Socrates' infertility

Socratic questioning as a facilitative craft

In my last post, I introduced the lengthy, detailed metaphor at the centre of Plato’s Theaetetus: philosophy is reproduction. In this post, I dig into one aspect of this metaphor: Socrates’ claim that he is philosophically infertile himself, but that nonetheless, he helps others to bear philosophical ‘children’.

Socrates says that, in Athens in his day, literal midwives were traditionally past child-bearing age. However, a midwife must have given birth earlier in her life, because ‘human nature is too weak to grasp a skill related to things in which it is inexperienced’ (149b10-c2). Women who’ve never had a child are not permitted to act as midwives. But Socrates says that, despite his own philosophical midwifery, he himself is perennially ‘infertile of wisdom’:

I’m infertile of wisdom, and the criticism that many people have made of me—that I question others but I myself declare no [ideas] about anything, because I have no wisdom myself—this is a fair criticism. The reason for this is: the god compels me to act as midwife, but has prevented me from giving birth. So I am myself not at all wise, and there is not some discovery that has been born as offspring of my soul…

This raises a few questions. First, isn’t his metaphorical midwifery a form of wisdom in itself? Scholars have various ideas about this. For example, ancient philosopher David Sedley argues that Plato frames Socrates’ midwifery as a limited exception to his (general) ignorance. This view is plausible, both because it is common sense to see a skill as a type of wisdom, and because Theaetetus and Socrates do in fact agree in the dialogue that skills (technai) count as knowledge (146c-147b).

But the second problem is: given his role, isn’t it a problem that Socrates lacks (non-midwifery forms of) wisdom? Usually, when people teach me things, they can also do those things themselves. My singing teacher can sing; my gym trainers can do deadlifts. Is it plausible that people can learn philosophy, or learn about truth, or even learn how to think, from someone who claims to be ‘infertile of wisdom’?

This doubt rests implicitly on the metaphor philosophy is a productive craft. Across Plato’s dialogues, Socrates often uses analogies from ordinary (to ancient Athenians) occupations and crafts as intuition pumps for his interlocutors. If you’ve read a little Plato, you’ve likely come across some of these. For example, in Republic Book 1, when Polemarchus suggests that justice is a craft that benefits friends and harms enemies, Socrates points out that doctors are most capable of benefiting their friends and harming their enemies in matters of health, and sea captains are most capable of doing this in a storm at sea (332d-e), yet we don’t think of medicine or sailing as being identical to justice.

Given the prevalence of these analogies, it’s natural to assume that Plato sees philosophy as a similar type of craft that produces some object or some outcome. The potter makes pots, the baker bakes bread, the doctor produces health in their patients, and the philosopher produces arguments, or wisdom, or knowledge. In these productive crafts, we assume that if the artisan can teach another to produce the good, they can also produce the good themselves. And if this is our model of what philosophy is, then the fact that Socrates claims ignorance is a serious problem.

But I think that Plato is drawn to the Socrates is a midwife metaphor in part because it makes sense of what Socrates was doing. Socrates consistently claimed ignorance, and he lacked the education and expertise of many other influential teachers of the time. He honestly represented himself as just some guy. And yet many found interacting with him utterly transformative. The metaphor helps explain why this could be; how an ignorant person can benefit others, even within the sphere that they are ignorant.

Because: what do (actual) midwives ‘produce’? Well, you could say ‘babies’. But midwives aren’t exactly producing babies; the birthing parent is doing that. A midwife can’t bring a baby into existence if there isn’t also a pregnant person there. But at the same time, midwives have skills that the birthing parent doesn’t. At a time when childbirth was incredibly dangerous, a skilled midwife could make the difference between a successful birth and the death of parent or infant. So it’s not that midwives as irrelevant to the production of babies, either. Rather we could see midwifery not as productive craft, but a facilitating craft: a craft where the craftsperson doesn’t produce something themself, but helps another person to produce it.

An old professor of mine once said that all of Plato is apologetics for Socrates. The historical Socrates was Plato’s teacher; if the most famous fact about Socrates is that ‘he’s the guy who knows nothing’, the second most famous is that the Athenians condemned him to death by hemlock. A lot of Plato’s dialogues, as well as talking about philosophy, are often literary defences of… like, Socrates’ whole deal. Socrates made a lot of people angry. He destabilized people. In his defence speech, he allegedly called himself a ‘gadfly’—a highly irritating biting insect. Biting insects wake up sluggish horses, but they also get squashed. It was reasonable for people to say: if you really know nothing, as you claim, what standing do you have to question me, to lower my status in front of my friends, to make me feel so confused and lost?

And the answer is: the same standing midwives have to help people give birth, even when they (the midwives) are not pregnant. In some situations, a person must produce something—a child, an idea—for themself. Others can’t produce that thing for them. But others can facilitate the process. And that is what Socrates was doing—says Plato—with the ideas of the young men of Athens.

What other crafts might be facilitative, rather than productive? In the modern world, plausibly psychotherapy and coaching. You could see these professions as productive craftspeople who produce mental health or advice, and some probably are. But in my experience, these professions have this ‘midwifery’ dimension: the professional is helping the client with an internal process--often a sticky or tricky or painful one—but nonetheless, the client is the one who is ‘producing’ something.