reality may disregard what
seems to be, provided he can by reflective analysis discover certain
general necessities to which being must conform. This is rationalism in
its extreme form.

The rationalism of Socrates was more moderate, as it was more fruitful
than that of Parmenides. As is well known, Socrates composed no
philosophical books, but sought to inculcate wisdom in his teaching and
conversation. His method of inculcating wisdom was to evoke it in his
interlocutor by making him considerate of the meaning of his speech.
Through his own questions he sought to arouse the questioning spirit,
which should weigh the import of words, and be satisfied with nothing
short of a definite and consistent judgment. In the Platonic dialogues
the Socratic method obtains a place in literature. In the "Theaetetus,"
which is, perhaps, the greatest of all epistemological treatises,
Socrates is represented as likening his vocation to that of the midwife.

"Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs,
but differs in that I attend men, and not women, and I look
after their souls when they are in labor, and not after their
bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining
whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings
forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth. And, like the
midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often made
against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the
wit to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is that
the god compels me to be a midwife, but does not allow me to
bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor
have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my
own soul, but those who converse with me profit. . . . It is
quite clear that they never learned anything from me; the
many fine discoveries to which they cling are of their own
making."[171:15]

The principle underlying this method is the insistence that a
proposition, to be true of reality, must at least bespeak a mind that is
true to itself, internally luminous, and free from contradiction. That
which is to me nothing that I can express in form that will convey
precise meaning and bear analysis, is so far nothing at all. Being is
not, as the empiricist would have it, ready at hand, ours for the
looking, but is the fruit of critical reflection. Only reason,
overcoming the relativity o