Maieutic (Part I)

Socrates: Come then, for you have just made it clear in an intelligible manner... You may now attempt to grasp knowledge in its many forms by divine reason.

Theaetetus: Know, O Socrates, that myself has endeavoured to achieve this whenever I heard about the questions you converse about. But, I cannot convince myself that I can say anything adequate on these matters. Neither have I heard anyone converse in the way you advocate. And yet, I cannot hold myself back from being interested.

Socrates:  You are experiencing the pangs of labour, O Theaetetus, not because you are desolate but because you are expectant.

Theaetetus: I do not know, O Socrates, I am telling you how I feel.

Socrates: Have you not heard, O ridiculous youth, that I am the son of the magnanimous yet resolute midwife Phaenarete?

Theaetetus: I have heard this.

Socrates: Have you also heard I deliberately practice the same art?

Theaetetus: No.

Socrates: Know this is so, but do not hand this over to others because, my friend, they are unaware that I possess this art. Being unaware of this, they do not claim this about me. But they say that I am the most absurd person and cause men apprehension. Have you not heard this?

Theaetetus: I have.

Socrates: Shall I tell you the cause of this?

Theaetetus: By all means.

Socrates: Think about everything about midwives, and you will more easily understand what I am saying. For you know that none of them deliver for others while their self can conceive and is able to bear a child, but only when they are no longer capable of conceiving.

Theaetetus: I know so.

Socrates: They say that Artemis is the cause of this, who by being herself an unmarried virgin has childbirth as her special care. She does not allow those who are infertile to be midwives because human nature is far too weak to practice an art in which it is inexperienced. But she commands those who, due to their age, are incapable of bearing children to practice this art and honours them for their likeness to herself.

Theaetetus: This is likely.

Socrates: And is it not also possible and necessary that those who are pregnant should be more easily recognised by midwives than by anyone else?

Theaetetus: Entirely so.

Socrates: And by medicines and incantations, midwives are able to induce and alleviate the pangs of labour to bring forth delivery for those who are in difficulty and to cause a miscarriage when the birth is abortive?

Theaetetus: This is so.

Plato, The Theaetetus

The name Phaenarete is worth a little research.

As a midwife aids in the childbirth of women, Socrates aids men with their labours and offspring.

Let us see how Socrates fares with Theaetetus's delivery. 

Note from the editor of Classical Philosophy