It’s All Greek to Me: A Socratic Critique

Kaleb Evans-Lao

Editors Note: While this article reflects the author’s views, it does not adequately represent the Law School’s work in teaching and developing tikanga Māori. For a more accurate and in-depth look at this work, please see the news page.

The Socratic method is a form of teaching that fascinated me long before I ever went to university. I pictured a lecture theatre full of lively debate over ethics, with each mind pouring its intellectual capacity and opinions to create a truly thoughtful experience. 

This delusion is what led me to want to go to study law at Victoria, because (to my knowledge at the time) it was the only school in Aotearoa that taught law in a Socratic manner. 

So, as law students before me have argued for the virtues of Socratic teaching, let me provide the rebuttal based on my current experiences with 100 and 200 level law courses. 

To begin, let’s explain what is meant by “Socratic teaching”. It takes many forms, as I will explain shortly, but in the university context it is a method of teaching that primarily uses questions to go through course content. A lecturer calls upon someone to answer, and an answer is given. The difference between Socratic teaching and usual lecture questioning is that questions are the primary activity and often have little to no accompanying slides. 

Paul Scott was my first true introduction to Socratic teaching. He delegates questions to someone at random, and they have to answer in some capacity. He makes it clear (at least in his 100 and 200 level courses) that he is fine with “I don’t know” and takes care not to belittle answers, though he might make the occasional quip.  Despite this, it's often a task of herding cats when it comes to getting an answer out of people. Sometimes we get a long chain of  “I don't know” before finally arriving at something useful. 

If you have done your readings and thus know the answer, you're left stewing in your own twitchy rage as someone clearly behind gives a flowery answer without substance to cover their lack of effort. All of this leads to lengthy lectures that drag on just to get to a simple, near-binary answer.

A benefit to Paul's system is that, because you can be picked at random, it strongly encourages you to do your readings and know your stuff, lest you look like a fool in front of the lecture theatre. It certainly worked for me; my contract notes during that course taught me are probably the best I’ve produced. Whether this is an intended or effective motivator for the rest of the cohort is debatable. I’ve met people who regard Paul with infamy—they talk of him more like a bad period in their life than a learning experience. Paul himself seems aware of this; he occasionally mentions the feedback he receives, none of which is particularly kind. Poor fellow.

LAWS213 (Public Law) has an interesting system. The Socratic method is delegated to a group of different students each week, and they are expected to answer during that time. While this lets everyone have a go, it loses the pressure to keep up with readings—if it isn't your week, you hardly need to care (beyond your own success in the course).  It also doesn't solve the problem of how long it takes to extract answers.

I can't imagine this is particularly enjoyable for the lecturers either—probing for a simple answer only to get blank stares from a packed lecture theater. So what is keeping people quiet,  and should we continue to use the Socratic method? Ultimately, I'm not going to transcribe a student's answer unless I know it's correct—usually when the lecturer confirms it—so I still just end up writing what the lecturer says at the end of the day. Not unlike a standard, Powerpoint-assisted lecture. 

These uses of the Socratic method are very different from what was recorded in Plato’s dialogues. Notably, they are far more restrained. In Euthyphro, Socraties engages a single person, challenging their beliefs about piety—one party questioning, the other justifying. In contrast, most Socratic law questions boil down to “what do the readings say?” This is not to say law courses are devoid of thought-provoking questions, but they aren’t common—even among lecturers who teach Socratically. 

Perhaps it is the nature of students. I am no paragon of principle—I get a healthy mix of B’s and C’s (LAWS-wise), I show up to most lectures, and I certainly haven't always done the readings beforehand. But there are plenty of A students—enough, at a glance, to populate most lecture streams. Surely these people would come in as our saviours, and answer every question perfectly? Unfortunately not—and arguably that isn’t the point. 

I remember being told by my LAWS123 lecturer to stop answering questions so others could have a go. That's fair, but without me, on this particular day, the answers took much longer to surface. It was like I was the only one who had done the reading that week. Or maybe it was just first-year social anxiety. Regardless, it's clear lecturers want everyone to participate, but it’s equally clear that most students don’t want to. This creates a problem: either the same few students always speak on behalf of the group, or you get softly spoken, tentative answers that circle the question without landing. The lecturer then either teases the answer out themselves or moves on. This charade takes up valuable lecture time for something that ultimately isn't that enlightening. 

