The Intelligent Troglodyte’s Guide to Plato’s Republic, 2016a

69 Abuses of Refutation
See 537d-539d. Socrates wants to make clear that he is not endorsing “dialectical
discussion as it is currently practiced,” meaning the sort of thing taught by the
sophists. This was skill at presenting a point of view persuasively and refuting the
other side, not for the sake of getting at the truth, but in order to persuade. Unlike
the highly regarded sophist Protagoras, who claimed to teach how to make the
weaker side in a dispute appear to be the stronger, Socrates wants a kind of
dialectic that reveals the weaker side for what it is. He warns against introducing
dialectical refutation to people who are still young (not yet thirty), for, “like
puppies,” young people “enjoy dragging and tearing with argument anyone within
reach,” until, “when they have refuted many themselves and been refuted by
many, they quickly fall into violently disbelieving everything they believed
before.” Traditional values and convictions fall quickly to the dragging and
tearing of refutation, and if one is not striving with all of one’s might to determine
what should take their place, nothing will take their place.
Is it bad for young people to become disillusioned with traditional ideals?
Consider how debate is currently taught and practiced in American high
schools and colleges. Does participation in this activity harm young
people?
Socrates says that it is a mistake to let people “taste argument while they are
young.” And yet he was famous in his day for doing just this. He would
walk the streets of Athens and enter into philosophical conversation with all
sorts of people, but especially young men and boys who were intelligent,
pretentious, or both. Suppose someone were to object that Socrates
knowingly took part in corrupting the youth of Athens. How might he
reply?
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