How to Use Socratic Dialogue | Pulp Fiction

in Pulp Fiction we're introduced to the characters Jules and Vince who are two mob hitman and we're introduced to them as a fly on the wall observing their conversation their conversation goes on to cover three off-screen characters Marcellus Wallace his wife and and one rock Kimora who's never shown on screen a large part of his conversations purpose is to set up my sellers capacity for violence and they talk about how Marcellus through Antoine Rock amaura off a fourth-story balcony so what he do no no no no what the mother gave her a foot massage massage that's it mm-hmm then what Marsellus did it sent a couple of cats over to his place they took him out on his patio threw his ass over the balcony Jules believes Marcellus overreacted and Vincent believes that to an extent Antoine Rocco Maura got what was coming to him at this point we see Vince try to get to the root of why Jules thinks it was an overreaction in one of the closest depictions in film of the Socratic method to better understand the Socratic method we have to go back to ancient Greece in ancient Greece Socrates was known to some as the wisest of all men and to others just a nuisance like an annoying child he figured out that if he asked normal adults or even the respected intellectuals of his time why repeatedly they pretty quickly ran out of good answers to a lot of his questions he would start off asking people for a definition of a term like wisdom courage or justice and through repeatedly pointing out contradictions in their definition and then the contradictions in their adjustments to their original definition they would eventually reach a state of admitted ignorant and they were admitting ignorance only after a few minutes ago being completely certain that they were correct the Socratic method is often looked at today as a good tool for developing critical thinking or highlighting ignorance where people are unjustifiably opinionated which in certain areas we all are but one of the most important things about the Socratic method is that it helps us come to an understanding of complex philosophical ideas by understanding the foundation or essence of concepts and that's exactly what the Socratic method does in practice it develops your ability to get closer to understanding the essences of things so let's look at the steps of doing the Socratic method so to start off you have to establish an argument and an argument is a philosophical assertion it could even be a definition as it often is for Socrates in philosophy and argument is not malicious it's just a particular point you're trying to make and this whole process is meant to be cooperative so in practice at this point it's useful to understand the person you're listening to and their logic and evidence for the argument they're making secondly what you're going to try and do is raise an exception or contradiction to the argument you've just heard which is basically just playing devil's advocate and thirdly the goal is for them to reformulate their argument so it's no longer undermined by the contradiction you've just bought up the fourth step isn't really a step it's just for you to both repeat steps two and three where finally they arrive at a state of puzzlement or admitted ignorant and Socrates had a name for this and it was a state of aporia and this was the end goal of the Socratic dialogue so for Socrates he believed that wisdom partly laid in understanding what you do not know and not holding any dogmatic beliefs which actually held in ignorance now you know the steps you should try this with a friend or grab a notebook and try it yourself using the Socratic method is a surprisingly difficult thing to bring yourself to do because you're basically questioning your beliefs and forcing change within yourself which isn't always the most pleasant thing so for example look at the words happiness or courage and reflect on what you think they really mean do you think you could come up with a definition for either of those words and more importantly once you have a definition do you think you could point out some exceptions to it and on top of that can you reformulate your definitions if you do this long enough you'll probably realize that you were ignorant in areas you hadn't expected and by the end you should definitely have a better understanding of these words it's actually pretty important to understand words like happiness and courage in the Socratic sense if you want to go on and live a good life which is actually what the Socratic method helps you do even if it may not immediately feel like it lets project this method onto the discussion between Jules and Vince and pick up their conversation about whether or not Marcellus was justified in throwing Antoine Rock amaura off a fourth-story balcony over a foot massage but still I have to say play with matches you get burned what do you mean you don't be giving my cell as well so you bribed a foot massage you don't think he overreacted when Anton Pauline expect ourselves to react the way he did but he had to expect a reaction was the foot massage the foot massage is nothing I give my mother foot massage okay so at this point chooses argument can be broken down into two main parts the very first of which is about whether or not Marcellus as violence was permitted very roughly sketched his argument looks like this his first