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The Socratic Method has been an educational tool ever since Socrates himself turned the marketplace of Athens into a classroom, enticing his interlocutors into dialogue whereby they could have their assumptions questioned and learn to journey towards new conceptions of knowledge and understanding. This concept has been reflected recently in a current proposal by UNESCO for educators and philosophers to find ways in which philosophy and philosophical inquiry may be approached in current education practices to enhance democratic ways of life. I draw on the UNESCO idea of philosophy as a ‘school of freedom’ and contend that not only is dialogical inquiry useful to teaching and learning, but that it is necessary. Inquiry is viewed in this way as necessarily dialogical and I draw on both Charles Peirce’s and John Dewey’s views on inquiry as being situated within the community if it is to satisfy some of the aims of the UNESCO report. This dissertation proposes a framework for Socratic pedagogy, a collaborative inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning suitable not only for formal educational settings such as the school classroom but for all educational settings. The term is intended to capture a variety of philosophical approaches to classroom practice that could broadly be described as Socratic in form. I explore three models that, I argue, make a significant contribution to Socratic pedagogy: Matthew Lipman’s Community of Inquiry, Leonard Nelson’s Socratic Dialogue, and David Bohm’s Dialogue. I also draw on the metaphors used by each of the proponents because they give an additional insight into the theoretical underpinnings of their models of dialogue for the development of Socratic thinking. Socratic pedagogy is multi-dimensional, which I argue is underpinned by generative, evaluative, and connective thinking. These terms are better placed to describe Socratic pedagogy than creative, critical, and caring thinking, because they are defined by the function they perform. It is hoped that this dissertation offers some way to show how philosophy as inquiry can contribute to educational theory and practice, while also demonstrating how it can be an effective way to approach teaching and learning. This, I contend is foundational to Socratic pedagogy.

This study examined the relationships between metacognition, self-regulation and students' critical thinking skills and disposition in online Socratic Seminars for ninth grade World Geography and Culture students. Participants of this study came from six intact pre-AP (Pre-Advanced Placement) classes in a public high school in south central Texas in the United States. They were randomly assigned to two groups: a three class treatment group and a three class comparison group. Students in both groups received training on critical thinking skills, Internet security, "netiquette" and the technological tools involved in the online Socratic Seminars. The experimental group performed two metacognitive tasks. They assigned critical thinking tags in the discussion forum and wrote two structured reflection journals after they finished each of the two Socratic Seminar discussions, while the comparison group performed neither of the two metacognitive tasks. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the data analysis. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed statistically significant effects of the two metacognitive tasks on students' self-regulation, but not on their critical thinking skills and disposition. The structure equation modeling analysis showed that self-regulation had significant relationships with students' critical thinking disposition, but not with students' critical thinking skills for both the experimental and the comparison groups. The structural equation modeling analysis also revealed an insignificant moderating effect of performing the two metacognitive tasks on the relationship between self-regulation and students' critical thinking. Qualitative data analysis triangulated results from the quantitative analyses. / text

My PhD thesis, The Flower of Suffering, offers a philosophical evaluation of Aeschylus' Oresteia in light of Presocratic ideas. By examining several aspects of the tragic trilogy in relation to some of Aeschylus' near-contemporary thinkers, it aims to unravel the overarching theological ideas and the metaphysical and epistemological assumptions underpinning the Oresteia's dramatic narrative. My aim is to bring to relief those aspects of the Oresteia which I believe will benefit from a comparison with some ideas, or modes of thought, which circulated among the Presocratic philosophers. I will explore how reading some of this tragedy's themes in relation to Presocratic debates about theology and cosmic justice may affect and enhance our understanding of the theological ‘tension' and metaphysical assumptions in Aeschylus' work. In particular, it is my contention that Aeschylus' explicit theology, which has been often misinterpreted as a form of theodicy where the justice of heaven is praised and a faith in the rule of the gods is encouraged, is presented in these terms only to create a stronger collision with the painful reality dramatized from a human perspective. By setting these premises, it is my intention to confer on Greek tragedy a prominent position in the history of early Greek philosophical thought. If the exclusion of Presocratic material from debates about tragedy runs the risk of obscuring a thorough understanding of the broader cultural backdrop against which tragedy was born, the opposite is also true. Greek tragedy represents, in its own dramatic language, a fundamental contribution to early philosophical speculation about the divine, human attitudes towards it, indeed, the human place in relation to the cosmic forces which govern the universe.

This thesis is an exploration of the work I have completed during graduate study at UNO. My time has been spent investigating concepts of evaluation and the attribution of meaning. The main thrust and impetus of my art has been to explore the subjective way people interpret visual language and how that interpretation can be manipulated and undermined. By undoing these associations I hope to reveal the tentative nature of meaning.

