ABSTRACT
Kant recommends the Socratic method for spiritual formation, understanding it as the best way to elicit spiritual knowledge from reason. He also uses the idea of anamnesis to discuss the process by which we come to universal religious knowledge. Both terms, the Socratic method and anamnesis, are taken and adapted from Plato’s dialogues by Kant who uses them to discuss how we come to have rational, autonomous spiritual knowledge. This chapter compares Kant’s use of these terms to Plato’s, discussing (1) the connection between the Socratic method and anamnesis in each thinker, (2) the modifications Kant makes to the terms as used by Plato, (3) the relationship between these ideas and Plato and Kant’s philosophical anthropologies, and, finally, (4) how these reflections might provide a useful way for thinking about the nature and purpose of education in a secular, technological age.
