Now, we see, "Robert Summers, pre-eminent legal scholar, dies at 85" (Cornell Chronicle):
Robert S. Summers, who grew up milking cows on his family’s farm in Oregon and went on to co-write the most widely cited treatise on U.S. commercial transaction laws and help draft laws governing Russia, Egypt and Rwanda, died March 1 in New Canaan, Connecticut. Summers, Cornell’s William G. McRoberts Research Professor Emeritus in Administration of the Law, was 85....Goodbye to one of the great law professors. Was anyone else ever so dedicated to the Socratic method? I grew up with a father who wished he had become a lawyer and who liked to wield what he called the Socratic method in family conversations. I was a law professor myself, and the Socratic method was always only a distant ideal.
Summers joined the Cornell Law School faculty in 1969. During his career, he produced 55 books and more than 100 articles, including influential works on legal realism, statutory interpretation, and form and substance in the law....
[H]e was known for his dedication to the Socratic method of teaching: instilling principles and concepts through rigorous questioning and argument, rather than “ladling [information] out on a spoon,” as he said....
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There is Socratic method. And there is Hide the Ball. A lot of professors confuse one for the other.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the Socratic method is no way to become popular with one's peer group, or any other group.
I've never been made to drink hemlock, but I've spent some nights on the couch.
Kind of nice really, with the windows open and all the katydids in the trees.
If you go back and read Plato's dialogues, it doesn't seem that Socrates is doing it right either.
A distant ideal.
We used his case book at Rutgers Law where I was taught the UCC and Bankruptcy by my favorite law school Prof, Morris Stern, later a NJ Bankruptcy Judge. Stern was extremely bright, respectful of students and attorneys who practiced before him, and had a great, great sense of humor. As related to the course work, I'm not sure he ever made a statement, it was one question after another, or he would make a statement, then immediately undermine it by saying, wait, what about section _____? I had the pleasure to both be in his class and practice before him. He passed away several years ago.
Oh, Ann. I bet your students thought you were a Socratic terror.
Walter Blum at the U of C Law School never made an affirmative statement in Tax I and Tax II. He had the questions. You needed to come up with the answers. Most of the profs at U of C were the same.
"Oh, Ann. I bet your students thought you were a Socratic terror."
I heard that they were afraid of me, but I never went full strength. I have always held myself back, and it's getting late.
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
(eaglebeak)
Was anyone else ever so dedicated to the Socratic method?
Probably Jacob Klein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Klein_(philosopher) (but ignore what Wikipedia says about the central idea of his book Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra).
I had the great good fortune to study with him at St. John's College many years ago, in a twice-weekly year-long seminar which focused almost exclusively, but not exclusively, on Plato.
I'm pretty sure that years of teaching law via the Socratic method was excellent training/practice for Althouse writing this blog.
Was anyone else ever so dedicated to the Socratic method?
Was anyone else ever so dedicated to the Socratic method?
A teacher using the Socratic Method lowers the barrier of going from position A to position B. But suppose that the change from A to B is uphill because that change is difficult? Or suppose that that change is flat out wrong? Suppose that the teacher using the Socratic Method is wrong in his or her conclusions, i.e., about the desirability of new position B? In other words, suppose that someone deploying the Socratic Method successfully lowers the barrier to changing a student's mind, but that the subsequent state of the student is unstable or even wrong? The student will easily fall back to position A with little or no effort (note that the backwards B -->A barrier is much, much lower than the forward barrier).*
One way to avoid such a Sisyphean struggle is for the deployers of the Socratic method to themselves be subjected to Socratic methods to test the stability of the points they are trying to encourage. In theory, this should work. But suppose that deployers of Socratic methods themselves avoid or dodge Socratic encounters?
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*Visuals here
rehajm said...Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
Althouseman talks down to his (her) flock
The Socratic Method works best when you get to write both sides of the dialog.
Is there any straw man Socrates cannot not dispatch?
At Creighton, we had Professor Ron Volkmer. Yeah, we were afraid of him. We had a skit show called Spoof Day. Volkmer was portrayed as Darth Volkmer.
"I'm pretty sure that years of teaching law via the Socratic method was excellent training/practice for Althouse writing this blog."
