The idea of Socrates: a question opens what an answer closes

A question for the oracle at Delphi

The link between the Delphi method and Socrates' questioning philosophy is more than a metaphor. It also has a historical basis. According to Plato's Apology, Socrates' friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi whether anyone was wiser than Socrates. The oracle replied that no one was. Socrates was not content with the answer and set out to find people wiser than himself. He went round the marketplaces, gymnasia and craftsmen's workshops of Athens and talked with anyone willing to talk. In doing so he developed a way of conversing built on questions, which we now call the Socratic method.

The search ended in a paradox. Socrates found that those who believed they knew did not know, and did not even know that they did not know. He himself was wiser only in that he did not believe he knew what he did not know. This has become the saying "I know that I know nothing". Admitting ignorance was not false modesty but a method: if you do not assume you know, you can ask, and by asking you can learn. The same attitude makes a good starting point for the Delphi method. In an increasingly complex world, knowing too early can prove fatal. This applies to schools as well, whose hidden curriculum often rewards the one who answers more than the one who asks.

In his conversations Socrates feigned ignorance and asked his partner to teach him. He kept asking until the other person's original view ran into a dead end (in Greek, aporia). The aim was not to humiliate but to help the other person think more consistently. A dead end is often a necessary condition for frozen views to start moving.

Socrates compared himself to a midwife. He did not claim to give birth to wisdom himself, but helped others bring forth their own thoughts and tested whether they were viable. In Plato's Meno, Socrates leads an enslaved boy with no training in geometry, by questions alone, to discover how to double the area of a square. The example captures the core of the method: the teacher does not pour knowledge into the learner but helps the learner think for themselves.

When we speak, we do not merely make true or false statements about the world. We also produce meanings, creating new ones or reinforcing old ones. This applies especially to the future, about which we cannot make observations or state anything with certainty. That is precisely why it is reasonable to try to influence how the future is seen. History does not help us predict, but it does offer tools. Nor is the past the opposite of the future: history cannot be changed, but its interpretations do. The present separates the past from the future, yet it is attached to both and colours each of them.

Apollo's centre of prophecy

At ancient Delphi, the earth goddess Gaia was worshipped first. According to legend, her sanctuary was guarded by a huge serpent, Python. Apollo, son of Zeus and god of light and healing, killed the serpent and took the sanctuary for himself. His priestess, the Pythia, conveyed the god's answers to those who asked, according to tradition while in a trance. For centuries the temple grew into a powerful institution. Kings, generals and city-states came to seek advice before military campaigns, the founding of colonies and other major decisions. A favourable answer strengthened their intentions; an unfavourable one gave them pause.

No scenarios were drawn up at Delphi. For people in antiquity the future was predetermined, and what mattered most was finding out what it would be. There were many gods but only one future. The oracle declined and fell silent after Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at the end of the fourth century. It took a long time before the future came to be seen as plural and as something people make themselves.

A basic assumption of today's futures researcher is that there are many futures. The same development can be seen in the history of the Delphi method. At first the method was used to seek agreement, that is, a single probable future. Even so, the difference from antiquity is clear: even in a consensus-seeking Delphi study, the future is something to be made rather than adapted to. Later, variants emerged in which opening up several well-reasoned futures, for instance as scenarios, matters more than agreement. What unites the ancient temple and present-day foresight is the same desire: to understand the future and to influence it.

Questions and rhetoric

The sophists of Socrates' day taught the art of speaking, whose purpose was to persuade and win debates, with or without the truth. Plato and Aristotle criticised this: the logic and ethics of speech and thought matter more than persuasiveness. The question of how language conveys reality and shapes it remains topical. According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, the meaning of words depends on the context and the practices in which they are used. Using language is a kind of game with its own rules. The Delphi method, too, can be seen as a language game in which reasoned speech is given special weight. That is why it has been called the method of the best argument. Rhetoric and argumentation are taken up again in the essay The idea of argument in this series.

What, then, is the legacy of the ancient thinkers for the Delphi method today? A good but insufficient answer is the Socratic method. Understanding often begins with an apt question, or a series of questions, that takes us ever deeper into a phenomenon. A dialogue that starts from a question is a way of reaching where there is no direct access. It requires the ability to listen and the willingness to carry another person's thought forward.

RAND's Delphi and the scientific question

Only ruins remain of the temple at Delphi, but the idea lived on. The name was revived at the start of the Cold War at the American think tank RAND, which studied defence, decision-making and technological development. The new Delphi made no appeal to the gods. Its aims were fast yet considered decision-making under uncertainty and reliable assessments of future technologies. The developers of the method, Olaf Helmer and Norman Dalkey, conducted their first experiments in the early 1950s, and the method became more widely known in the 1960s.

Helmer and Dalkey collected the assessments of a group of experts through questionnaires, compiled the answers and returned a summary to the experts for reassessment. Respondents who departed from the majority in particular were asked to justify their position. The rounds ultimately aimed at agreement. An essential feature then and now is anonymous responding. It aims to reduce the influence of hierarchies, group pressure, positions of authority and charismatic personalities on the results. These features have proved durable, although there are many variants today. Rounds take place online, and alongside the multi-round process a real-time Delphi is used, in which the discussion continues throughout a single long round.

