What are dynamics of Socrates' therapy. How is it supposed to work? What are the preconditions for its success?

Question

Apology and Gorgias provide us with good reason to believe that Socrates diagnosed

the social and political corruption afflicting Athens by tracing it to a deeper moral

and spiritual corruption at the level of the individual soul. These writings also seem

to suggest that Socrates' intended therapy for the affliction consisted of a process of

dialogue intended to spur introspection and inquiry on the part of Socrates'

"patients," hopefully leading to a periagoge or metanoia or

"change of heart" leading

to personal reform and possibly~-by extension-

-social and political reform as well.

In addition to my initial question: Provide an assessment of this therapeutic approach. What, according to

your own assessment, are its strengths? What are its weaknesses, vulnerabilities or

limitations? I want to know what you think.

Answer 1

Considering that Socrates did not leave any writings of his own, what we actually know about him comes from the writings of his student, Plato. Both Socrates and Plato believe that real knowledge (truth), which we obtained from the previous life, is innate in the mind, and the only way to acquire it is through the Dialectic method (dialogue).

The question whether the Dialectic method to attain knowledge is efficient or not has been the subject of other philosophers afterwards and leads to the immergence of other methods to acquire knowledge currently known as theories of knowledge. Some examples are rational methods, sense-perception methods (Empiricism) and so forth.

Both of them also believe that to create the City of God, those charged of the safety of the City should undergo strict moral training to avoid any corruption. This is one of the major ideas in the Platonian Republic. Whether such an idea is adequate or weak has also been the subject of thinkers and remains controversial.