Perhaps there are simply too many law students for the Socratic method to work effectively. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates speaks with one or a few people—nothing like the large lecture theatres of 100 and 200 level Law. Another difference is that these courses are mandatory, meaning lectures are fighting an uphill battle to engage students, some of whom might not even like the subject. That would certainly explain why questions rarely go beyond “where in the readings does it support your answer?”.

Perhaps it is the nature of the subject itself. Law is sometimes rather empirical: this happened in X case, thus on these facts Y would occur. Socrates grappled with questions of philosophy—questions that invite bias and opinion more readily than case outcomes. While we are sometimes encouraged to agree or disagree with rulings, this is usually grounded in other empirical observations, such as dissenting judgments. There may be no single right answer in law, but acceptable answers require knowledge of cases and principles. That constraint limits how far ideas can stretch in discussion. 

And, unlike in Plato's dialogues, disagreement isn't really the point. 

Perhaps it is the university environment. As much as lecturers try, lectures are not truly safe spaces for discussion. It is nerve-wracking for many people (myself included) to speak—and, moreover, attempt to have a correct assertion—in front of strangers. Your answer may be discussed outside of class. You might struggle with articulation due to disability, proficiency, or fluency. You might simply not perform well under pressure. The Socratic method takes little account of these factors. Assurances like “you won’t be judged” rarely eliminate that anxiety.

A more recent concern is how Socratic teaching interacts with the introduction of tikanga Māori into law courses. To be clear, to my knowledge, tikanga is not taught in depth in 100 and 200 law courses; it is usually discussed in relation to its interaction with English imperial law—or comparing the two systems based on historical records of interaction. But I worry that assessing students on tikanga when institutional understanding of it is incomplete risks creating a situation where there is no clear authority to correct misunderstandings.

For example, a student might say: “English common law is more individualist, while tikanga Māori is more collectivist.” Are they right? Perhaps—but who determines that? Certainly not lecturers who do not claim expertise in tikanga. Assertions like this could gradually reshape understanding in unintended ways. These issues must be handled carefully. To conclude, I would be curious to know what a pūkenga would think about the Socratic method being used to teach tikanga Māori.

So, what is the point of a lecture? If it is to learn, then non-Socratic teaching seems more effective: it is faster, covers more content, and is less dependent on student participation, meaning both advanced and struggling students can still benefit.

But if the point of a lecture is to test knowledge, then the appeal of the Socratic method becomes clearer. Like a piano performance, it does little to improve the skill in the moment but is required to affirm to others that the pianist has skill at all. 

A Socratic class is less about teaching students and more about making sure the students know what they need to. By requiring students to generate answers themselves, the onus of knowledge shifts onto them rather than the lecturer. In that sense, you are effectively required to perform what you know as part of the lecture, rather than learn independently with the lecturer acting as a supplementary guide. 

So if this is the point of a Socratic lecture, is it useful? I would argue not really. Once again, there is the issue of the sheer number of students being “tested” under this method. Even with the Public Law system, you are only accessed Socratically a handful of times, after which you can avoid further participation. 

There has been a broader shift  in legal education toward more frequent assessments, intended to ensure students stay on top of their workload, and Socratic teaching falls in line with this. However, what we know about frequent assessment is that it requires significant manpower to be effective. Much like Socratic teaching, it runs into the same problems: if you are already studious, it often amounts to little more than busywork. The usual justification is that it provides opportunities for feedback—particularly on writing—but if your writing is already competent, tutors often lack the time to offer anything substantial and will (rightfully) prioritise those who need more help.

Conversely, if you are behind, these assessments place considerable pressure on you to catch up within a shorter timeframe. This effect mirrors the Socratic method itself—banal for those who are on track, and stressful for those who are not.

To conclude, the Socratic method as used in modern legal education differs significantly from how Socrates himself employed it. It is a far more diluted version, shaped by the realities of en masse education. It is slower than conventional lecturering, and even if you are capable of answering the questions posed, whether you want to—and whether doing so meaningfully advances your learning— are both dubious prospects. 

Finally, I note that I didn’t write this to be definitively correct, but to stir discussion. I could hardly call myself a law student if I aired these concerns and expected them to go unchallenged. Please do contest my points—nothing would make me happier than to be proven wrong, right, or somewhere in between. I’d also note that many of my concerns are likely addressed in 300–400 level courses. However, since many law students primarily take 100–200 level courses, those remain important to critique.