. The ability to enjoy the little is a sign of a rich nature. Evil arises when a person does not know good.

About truth

Others' opinion doesn't matter. It is not the decision of the majority that wins, but the decision of a single person.

Socrates' doctrine of God

Theology was the completion of the philosophy of the sage. He claims that people are not capable of understanding the truth, only God knows everything. The Athenian philosopher did not feel fear of death, because he did not know whether it was good, evil, or the highest good, and said that a person in the face of death can prophesy. The sign does not leave him on the way to court and leaving the courtroom, everything happens as it should. Otherwise, he would have been stopped by a sign. The gods protect a good person during life and after death, taking care of his affairs. Socrates said about God: "I know he is and I know what he is." Matter in his definition is the expression of divine thoughts. He rejected the study of nature, considering it interference in the affairs of the gods.

People combine in themselves two opposites - soul and body, of which they are composed. The soul strives to know knowledge and virtue, the body strives for comfort and base desires. The difference of goals suggests a conflict between the soul and the body. It is necessary to take care of the soul, and ignore the bodily needs. The ideal is higher than the good, even under the threat of life and health.

The moral character of the mind puts it above the body. Reason has a supra-personal universal part. This part is the Universal Mind, or God.

The philosopher put the one God above the recognized Greek ones. The divine manifests itself in the soul of man, and the truth is hidden within him. God is not a person, but a world order endowed with reason. The wisdom of a man is worth nothing.

Ethics

What is the ethics of Socrates? The ethical meaning in his philosophy is virtue, knowledge of the good and actions in accordance with this knowledge. A brave man knows the right action and does it. A just person is one who knows how to act in public affairs and does so. A pious person knows the religious rites and observes them. Socrates spoke of the inseparability of virtue and knowledge. Acting immorally, people are mistaken and suffer from a misunderstanding of good and evil.

Virtue is achieved only by noble people. Among the virtues, the philosopher singled out:

1. Restraint is the ability to control passion.
2. Courage is the ability to overcome danger.
3. Justice is the observance of the law of people and God.

Virtues philosopher considered unchanging and eternal.

Consider the philosophical ethics of Socrates:

Cognition of the cosmos is impossible, man will not find a way out of contradictions. He is able to know what belongs to him - his own soul. Hence the demand of the philosopher "Know thyself." The purpose of knowledge is to guide a person in life. The value of knowledge of phenomena in the ability to live intelligently.

Socrates quotes

His statements combine wisdom and simplicity. Here are the words of an ancient philosopher:

1. "Marriage is a necessary evil."
2. “Get married. A good wife will make you an exception, with a bad wife you will become a philosopher.”
3. "Working without a goal is better than doing nothing."
4. "Force does not preserve friendship." Friends are caught and tamed through love and kindness.”
5. "Eat to live, don't live to eat."

Socrates' philosophy is an attempt to know oneself and other people of one's era. The theme of the human personality for the first time became central for the entire period of the development of philosophy as a science, which began to be called "Pre-Socratic".

Man becomes the only form. The last period of philosophy was focused on the search for being outside of man. This was a radical revolution in the development of the problems of worldview. Socrates was the first to formulate questions of the relationship between subject and object, spirit and nature, thinking and being. Philosophy considers not the division of concepts among themselves, but their relationship with each other.

Socrates spoke about the objective nature of knowledge, gave importance to man from the point of view of a being with morality. He believed in the kinship of the spiritual and the divine, thought about the immortality of the soul. God is the source of virtue and justice, a moral, and not a natural force, as was previously believed.

He was engaged in the strengthening and improvement of ethical idealism, but was not limited to this. The purpose of the philosophical search of Socrates is to understand virtue and follow it.

Socrates said that the relationship between the state and man is comparable to the relationship between parents and children. Children are obliged to obey their parents, and a person is obliged to express submission to the state. Based on this principle, the philosopher did not avoid the death sentence and did not escape from prison. Following truth and justice cost him his life, and death showed that the sage went to the end in his reasoning and lived in accordance with them.

Maieutics and "Socratic irony"

Socrates proposed a special philosophical method of cognition, which he called maieutics (Greek obstetric, midwifery art). The purpose of maieutics is to establish the truth with the help of skillfully posed questions. Like a midwife helping the birth of a person, maieutics, according to Socrates, helps the birth of a thought. Maieutics was most often expressed in the search for common things in particular cases, by comparing things, phenomena with each other, i.e. was an elementary inductive device.

Since Socrates demanded that the interlocutor give a definition of the concept of the thing under discussion, clarifying it, he suggested using maieutics in the unity of three points:

• (1) irony (benevolent ridicule), consisting in the fact that the interlocutor is caught in inconsistency, and therefore, in ignorance;
• (2) induction, requiring to go back to general concepts from ordinary ideas, isolated examples from everyday life;
• (3) definitions (definitions), meaning a gradual ascent to the correct definition of the concept.

