Editing Socratic method (section)

==Development==
In the second half of the 5th century BC, [[sophists]] were teachers who specialized in using the tools of [[philosophy]] and [[rhetoric]] to entertain, impress, or persuade an audience to accept the speaker's point of view. Socrates promoted an alternative method of teaching, which came to be called the Socratic method.<ref>{{cite web|title=Understanding the Socratic Method of Teaching|date=10 February 2020 |url=https://www.alu.edu/alublog/understanding-the-socratic-method-of-teaching/|publisher=[[Abraham Lincoln University]]|access-date=19 November 2020|archive-date=21 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921071953/https://www.alu.edu/alublog/understanding-the-socratic-method-of-teaching/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Socrates began to engage in such discussions with his fellow [[Athenians]] after his friend from youth, [[Chaerephon]], visited the [[Oracle of Delphi]], which asserted that no man in Greece was wiser than Socrates. Socrates saw this as a [[paradox]], and began using the Socratic method to answer his conundrum. [[Diogenes Laërtius]], however, wrote that [[Protagoras]] invented the "Socratic" method.<ref>Jarratt, Susan C. ''Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured''. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991, p. 83.</ref><ref>Sprague, Rosamond K. (ed.) ''The Older Sophists''. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972, p. 5.</ref>

[[Plato]] famously formalized the Socratic [[Elenctics|elenctic]] style in prose—presenting Socrates as the curious questioner of some prominent Athenian interlocutor—in some of his early dialogues, such as ''[[Euthyphro]]'' and ''[[Ion (dialogue)|Ion]]'', and the method is most commonly found within the so-called "[[Socratic dialogue]]s", which generally portray Socrates engaging in the method and questioning his fellow citizens about moral and [[epistemological]] issues. But in his later dialogues, such as [[Theaetetus (dialogue)|Theaetetus]] or [[Sophist (dialogue)|Sophist]], Plato had a different method to philosophical discussions, namely [[dialectic]].{{citation_needed|date=January 2024}}