It's more that the struggle of not being able to fully perform in Socratic mode with real, in-person young people gave me the emotional need that is fulfilled through this blog.
Chickenlittle at 7:18 - My dad deployed the Socratic method on me and my siblings all the time. But when I tried to do the same to him, by asking him a question, his response was not what I hoped. Instead, he would deploy the "I'm the parent" response. Force majeure was his follow-up response if we didn't get the hint quick enough.
Summers was frightening. You didn’t show up for his first year contracts class unless you had read and thought hard about the assigned materials. Even then you hoped not to hear your name on his tongue.
Every statement invites a question. Or at least that's how my mind works.
I don't mean to say that's always what I do, but it's often the case, and probably more frequently when I was younger, that when someone asserted something was so, I would immediately ask myself if that where true, and then further questions might grow from there.
I've never tried to follow the Socratic method, but my practical sense of the way things work, is that if I posed everything as a question, then more often that not I would get an in-depth education in how the person I was speaking to thought, and what they thought, rather than exploring the topic that was my original intent.
Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes back-and-forth of questions, can be a wonderful experience.
Writing that I'm reminded of Galileo Galilei's "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems."
It's written as a dialogue between three people, three characters, who represent three different points of view. But it's not a stilted dialogue, the ideas are presented in a natural way.
Most of the ideas are of course wrong, because this was published in 1632. But the way in which they reasoned is still valid today. As I recall there were a lot of questions back and forth. Reading it I wondered if this was actually how Galileo thought. That is if he talked to himself.
'"Students should sue. The teachers should just give you the law,' said Professor Robert S. Summers."
The best, and I mean the best, law book aid I ever bought in preparation for a test was Criminal Procedure in a Nutshell. The prof who gave the course (can't remember the guy's name) issued an in terrorem warning a week before the final, "Don't cite a case unless you're certain that such-and-such case stands for the proposition you claim. If you do, and you're wrong, you'll lose points. If unsure, simply assert the general CP jurisprudence."
Man, was I confident going into that exam from that Nutshell book. I cited case after case, coming out of that exam as sure as green apples I had aced it thoroughly. Which I did. Highest grade.
That Nutshell aid was terrific; unfortunately the qualify of the different Nutshell titles was uneven. Never found another as good.
There are lots of books, aids, out there which will give a bullet point by bullet point of the law. What such things can't do is provide the nuances, and lawyers are forever arguing nuances in order to distinguish, so that the court or administrative agency judge is not bound by precedent.
He taught me at least as much as any professor in my law school career, and I never feared him at all. It was an upper-level class (advanced jurisprudence) so perhaps he toned down the Socratic method for the 2Ls and 3Ls? I don't know about that, but I know that I still pick up and read portions of his book (co-written with Professor Atiyah) - Form and Substance in Anglo-American Law - as much if not more than any text I read in law school two-plus decades ago. His school of thought - what he called formalism - has always seemed like a natural complement to textualism to me. He was not formalistic. But he believed in clear, formal rules to allow individuals to know how to govern their conduct so as not to run afoul of the law. Much of how I practice law is informed by what he taught me. Rest in peace, Professor Summers. And thank you.
Think for yourself? Think on your feet? Next thing it’ll be 2+2=4 every time.
Valery Socrates and His Physician
scroll back to page 3 (can't get google result for that page) to start reading.
A few people do the Socratic method well. Sounds like this professor was one of them.
I think it comes off as passive-aggressive most of the time.
Great teachers make a big difference. I still use today the stuff I learned from Professor Volkmer. I was lucky to get assigned to Section A. A simple twist of fate.
The Socratic dialogue that takes place here is a big part of why I like this blog so much. Power Line is more like law review.
Socratic is good for learning how to think and reason. Not so good for discovering facts and truth. You can't know if you've ever stumbled upon the right answer if when you ask, "Am I right?" you are met with, "Are you? What about X?"
Socratic is also good for feeding the hubris of professors who proudly proclaim they practice it, when many/most don't know how. And it is good for covering up the crappy professors.
Meanwhile, what does it say when some bar review course can teach an entire semester's worth of material in three days and do it better than some arrogant Socratic professor?
Socratic only works best AFTER the students have a basic foundational level of knowledge.