The dispute according to the method of maieutics should go as follows: the interlocutor is required to define the concept of the subject of the dispute; if the answer turns out to be superficial, the interlocutors draw on examples from everyday life and clarify the first definition. And so on until the true thought is “born”. But before you begin to know a thing, you need to engage in self-knowledge. If I become aware that I myself am; then, therefore, I know who I should be. Hence his famous thesis: "Know yourself".

Knowledge, Socrates taught, is the concept of the general, which must be mined. famous in history "Socratic irony". Irony (stsopela - Greek pretense) is a technique of subtle, hidden or crafty ridicule, joking, in which the search for truth is carried out with a benevolent attitude towards both the interlocutor and the subject of the dispute. At the same time, Socrates believed that the truth in knowledge is revealed to those who are self-critical to themselves, who do not rest on their laurels. He borrowed from the sophists the principle "I know that I know nothing" and applied it actively when thinking about ethical problems.

Philosophy, Socrates believed, is not a speculative doctrine, but a doctrine of how to live. He considered life as an art for mastering the necessary knowledge. Knowledge should make a person happy. Thus, Socrates acted as a eudemonist, i.e. as a person who sees happiness as the end and means of life. Socratic eudemonism meant the demand for the inner freedom of the individual, achieved through its self-knowledge and independence from the outside world.

The most beautiful way of learning was invented back in the distant 5th century BC. e. philosopher Socrates. He believed that in order for a person to say a clever thing, he must be led to this conclusion with special leading questions. Over the past millennia, the Socratic method has not lost its relevance at all.

and its features

It is customary to call a Socratic dialogue a situation when truth is born in the process of communication between two subjects, neither of which is sure in advance which answers are correct. But at the same time, both of them are ready to give various arguments and facts and ask certain questions in order to eventually come to the right conclusions.

It is for this reason that some scholars liked to call Socrates the first psychoanalyst. After all, psychoanalysts also do not seek to explain to patients what is right and what is not. They only push a person to discover things that are important to him. In the process of conducting a conversation, Socrates asked questions in a certain order, so that the interlocutor's answers formed a coherent story, where one fact logically follows from another. At the same time, the interlocutor independently puts into words those ideas that were previously unknown to him, but to which he came in the process of Socratic dialogue with the help of reasoning.

The purpose of the technique

What was the main learning process for Socrates himself? He believed that the main thing is to approach the right decision through inductive dialogic reasoning. At the same time, it is necessary to doubt everything. As you know, Socrates said:

I know I don't know anything, but they don't even know that...

The main goal of the Socratic dialogue is not to tell, but to make your listener guess, to make an important discovery for himself. The truth that is born in the process of conversation, in fact, already determines the conversation itself. In a hidden way, the deductive concept precedes the inductive one.

Obstetrician of wise sayings

The main method of Socratic dialogue is usually called maieutics. The philosopher himself defined it as the subtle art of "obstetrics". The mother of Socrates, named Fenareta, was a midwife. And the philosopher often said that his work is similar to this craft. Only if the midwife helps women give birth to a child, then Socrates helps men to generate smart ideas (in those days, ladies-philosophers were very rare).

This is what the philosopher writes about in his dialogue “Theaetetus” regarding his method, along the way developing the idea that “one who is not able to do it himself teaches other people” (in the performance of Socrates, this thought is unlikely to be offensive to teachers - after all, the philosopher emphasizes that the ability to teach is also an important skill):

In my midwifery, almost everything is the same as theirs - the only difference, perhaps, is that I receive from husbands, and not from wives, and I take birth of the soul, and not of the flesh. The great thing about our art is that we can inquire in various ways whether the thought of a young man gives birth to a false ghost or a true and full fruit. In addition, the same thing happens with me as with midwives: I myself am already infertile in wisdom, and for which many have reproached me - I ask everything from others, but I myself never give any answers, because I myself am no I don't know wisdom, it's true. And the reason is this: God compels me to accept, but forbids me to give birth.

Socratic Methods

Socrates usually used two methods in his dialogues. The first one is irony. It consisted in showing the interlocutor how ignorant he was. The philosopher deliberately led the opponent to completely absurd conclusions, allowed him to follow false ideas in reasoning. Initially, it was assumed that a person, when he sees that he has driven himself into a trap, realizes his mistakes, and this will make him smile.

The second technique - "appearance" - implies the emergence of an interlocutor's interest in his own thinking. One of the most important philosophical aphorisms - “Know thyself” is devoted to this issue. This phrase was inscribed on the wall of the ancient temple of Apollo, located in Delphi. Socrates considered these words very important, because all his skill as a philosopher was aimed at a specific goal: to help people solve theoretical difficulties with the power of their mind.

It should also be noted that, from the point of view of the logical construction of the dialogue, Socrates used the method of induction. In other words, his reasoning proceeds from the particular to the general. This or that concept was defined in the process of Socratic dialogue through a series of questions clarifying its boundaries.

