சோக்கிரடீசிய முறையியலின் வரலாற்று நீட்சியும் அறிவினைப் பெற்றுக்கொள்வதற்கான கருவியாக அதன் பயன்பாடும் - ஒரு வரலாற்று நோக்கு

Abstract

The objective of philosophical investigation is to find ultimate truth of the subject matter researched. Socrates had been celebrated as a great contributor to this long tradition, starting with Thales of pre-Greek period. The death penalty imposed on him by the democratic government of Greek is recorded in the history as an abuse of power and the tyranny of the democratic majority against the attitude and behavior of seeking to find truth. However, the legacy of his thought for the acquisition of true knowledge has evolved over the centuries, creating scholarship on various subjects. This methodology later referred as the ‘Socratic Method’ has been used by different thinkers under different names and in different forms as a tool for the formation and explanation of knowledge. The ‘Dialectical Method’ used by Hegel, hailed as the most significant German thinker of all time, was also used by Karl Marx to explain the economic development of human history. The Skepticism introduced by Rene Descartes in the early parts of the modern period is also a semblance of this method. The Socratic Method is the backbone of the scientific philosopher Carl Popper’s concept of ‘Scientific Attitude’, and the concept of ‘Paradigm Shift’ put forwarded by Thomas Kuhn, as well as the arguments put forward by the political philosopher J. S. Mill in his book ‘On Liberty’ to justify the idea of freedom of expression. In the later development, this method was the basis for designing techniques for brainstorming discussions and psychological counselling, especially in Logo Therapy. In this basis, the objective of this research article is to examine how each of the above thinkers has manipulated the Socratic method, and practices in their respective works, and through which scholarly activities have been carried out. The research problem is how the scholarly expressions of different thinkers might have been based on a single system. To this end, this qualitative research is based on secondary data such as books by thinkers and books that have been written after researched in relation to these original concepts. Through this the Socratic method has been found to be an excellent tool for scholarly activities and its application has been widely used in the fields of natural and social sciences. Furthermore, this research reveals the intellectual progress that human beings have made so far and the essential nature of the application of this method to further progress in the future.