Socratize

Socratize

English

Alternative forms

• Socratise, socratize

Etymology

Socrates +‎ -ize

Verb

Socratize (third-person singular simple present Socratizes, present participle Socratizing, simple past and past participle Socratized)

1. To be like Socrates.
   • 1887, Robert Browning, Red Cotton Night-cap Country: Aristophanes' Apology:

     ...they started up a-stare At the half-helot captain and his crew —Spartans, "men used to let their hair grow long, To fast, be dirty, and just — Socratize " — Whose word was "Trample on Themistokles!"

   • 2008, Richard Gaskin, The Unity of the Proposition, page 271:

     In this case the principle fails because there is (to put the anti-Fregean's case in Fregean terms) nothing that does not Socratize if and only if wisdom does Socratize.

   1. To explore an idea by probing questions.
      • 1884, Christiana Bridge, History of French Literature, page 110:

        Socrates is satisfied to discuss with good sense, and is willing to examine, and to appeal to reason rather than to authority.” Then he asks himself if he cannot “Socratize” too, and the revolutionary standard is unfurled.

      • 1917, Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, Teachers' Problems and how to Solve Them:

        It is the teacher's duty to assign tasks to warn and to chastise; one favorite Pestalozzian method was to "Socratize," or, catechizing for cultivation of intellect and spiritual exercise.

      • 1952, Jacob Gould Schurman, ‎James Edwin Creighton, ‎Frank Thilly, The Philosophical Review - Volume 61, page 129:

        It is impossible to Socratize five-hundred students all at once.

      • 2006, Georges Anglade, Haitian laughter, page 165:

        Everyone was unwinding after the weekly tensions of our final year—from the professor before us (who would Socratize in a bantering, conversational tone with teenagers) to the gang at the back of the room, half-heartedly following the dialogued chain of ideas in this majeutical formulation.

      • 2011, Coffee - Philosophy for Everyone: Grounds for Debate, page 75:

        It just so happens that coffeehouses are particularly good places to Socratize.

   2. To sodomize
      • 1981, Size Queen and Other Poems, page 11:

        Laid back now that I'm 36 & middle-aged, even so I like to Socratize with youngmen.

Usage notes

This term is usually capitalized when it refers to the exploration of ideas or other senses that are complimentary to Socrates, while the lower case version is more often used for senses less complimentary to Socrates.)