premise is that Antoine Rocco Maura gave Marcellus his wife a foot massage and his second premise is that Marcellus used violence specifically because of this foot massage his third premise which is probably the most important is a foot massage cannot have the meaning or significance which is specifically associated with sexual acts underlying all of this there's the assumption or hidden premise that acts which entail the meaning or significance which is specifically associated with sexual acts that occurs between your partner and somebody outside of your relationship permits the use of violence towards that person that's outside the relationship putting all of this together Jules concludes that Marcellus is use of violence was not permitted by the contents of these premises so in other words Marcellus overreacted now Vince finds issue with Jules saying that Marcellus overreacted I mean maybe he did go too far by throwing Antoine off a fourth-story balcony but you can tell that Vince thinks and one just can't walk away scot-free let's go back to their conversation stop right there even the benefits of foot massage ain't even the same it's not it's the same ballpark ain't no ballpark neither look maybe your method of massage differs from man but you know touching his wife's feet and sticking your tongue in the holiest of Holies ain't the same ballpark it ain't the same league it ain't in the same sport at this point the Socratic method comes into play Vince takes issue with what Jules thinks the essence of a foot massages let's go back to the main argument the third premise is that a foot massage cannot have the meaning or significance which is specifically associated with sexual acts and it's because of this that Vince is saying Marcellus was unjustified in using violence Jules's argument which Vince disagrees with about the essence of a foot massage looks something like this the first premise would be that sexual acts have a type of meaning or significance specific only to them the second premise would be that a foot massage is not a sexual act so the conclusion would be that a foot massage cannot have the meaning or significance specifically associated with sexual acts but by asking questions we say that Vince is able to figure out the reason why Jules believes this let's see how Vince is able to use the Socratic method to ask questions to firstly establish Jules's argument then follow up with a contradiction master given a lot of got my technique down and everything I don't be tickling another would you give a guy a foot massage I think Vince's point here is that while a foot massage or even holding hands may not explicitly be a sexual act it definitely comes with the meaning or significance which can be associated with sexual acts this completely undermines the premise that sexual acts have a type of meaning that's specific only to them because of this point he makes the conclusion isn't justified and the argument can't be sound you with the essence of a foot massage better understood Vin's can finally established that Marcellus his use of violence was in fact justified according to Jules's previous argument we can still tell that Jules is bothered by the use of violence so with further Socratic dialogue the argument would probably shift towards whether or not the degree of arts was justified but in the context of the movie they're busy so it never gets to that point to close off this part of the same though we do have Jules reach a state of aporia or puzzlement where he at least internally seems to reach a state of acknowledging his previous ignorance must do that to me he better paralyze my ass cuz I kill him no one but you saying a foot massage don't mean nothing I'm saying it does and look I given a million ladies a million foot massages and they all meant something we act like they don't but they do and that's what so far cool of that there's a sensuous thing going on where well you know you don't talk about it but you know what she knows it Marcellus knew it and Antoine should have better known better I mean that's his wife man he's a man a sense of humor about this you know I'm saying it's an interesting point thank you for watching if you want to see more videos like this hit the subscribe button and if you enjoyed learning about the Socratic method and want to see it in use more check out Euthyphro by Plato it's a quick fictional dialogue which imitates the way Socrates would supposedly speak to people and it's between Socrates and a man named Euthyphro who is waiting outside court for a trial where he's accusing his own father of murder if you google it there's a lot of free links to it and I'll put a link in the video description as well I'll see you all in the next video

Channel: practicable

Views: 58,782

Rating: 4.8926773 out of 5

Keywords: tarantino, quentin tarantino, pulp fiction, philosophy, socrates, socratic method, socratic dialogue, practicable

Id: 1SClxi3yYaI

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2019

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[u/Dingerflickr]

I enjoyed this, thanks.

[u/MrTattyBojangles]

This took about 9 minutes to actually make sense, but once I got there, I actually learned something. How about that?

[u/mariozig]

Great. My first post to /r/MovieDetails... kicking things off with a typo in the title.

[u/SaryuSaryu]

Neat, I learned something. Or did I? Thanks!