Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of or relating to the aspect of the Socratic method that induces a respondent to formulate latent concepts through a dialectic or logical sequence of questions.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Serving to assist or facilitate childbirth; hence, in the Socratic method (see II.) aiding in bringing forth, in a metaphorical sense; serving to educe or elicit.
- noun The art of midwifery: applied by Socrates to the method he pursued in investigating and imparting truth; intellectual midwifery.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Serving to assist childbirth.
- adjective Aiding, or tending to, the definition and interpretation of thoughts or language.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
maieutical
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Greek maieutikos, from maieuesthai, to act as midwife, from maia, midwife, nurse; see mā- in Indo-European roots.]
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Examples
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frindley commented on the word maieutic
Maieutic is one of my favourite obscure words. It means pertaining to intellectual midwifery and describes as no other word does a phenomenon that happens more often than you might think. It is very rewarding when you can match the moment to the word.
(Martin Ackland, London)
October 15, 2008
Prolagus commented on the word maieutic
See also μαιε�?ω.
October 15, 2008
bneenan84 commented on the word maieutic
i can't believe this website exists.
December 14, 2008
Prolagus commented on the word maieutic
Which website?
December 14, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word maieutic
If 'this website' doesn't exist, doesn't it follow that the words 'this website' don't refer to anything, and hence that the belief renders itself meaningless?
December 14, 2008
garyth123 commented on the word maieutic
if this website didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it.
December 14, 2008
bilby commented on the word maieutic
I believe mangoes exist, I saw one at the market this morning.
December 14, 2008
sionnach commented on the word maieutic
I believe mangoes where nobody has gone before.
December 14, 2008
Telofy commented on the word maieutic
I think that perhaps bneenan84 is distinguishing between an objective and a subjective reality, so that when (s)he says "this website" (s)he's acknowledging its existence within this subjective reality while its existence in the objective reality remains doubtful. "I believe this website does not exist" would then either mean that the objective existence of a subjectively perceived website is doubted or simply that (s)he would believe "such a website" to be inexistent within whichever reality, referring to some kind of perhaps unlikely notion.
Please excuse possible inaccuracies, I'm currently in a lecture.
December 15, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word maieutic
"I didn't feel qualified, but I accepted and we began to work, proceeding by a Socratic, maieutic method – which is something I'm rather good at."
The Patagonian Hare by Claude Lanzmann, p 191 of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardcover edition
April 16, 2013