A partir do referencial paradigmático e exemplar da figura e disciplina (eu zen) de Sócrates na obra de Xenofonte, desenvolvem-se a análise, a reflexão sobre o princípio reintegrador perante a inexorabilidade, o desconhecimento e a incerteza do real, com vistas à reconciliação proporcional, ao desenvolvimento satisfatório da integridade razoável, para que o homem possa adquirir não somente a compreensão filosófica, mas também condições de resistência, de flexibilidade estratégica - enfim, a capacidade suficiente de transformação e relacionamento com os problemas fundamentais da existência. / From the paradigmatic reference and example of socratic discipline (eu zen) in the Xenophons works, the reflections about the re-integrating principle facing the inexhaustible, uncertain and unknown reality can be developed, searching the proportional reconciliation, the satisfactory and reasonable integrity for the human being to acquire not only the philosophical understanding, but also the conditions of resistence, of strategic flexibility the sufficient capacity to deal with and transform the fundamental problems of existence.

Cette thèse de doctorat consiste en une nouvelle édition critique avec introduction, traduction en italien et commentaire de l’« Éryxias » pseudo-platonicien, un dialogue socratique ayant été transmis parmi les œuvres de Platon mais qui était déjà connu par les anciens pour être inauthentique et faussement attribué au grand philosophe (voir par exemple Diogène Laërce 3, 62). L’édition critique la plus récente du texte, publiée dans la « Collection des Universités de France » par les soins de Joseph Souilhé en 1930, est fondée sur une reconstruction de la tradition manuscrite qui a été remise en question par les études de L.A. Post (1934). En outre, malgré le récent retour d’intérêt pour les dialogues « apocryphes » du corpus platonicien, l’« Éryxias » reste méconnu et peu étudié : après les deux dissertations allemandes d’O. Schrohl (Göttingen 1901) et G. Gartmann (Bonn 1949), il n’y a pas eu de travaux dédiés spécifiquement au dialogue, exception faite de la décevante traduction annotée par R. Laurenti (Bari 1969). L’hypothèse avancée au cours de ce travail voit en l’« Éryxias » un produit composé à l’école fondée par Platon, l’Académie, après la mort du fondateur et plus précisément pendant la première moitié du troisième siècle avant Jésus-Christ : cela ferait du dialogue un témoin de la reconstruction de la pensée et de l’activité littéraire de l’Académie hellénistique. L’introduction est divisée en quatre chapitres. Les deux premiers abordent les problèmes plus strictement philologiques, liés à la transmission du corpus et du dialogue dans l’antiquité et à la chronologie du texte, notamment fixée par les savants sur la base de la présence d’un magistrat – le gymnasiarque – qui n’apparaît pas à Athènes avant la fin du quatrième siècle avant Jésus-Christ. Le troisième chapitre porte sur le contenu philosophique : le sujet de l’« Éryxias » est le rapport entre richesse (ploutos) et vertu (arete). Deux conclusions différentes sont présentées, en s’appuyant sur deux définitions différentes de la richesse : selon la première, ayant trait au concept de valeur, le sage est le plus riche des hommes ; selon la seconde, identifiant la richesse à la possession de biens matériels (chremata), le plus riche des hommes sera le plus méchant. Les deux conclusions sont parfaitement en accord avec un arrière-plan philosophique constitué par les dialogues de Platon et s’insèrent dans une tentative visant à accorder les divers traitements de la richesse dans les écrits authentiques. La recherche menée dans l’« Éryxias » peut bien être contextualisée dans le mouvement général de « renaissance du Socratisme » qui a été individué par les savants durant la première moitié de l’époque hellénistique (voir A. A. Long, Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy, CQ 38, 1988, 150-171 ; F. Alesse, La Stoa e la tradizione socratica, Napoli 2000). L’Académie, comme le montre la production de dialogues socratiques, occupe un rôle central dans ce mouvement, ayant l’effort de revendiquer l’héritage de Socrate à travers son disciple, Platon. Le quatrième chapitre porte sur l’aspect littéraire : l’« Éryxias » a été reconnu par les savants comme le plus soigné des dialogues inauthentiques en ce qui concerne la cure de l’élément artistique. Après un paragraphe sur la poétique du dialogue dans l’« Éryxias », nous relevons une étude approfondie du proème, qui se montre particulièrement détaillé, ainsi que de Socrate et des autres personnages. À la fin du chapitre, le style et la langue du dialogue sont examinés. À la suite d’une note sur la tradition manuscrite, est donnée une nouvelle édition critique avec apparat du dialogue, suivie d’une traduction en italien. Le commentaire extensif porte sur des questions de détail s’insérant dans le plus grand cadre tracé au cours de l’introduction : son approche est autant philologique-littéraire qu’historique et philosophique. Un appendice de tables et une bibliographie sont ajoutés en qualité d’instruments nécessaires au lecteur. / This PhD thesis consists in a new critical edition with introduction, italian translation and commentary of the pseudo-platonic Eryxias, a Socratic dialogue transmitted inside the corpus of Plato’s works but already known in antiquity (see Diogenes Laertius 3.62) to be inauthentic and falsely attributed to the ancient philosopher. The latest critical edition of the Eryxias, which dates back to 1930 and was published by J. Souilhé in the «Collection des Universités de France», is not reliable, as it depends on a misleading reconstruction of the manuscript tradition, outdated at least since the pioneering work of L. A. Post (1934, The Vatican Plato and its Relations, Middletown); moreover, notwithstanding the text’s philosophical and literary interest and length inside the group of the Platonic spuria, the Eryxias has not been object of specific studies in the past century, exception made for the two dissertations by O. Schrohl (Göttingen 1901) and G. Gartmann (Bonn 1949), two works that remain hardly accessible even to scholars in the field, and for the italian edition by R. Laurenti (Bari 1969). Even in recent years, when the spurious dialogues have seen a renaissance as a field of study (see for example the volume edited by K. Döring, M. Erler and S. Schorn, Pseudoplatonica, Stuttgart, 2005), the Eryxias remains less studied than other items in the corpus, mainly due to its extension – fifteen pages of the canonic edition by Stephanus (1578) – and to its overall complexity. In spite of this marginal role in recent studies, the Eryxias had attracted since the 18th century the interest of scholars and historians of ancient economy, as it presents an ancient discussion on the value of wealth and material goods. The first part of the introduction deals with the philological issues and the general problems related to the transmission of the text in antiquity. In the second chapter I turn to the philosophical content. The theme of the Eryxias is an enquiry on the relationship between wealth (ploutos) and virtue (arete), led by Socrates together with his interlocutors Erasistratus, Eryxias and Critias (the tyrant). Two definitions of wealth are investigated: according to the first, which is centered on value (axios) the wealthiest man will be the wise man (sophos), as wisdom is the greatest value for mankind. According to the second, which identifies wealth with the possession of material goods (chremata), the richest man will be the most wicked. Both of these conclusions are consistent with the main model of the dialogue, that is to say the authentic writings of Plato. In the introduction I argue that the philosophical aim of the Eryxias is in fact an attempt to draw a coherent doctrine of wealth based on the Platonic dialogues and on the research developed inside Plato’s school, the Academy, in the first decades of the third century: to prove this point I show the coherence with many parallel passages in Plato’s writings, which show a careful study of the whole body of work associated to the name of the founder of the Academy, and I try to set the Eryxias in its historical frame, namely the «return to Socrates» that historians have seen in the first part of the Hellenistic Age (see A. A. Long, Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy, CQ 38, 1988, 150-171; F. Alesse, La Stoa e la tradizione socratica, Napoli 2000). In the third and final chapter I concentrate my attention on the literary aspect, with a particular interest in the reception of the models of Socratic literature in the composition of the dialogue. Follows a note on the medieval tradition. After the text and translation, the extended commentary focuses on issues of detail, both literary-philological and philosophical. An appendix with tables as a full bibliography are included.

