Mason Marshall Reading Plato’s Dialogues to Enhance Learning and Inquiry: Exploring Socrates’ Use of Protreptic for Student Engagement

Abstract

This article is based on a study by Mason Marshall Reading Plato’s Dialogues to Enhance Learning and Inquiry. Exploring Socrates’ Use of Protreptic for Student Engagement .  The author makes, inter alia, analyzes of the Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro and emphasizes the ways of promoting and encouraging Socrates used for self-evaluation and conscious reflection in the interlocutor. By focusing his work on Socrates’ use of protreptic, Marshall proposes a practical approach to reading Plato, illustrating how his writings can be used to enhance intrinsic motivation amongst students, and help them develop the thinking skills required for democratic and civic engagement.

The article shows how to practically apply a protreptic in didactics; it also points to the work of Ole Fogh Kirkeby, who writes about similar matters and justifies the use of traditional teaching methods in a modern school.