This 'woe is me' stuff from Althouse is complete shit. Loser regret jabber.
I'm too lazy--and embarrassed for folks that may need an explanation--to elaborate.
IMHO.
Being interrogated by H. Monroe Freedman in Evidence class was sheer torture, but exhilarating nonetheless.
I felt I had acquitted myself, but just barely.
Mark said...
Socratic is good for learning how to think and reason. Not so good for discovering facts and truth. You can't know if you've ever stumbled upon the right answer if when you ask, "Am I right?" you are met with, "Are you? What about X?"
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Law school classes mostly discuss cases at the appellate level, where the facts are not in dispute.
Sure, you can have issues regarding "standing", jurisdiction and the like. But cases involving admissibility of evidence come up all the time.
Freedman's classes were heavily directed toward the question of admissibility, particularly regarding the Hearsay Rule and its many exceptions..
Joseph Goldstein, who taught criminal law at Yale, was as Socratic as Soceares. He would pose a hypothetical and you would answer. He would change one fact in the hypothetical and now your answer was wrong. So you answered again. He would change anoher fact in the hypothetical and your answer was wrong. He would go on like this until he decided you had enough, and call on someone else and do the same thing.
Law school classes mostly discuss cases at the appellate level, where the facts are not in dispute.
Sure, you can have issues regarding "standing", jurisdiction and the like. But cases involving admissibility of evidence come up all the time.
You miss my point entirely. Perhaps it was a poor choice of words on my part.
Socratic cannot teach you what the law is, particularly if once you have determined the right answer, the professor keeps on going so that, far from realizing it that it is the right answer, the students start believing it is the wrong answer.
That should have been Monroe H. Freedman, not H. Monroe.
Still, a great prof, one of the best in my experience.
(But Jerome Barron in Con Law comes to mind... He also taught Civil Pro, which induced insomnia among most of us)
The Socratic method is great, but the drink menu could use some work.
One problem with the socratic method is that it requires students to be prepared for class. But law students are a jaded bunch, not really intimidated by even the most old-school Kingsfield, and too many weren't adequately prepared for the class (I count myself among that number). I think it would work better if specific students were advised in advance that they would be called upon a particular day but that didn't happen. (Memory from 4 decades ago.)
"Was anyone else ever so dedicated to the Socratic method?"
Maybe Socrates.
Anyway, some people try to be socratic, but they're not as cratic as they think.
Prepared for class or pre-taught (self-taught)? If they are truly "prepared" just by reading the material, then they have no need of the classroom. But in actuality, most students -- first year students particularly -- as prepared as they might be, they don't know what they know and don't know.
Professor Summers' co-author, James J. White, taught Commercial Transactions at Michigan Law School, on similar Socratic principles. Unlike most others who taught upper level classes, he scheduled his classes 4-5 days per week at 8 AM, took attendance and announced he'd dock your grade if you missed more than x (I think 10) classes. He made sure to call upon every student and could be close to cruel if you couldn't keep up with his thinking. He gave pop quizzes and multiple exams throughout the semester, with trick questions to boot. He was, I hope I'm clear, thoroughly outside the norm for a national law school trying to stamp the passports of its students toward joining what the dean referred to as "the new aristocracy." As a result of his training, I was the only young lawyer I met for at least a few years who approached any Uniform Commercial Code Question with interest and enthusiasm rather than trepidation and fear of exposure. I think White thought Summers was a soft-headed liberal who was smart but misguided.
Mel Eisenberg (Berkeley), Fritz Kessler (Yale/Berkeley), Jack Dawson (Harvard/BU) are three greats. All contracts people like Summers.
I like the Socratic Method. In my opinion, there is no better engine to reveal the truth than by asking people what they think about X and Y, or what they did in response to X or Y.
If you ever got Ihlan Omar under oath she would admit that she hates America, hates Israel and hopes that both countries fail.
The Socratic Method illustrated:
Old Fish: "Morning, boys. How's the water?"
Young Fish (another young fish): "What the hell is water?"
Very impressive thoughts, Ann. I am really moved(writing from Washington state). It occurs to me that I am adding nothing, except regard for your thorough comprehension of the times in which we live. I will soon be 70_ My 96-year-old dad lives with us. I am accidentally here. It is always rewarding. Thank you. I will continue reading.
