7.9: Abuses of Refutation

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See 537d-539d. Socrates wants to make clear that he is not endorsing “dialectical discussion as it is currently practiced,” meaning the sort of thing taught by the sophists. This was skill at presenting a point of view persuasively and refuting the other side, not for the sake of getting at the truth, but in order to persuade. Unlike the highly regarded sophist Protagoras, who claimed to teach how to make the weaker side in a dispute appear to be the stronger, Socrates wants a kind of dialectic that reveals the weaker side for what it is. He warns against introducing dialectical refutation to people who are still young (not yet thirty), for, “like puppies,” young people “enjoy dragging and tearing with argument anyone within reach,” until, “when they have refuted many themselves and been refuted by many, they quickly fall into violently disbelieving everything they believed before.” Traditional values and convictions fall quickly to the dragging and tearing of refutation, and if one is not striving with all of one’s might to determine what should take their place, nothing will take their place.

Is it bad for young people to become disillusioned with traditionalideals?
Consider how debate is currently taught and practiced in American high schools and colleges. Does participation in this activity harm young people?
Socrates says that it is a mistake to let people “taste argument while they are young.” And yet he was famous in his day for doing just this. He would walk the streets of Athens and enter into philosophical conversation with all sorts of people, but especially young men and boys who were intelligent, pretentious, or both. Suppose someone were to object that Socrates knowingly took part in corrupting the youth of Athens. How might he reply?