Three "yes" in the Socratic method

This method has only recently come to be called the principle of three yeses. But it has reached our time without changing its basic idea. In the process of building a Socratic dialogue with an interlocutor, it is important to follow the main rules and formulate questions so that the other person answers “yes” without a doubt. Using this method, you can prevent aggressive disputes in which people pursue the goal of asserting the last word for themselves, and not proving their case with the help of obvious facts. In the process of verbal skirmish, two types of communication arise - dialogue and monologue. As for the monologue, this is a simple, but completely ineffective option. And dialogue is a more perfect tool that allows you to convince the interlocutor of something. When using this method, friendly notes appear in the voice, and a person is led to a certain idea without any pressure.

Example

Consider the example of a Socratic dialogue.

- Socrates, any lie is evil!

- Tell me, does it happen that a child is sick, but does not want to take bitter medicine?

- Yes, definitely.

Is it possible that his parents trick him into taking this medicine in the form of food or drink?

- Of course it happens.

- That is, such a deception will help save the child's life?

- Yes maybe.

"And no one will be harmed by this lie?"

- Of course not.

- In this case, would such a deceit be considered evil?

- Not.

- It turns out that not everyone.

How to learn the method of Socratic dialogue?

To do this, you must adhere to the following rules.

• Preliminarily think over your speech logically, carefully analyze it. In order for the opponent to understand and then accept the idea, it is necessary to understand it very well yourself. And for this you need to put all your thoughts on a piece of paper. Then the main theses and the logical argumentation for them are singled out. This is the only way to fully understand the topic, clearly and clearly convey it to your interlocutor.
• Then the theses written on paper should be reformulated into questions. These understandable leading questions can lead the interlocutor to the necessary conclusion.
• Engage your interlocutor. There is a type of people who are not even inclined to enter into a dialogue, let alone listen to their opponent. Therefore, the beginning of the conversation should be thought out especially carefully.
• Try to take the initiative - you should not wait until the interlocutor begins to speak.

The main advantages of the method

The main advantages of the Socratic dialogue technology are as follows:

• A person comes to a conclusion himself, without any pressure or external coercion. And this means that he will not challenge him.
• If there is no pressure on the interlocutor, then there will be no opposition from him.
• The interlocutor involved in the conversation will listen more carefully to the statements than in the case of a simple monologue.

Where is technology used now?

This method can be applied in various areas of human activity, in the process of analyzing various problems and searching for their original causes. Questions allow you to explore the causal relationships that underlie a particular problem.

Nowadays, Socratic dialogue is often used in sales. It is one of the techniques for manipulating the mind of a potential buyer, who is asked skillfully planned questions in advance. The purpose of such questions is to arouse in the client the intention to buy a thing.

A positive goal of applying the Socratic technique may be the field of education and psychological counseling. In this case, a person comes to an understanding of certain truths that were previously inaccessible to him, but with the realization of which his life becomes brighter, more versatile.

in psychology

The conversation is one of the main psychotherapeutic tools, while it is widely used in counseling and Socratic dialogue. The therapist carefully prepares questions for the client to teach him new behaviors. The objectives of the questions are as follows:

• Clarify the difficulties.
• Help the patient to discover their wrong psychological attitudes.
• Explore the significance of certain events for the patient.
• Assess the consequences of maintaining negative thoughts.

With the help of the Socratic dialogue technique, the psychotherapist slowly leads his client to a certain conclusion, which he has already planned in advance. This process is based on the application of logical arguments, which is the essence of this technique. During a conversation with a client, the therapist asks questions so that the patient answers only positively. In this way, he approaches the adoption of a certain judgment, which was initially absolutely unacceptable for him.

Socratic in counseling

Consider a dialogue between a psychotherapist and a client. The patient is 28 years old, he works as a programmer in one of the large companies. He got a job in it recently, but during the entire time he has been working, thoughts of dismissal have not left him. Although he likes his work, conflicts with colleagues do not stop. He brought one of the employees to tears, trying to belittle her mental abilities regarding the use of a computer. Consider this client's conversation with a therapist as an example of a Socratic dialogue in psychotherapy.

Therapist: Do you try to prove to other employees that you are right in order to make your work more effective?

Patient: Yes.

T: Do other employees say that initially they were used to working in a completely different way?

P: Exactly.

T .: This situation is similar to the saying that you don’t go to a foreign monastery with your charter

P: Approximately so.

T .: I remember how I had to come from the capital to visit my relatives outside the city, and that striking difference in customs, communication between residents of a large city and a village. And this despite the fact that the town is only 120 km from the metropolis.

P .: What can I say here, as a child I was sent to a town 10 km from the capital, where people opened the door to the entrance only with a kick. Then we did not like the inhabitants of big cities ... Wait, so what is it, for my colleagues I look like a city dweller who came to visit the province?

The use of this method is useful both for psychologists and teachers, and for people far from these areas. Using the method of Socratic dialogue, you can bring the interlocutor to a certain conclusion, persuade him to accept his point of view.