maieutics

From this dialogue comes the word "maieutics", the "spiritual midwife."

Stiegler calls this an "instrumental maieutics," a mirror effect whereby one, looking at itself in the other, is deformed and formed in the process.

Permissiveness, the metaphor of mid-wifery (or maieutics), "guidance", a dependence on things, "changing minds", all contain either problems or faulty assumptions about what is going on.

As to maieutics, it is based on Plato's theory of recollection (anamnesis), so that it holds that knowledge is latent in the conscious mind, awaiting discovery.

The extent to which this method is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or to help them further their understanding, is called the method of maieutics.

In contrast, Wittgenstein's book treats philosophy as an activity, rather along the lines of Socrates's famous method of maieutics; he has the reader work through various problems, participating actively in the investigation.