O Alcibíades Primeiro está inserido na temática da dimensão educativa da filosofia platônica e consiste num retrato do Eros socrático em perseguição e dedicação ao jovem ateniense que leva o nome do diálogo. A trajetória do diálogo culmina na justificativa da positividade da aporia em que se encontra Alcibíades após o elenchos socrático: a aporia constitui o primeiro movimento do despertar da reflexão crítica a que se submetem aqueles que desejam cursar o caminho da filosofia. Esta dissertação será contemplada por um estudo introdutório baseado no tema geral exposto brevemente acima, além da proposta de uma nova tradução em língua portuguesa a partir da edição do texto grego de J. Burnet (Platonis Opera, Tomus II, 1967). / The First Alcibiades is inserted into the theme of the educational dimension of Platonic philosophy and is a portrait of the Socratic Eros in his pursuit and dedication to the young Athenian who has the name of dialogue. The path of dialogue culminates in the justification of the positivity of the aporia which Alcibiades has fallen after the Socratic elenchos: the aporia is the first movement of the awakening of critical reflection in which are subdued those who wish to follow the path of philosophy. This dissertation will be contemplated with an introductory study based on the general theme briefly explained above, besides the proposal of a new translation in Portuguese from the edition of the Greek text of J. Burnet (Platonis Opera, Tomus II, 1967).