After the first technology assessments, the Delphi method has been used to anticipate the futures of the economy, health care, the environment, education and transport, among others. Alongside agreement, studies seek a plurality of views (dissensus), in which attention turns to the reasoning behind different alternatives. Following Harold Sackman's critique in the 1970s, the method's connection with scientific ideals has been strengthened. At the same time it has been acknowledged that the future cannot be studied by the same criteria as what has already happened.

Both the ancient and the modern Delphi begin with a question, as does all scientific research. In the classical research design, the question is formulated as a hypothesis that is tested against observations. A hypothesis that does not fit the observations is rejected, and one that fits is accepted, at least until an exception appears. This cannot be applied to statements about the future, because their consequences cannot yet be observed. Delphi theses therefore cannot be tested in the same way as research hypotheses. That does not prevent us from seeking the best-reasoned assessment possible, or from also exploring less probable or less desirable futures.

When a direct observational test is impossible, a hypothesis can be supported in other ways: by generalisations and analogies, by the refutation of competing alternatives, and by knowledge of the mechanisms at work. So-called broad empiricism also accepts as sources of knowledge earlier research, the researcher's experiential knowledge and the views of experts familiar with the phenomenon. The Delphi method relies especially on the last of these, but through the experts the other sources of reasoning come in too. Knowledge of the future cannot be certain, but interpretations of history that has already happened also change over time. As long as the difference between certain and uncertain knowledge is kept in mind, the ideals of different disciplines are largely shared.

What makes a good question?

Socrates offers a good clue. His first question usually challenged a prevailing view and contained, at least implicitly, the idea that things could be otherwise. His partner's first answer was usually conventional. Socrates then asked the next question, which made them think, and from there the journey continued in a direction no one knew in advance. The same happens in a Delphi study.

The most important quality of a good question is openness: it has no single objectively correct answer. The same holds for statements, or theses, the form in which Delphi questions are often cast. Statements about the future are open from the outset, because no one owns the future. Ethical questions belong to the same group; in a democracy they cannot simply be taught and handed down to the next generation. Every era has to find its own interpretations of them.

Plato's dialogues still offer tempting openings. What is courage? (Laches) Can virtue be taught? (Meno) What is love? (Symposium) What is knowledge, and how does it differ from belief? (Theaetetus) What is justice? (Republic) How should an individual relate to the law and to society? (Crito) What is friendship? (Lysis) How should one live? (Gorgias)

Socrates as instructions for AI

A future-oriented facilitator might ask a new big question: is the human being the end point of evolution? The question can be tried out with an AI based on a language model, once the AI has first been instructed to act as a Socratic tutor, for example like this:

You are a Socratic tutor. Follow these principles in the conversation:

• Ask open, thought-provoking questions that challenge your partner's assumptions and encourage deeper reflection.
• Create a respectful atmosphere in which different perspectives are valued and sharing one's own ideas feels safe.
• Listen carefully and try to understand the thinking behind the answers.
• Do not give ready-made answers; help your partner find them for themselves.
• Encourage questioning assumptions, weighing the grounds for claims and considering alternative perspectives.
• Acknowledge the limits of your own knowledge and your uncertainty.

I will not reveal what the AI answers; anyone can try it. This much can be said: the question does not resolve into an answer at the first attempt. And that is just as well. The story remains open, but after the conversation the picture of it is far more nuanced. The instructions work equally well for a human teacher and for a Delphi facilitator.

The rest of the series

The next essay, The idea of dialogue, deepens the foundations of questioning conversation with the help of other thinkers as well. The idea of argument picks up where this essay ends: how the reliability of uncertain knowledge can be improved. The idea of open speech extends dialogue to the level of society. The first four essays describe ideas that endure over time. The last three, The idea of expertise, The idea of the future and The idea of futures studies, deal with ideas that change over time.

Sources

• Dalkey, Norman & Helmer, Olaf (1963). An experimental application of the Delphi method to the use of experts. Management Science 9(3), 458–467.
• Gordon, Theodore J. (2009). The Delphi Method. In Glenn, J. C. & Gordon, T. J. (eds.), Futures Research Methodology, Version 3.0. The Millennium Project.
• Helmer, Olaf (1967). Analysis of the Future: The Delphi Method. RAND Corporation.
• Kakkuri-Knuuttila, Marja-Liisa (2001). Mitä on tutkimus? Argumentti, väittely ja retoriikka [What is research? Argument, debate and rhetoric]. Metodix.
• Plato. Apology, Meno, Theaetetus, Gorgias. In Cooper, J. M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works. Hackett, 1997.
• Sackman, Harold (1975). Delphi Critique: Expert Opinion, Forecasting, and Group Process. Lexington Books.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Plato; Aristotle's Rhetoric.