Setting aside the opening elenchus which elicits Thrasymachus' conception of the real ruler, Socrates offers five arguments against Thrasymachus. |
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On the other hand, Socrates's employment of the dialectical method, the so-called elenchus, aimed at considerably more than negative knowledge. |
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He is here following Socrates' method of the elenchus, where you propose a definition, but then throw it away if it is shown to be in some way imperfect. |
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Although Socrates uses this style of conversation for a number of different purposes, it has been called the Socratic method, and in one of its forms is has become known to scholars as the elenchus. |
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The desire to ensure irrefutability, perhaps the legacy of reflection on the Socratic elenchus, drives him to the conclusion that one really has recollected the Form only when one has become a metaphysician. |
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In the dialogues of this group, the elenchus is a negative instrument, but in the Gorgias Socrates seems to use it in support of his bedrock principle. |
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