I see you are a specialist in the Socratic method.
I don't claim that, no. But if you take the time read my 5,000+ posts to this forum you'll find I employ the method quite extensively. Like you, I don't admit to a perfect understanding or execution of it. But I'm no stranger to it. Engineers do take philosophy classes, you know. When you work in a field where "right" is always a matter of professional success and often a matter of life and death, methods for understanding what that means take on significant. Not
every such method is helpful, but engineers do wax philosophic when required.
Earlier I argued that the Socratic method is best suited for questions in which concrete definitions are elusive. I spoke too hastily. What a forensic engineer does when he engages in Root Cause Analysis bears an important resemblance to the Socratic method as used to expose hidden axioms or postulates.
The Socratic method applied to an ethical question may expose that the advocate of some particular ethical maxim basis his argument on an arguable or simplistic notion. For example, if one says that it is ethically unjustifiable to allow prostitution because it is a form of slavery and one has a natural right to liberty, then a Socratic exploration of that argument might expose a hidden premise whether one's "natural" right to self-determination includes the right to revoke that self-determination on one's own behalf -- i.e., to choose voluntarily a life of submission and servitude that denies one's further right to choose. Socratically then, we peel back the layers of the discussion and reveal propositions that may, in fact, contradict statements held elsewhere.
The peeling back of layers to expose underlying causes and effects is Socratic enough, and forms the basis of Root Cause Analysis. Why did some airliner crash? Because its engines failed. Why did its engines fail? Because of fuel starvation. Why was the fuel exhausted? Because not enough was loaded for the journey. Why wasn't enough fuel loaded? Because a ground crewman converted improperly between pounds and kilograms. Why was such a conversion necessary? Because there was an inappropriate lag in the publication of appropriate reference tables? Why was there such a lag?
And so forth. The principle is essentially the same. At each step you see what else needs to be questioned, and at each step you see whether you can see anything that contradicts what has been previously observed. You either keep going, reach an impasse, or reject a particular hypothesis that is guiding your questioning.
But I will stipulate that you likely know more of the Socratic method than I, in which case you will be able to justify your behavior in light of it by sound argument rather than by vague handwaving and assertion, if you so choose.
What, according to you, are the rules?
I don't propose to enumerate them. That's not necessary in order to note violations.
Do you agree that red herring responses and meaningless obfuscation are not allowed in a valid Socratic dialogue? Do you agree that changing horses is not allowed in a valid Socratic dialogue?
The second presumption is Turbonium's...
But you agree with Turbonium, therefore it is also your presumption. Or do you now say you
disagree with Turbonium? If the former, please supply an argument for the alleged unamity of witnesses, or refer to where Turbonium made it. If the latter, you have changed horses.
...the first presumption is your misunderstanding of what I was putting forward in that discussion.
But I know what
I was putting forward, and you responded with an allusion to a red herring argument that J. Durnavitch expounded. Only after we exhausted the obfuscation did you admit you didn't know what investigations had been made. Note how I didn't pursue the matter further; the explicit admission was all I was after. You would have saved us a lot of time by doing that up front, and the outcome would have ben exactly the same.
I'll give you credit for admitting your argument on some point is weak. You only raise my ire if you continue to buttress a failing conclusion with increasingly absurd arguments.
If you admit that your understand or execution of the Socratic method is imperfect, then you might stipulate to the preceding examples under that admission. In that case you should have no problem also stipulating to my assertion that not everything you say or do here is proper to the method you claim to be using. And if that's the case, then our rejection of your arguments may not have anything to do with misunderstanding your method or failing to accept it as valid.
now that's a good one! The point being that it is exactly the point of the discussion to establish what in this context would be justifiable. So I can't define that here and now.
But this is nevertheless useful. I asked for your definition of "justifiable" and you responded (agreeably) that it depends on context. That's a perfectly proper answer, because it establishes that many different definitions of "justifiable"
can be formulated and discussed. It also establishes that there exists such a thing as a "context" whose nature must now be explored and understood.
But those questions are relevant and interesting only if some variance in the quality of those things is presumed. That is, if the definitions we contemplate are qualitatively equivalent, then it doesn't matter which we choose. But you imply that it does matter, hence your reluctance to commit to any one of them without examination. Therefore we have to conclude you believe that some approaches to measuring the strength of the evidence are better than others. If some are better than others and it's important to get a good one, then by what criteria do you propose to evaluate them?
('us' is shorthand for something like: any rational person who is interested in getting some answer to this question).
Do you admit that among those who express an interest in the amount and quality of evidence for an airliner crash at the Pentagon, there can be found those who are irrational as well as those who are rational? If you stipulate as much, then do you agree it is not worth trying to satisfy the irrational ones? How then do you propose to distinguish between rational and irrational people for the purpose of "justified conviction" according to this evidence?
If the argument above holds, then merely questioning the evidence does not
ipso facto qualify one as rational, nor the grounds upon which it is questioned.