ABSTRACT
Most of us who use a Socratic method in our political theory courses aim not merely to familiarize our students with canonical thinkers, but, perhaps most importantly, to engage them in a “search for standards.” But what is frequently overlooked is how often a political theorist, like Socrates subtly combines justice-seeking (asking us to aspire to a standard of what we ought to be) with knowledge-seeking (focusing on what we know). Nor are political theorists satisfied in seeking to adjust values to facts or facts to values: they also engage in analytical or critical inquiry. As critics, political theorists expect that our standards, whether they are couched as statements of fact, value, or both, be clearly expressed and thought out. This chapter suggests that by using the Socratic method in political theory seminars, students can be prompted through analytical essays and discussions to think about these distinctions as “ideal types” and the kinds of questions each approach poses. In examining these approaches, this chapter shows how students become aware of how justice-seeking, knowledge-seeking, and critical inquiry provide a lens through which we may better grasp how political theorists structure arguments and make sense of them.
