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

  • It is upon the evidence of this fact, indeed, that the admirable pedagogical method, known as maieutic, is founded.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 7: Gregory XII-Infallability 1840-1916 1913

  • These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be brought forth. [

    Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles 1852

  • The ultimate end-point of this, on one side of the dialectic, is maieutic fiction. posted by Hal Duncan | 9: 43 PM

    On Mimetic and Maieutic Fiction Hal Duncan 2009

  • The ultimate end-point of this, on one side of the dialectic, is maieutic fiction. posted by Hal Duncan | 9: 43 PM

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • In maieutic fiction, the protagonist is faced with a problem that requires a reflective reevaluation of self, with resolution achieved not by action but by realisation, in an epiphany that is not gnosis but rather logos.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • At least the naivety of those “genre” novels has been put in its place; these pretend to be proper books, with complex approaches to trauma, even as in their use of the strange and the diegetic they seek to infiltrate and undermine the literary order — which is to say the self-sustaining absolutes, the “what is, is” of maieutic miserablism.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Hal Duncan 2009

  • In maieutic fiction, the protagonist is faced with a problem that requires a reflective reevaluation of self, with resolution achieved not by action but by realisation, in an epiphany that is not gnosis but rather logos.

    On Mimetic and Maieutic Fiction Hal Duncan 2009

  • At least the naivety of those “genre” novels has been put in its place; these pretend to be proper books, with complex approaches to trauma, even as in their use of the strange and the diegetic they seek to infiltrate and undermine the literary order — which is to say the self-sustaining absolutes, the “what is, is” of maieutic miserablism.

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books Hal Duncan 2009

  • As I say, I include reflective realism in this as the mimesis of mind, and place maieutic fiction as a logical end-point of that.

    War of All Against All: Realism vs Fabulism? Er, No… 2009

  • Which is to say, how maieutic reflectiveness is literonormative.

    War of All Against All: Realism vs Fabulism? Er, No… 2009

Comments

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  • 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

  • See also μαιε�?ω.

    October 15, 2008

  • i can't believe this website exists.

    December 14, 2008

  • Which website?

    December 14, 2008

  • 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

  • if this website didn't exist it would be necessary to invent it.

    December 14, 2008

  • I believe mangoes exist, I saw one at the market this morning.

    December 14, 2008

  • I believe mangoes where nobody has gone before.

    December 14, 2008

  • 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

  • "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