4:14 AM
"The Socratic dialogue that takes place here is a big part of why I like this blog so much. Power Line is more like law review."
Thanks.
I wish I had a blog like this to read (as opposed to write).
JJ White is still at Michigan Law.
https://www.law.umich.edu/FacultyBio/Pages/FacultyBio.aspx?FacID=jjwhite
Socrates Esq. Reasonable doubt at a reasonable price.
I go with the Aristophanic method.
Ann:
But I was on law review and liked it. Wrote two (!) case notes!
"Thanks. I wish I had a blog like this to read (as opposed to write)."
Yeah, I wish I had a garden like this (points out window) to loll about in (as opposed to cultivate).
Thanks!
I had a contracts professor who was pure Socratic. No text book, only cases (a fair number of which were demonstrably wrongly decided, so you couldn't even count on the case being correct); one, and only one, student was called on per day, and that student had to answer an hour of questions - no deviation from Socratic, even if the student was way off base, so the rest of us had to intuit from the direction of the questions (and sometimes the flop sweat of the student) whether the answers were correct - i.e., everyone had to stay involved and decide for themselves. Even his office hours were pretty purely Socratic, at least for the first year students. Absolutely the best class I ever had.
Professer Summers was my first year Contracts professor at the University of Oregon law school in 1966. I also had the extreme good fortune to take UCC and Ethics/Jurisprudence from him. The most brilliant person I have ever encountered and the best teacher. Not enough has been made of the influence growing up on a ranch outside Halfway had upon him. Even by Eastern Oregon standards Halfway is “back of beyond”. The easternmost town on the south side of the mighty Wallowa range, nestled in the Pine Creek valley, a verdant riparian oasis in an unforgiving desert, almost in Hell’s Canyon ( deeper than the Grand Canyon), and thus requiring self-sufficiency in the utmost, anecdotes about the gold rush in Cornucopia, or the Kleinscmidt Grade road, climbing the Idaho side from the mighty Snake, remain vivid 53 years later.
It's interesting to read (via Plato) Socrates' talk about his youthful acquaintance with natural science and math (quoting…):
When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called the investigation of nature; to know the causes of things, and why a thing is and is created or destroyed appeared to me to be a lofty profession; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of questions […].
And then I went on to examine the corruption of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded myself to be utterly and absolutely incapable of these enquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things which I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well; I forgot what I had before thought self-evident truths; e.g. such a fact as that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking[…].
Well; but let me tell you something more. There was a time when I thought that I understood the meaning of greater and less pretty well; and when I saw a great man standing by a little one, I fancied that one was taller than the other by a head; or one horse would appear to be greater than another horse: and still more clearly did I seem to perceive that ten is two more than eight, and that two cubits are more than one, because two is the double of one.
And what is now your notion of such matters? said Cebes.
I should be far enough from imagining, he replied, that I knew the cause of any of them, by heaven I should; for I cannot satisfy myself that, when one is added to one, the one to which the addition is made becomes two, or that the two units added together make two by reason of the addition. I cannot understand how, when separated from the other, each of them was one and not two, and now, when they are brought together, the mere juxtaposition or meeting of them should be the cause of their becoming two: neither can I understand how the division of one is the way to make two; for then a different cause would produce the same effect — as in the former instance the addition and juxtaposition of one to one was the cause of two, in this the separation and subtraction of one from the other would be the cause. Nor am I any longer satisfied that I understand the reason why one or anything else is either generated or destroyed or is at all, but I have in my mind some confused notion of a new method[…].
(/unQuote)
(Plato, Phaedo, The Dialogues of Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett, Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 7, pp. 240-241)
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It's fascinating seeing Socrates (describe his own process of) first blithely attempting to apply naive ideas about science and math (the sort of concepts everyone starts out with) — then recoiling in something like horror (and even, apparently, basically abandoning those philosophical topics) as the extreme difficulties of really rigorously, intellectually addressing these problems start to become apparent — concerns which mathematicians have hit and figuratively broken their heads upon for more than two millennia — before coming up, fairly recently, with (mostly) satisfactory solutions.
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