I

In my paper, I will try to remain philosophically faithful to Socrates by setting my argumentation in a paradoxical way. Namely, I lay claim to carry out two tasks in my paper and at the same time to show that one, being accomplished, necessarily makes the other devoid of any sense. In other words, my work is to result in the demonstration of the following dilemma: either we bring law, lawyers and legislative process into their native context of ancient polis and admit that in this very context the question concerning methods of teaching law gets too long an answer since education of a lawyer is equal to the education of a virtuous and wise citizen and that it is thus incorporated into the process of paideia (the proper description of which usually requires a voluminous treatise from an erudite scientist) or we take Socrates together with all his famous claims seriously and admit that there can be no Socratic method since in such a context "Socratic" becomes synonymous to "the philosophical" whereas philosophy as pure thinking can not be reduced to a mere methodology. However, the tension created by this dilemma will most effectively bring us to the core of the problematic we are to understand.

At first, two preconceptions employed in the dilemma are to be clarified. Its "either"-part refers to the notion of polis (city-state) as it was coined by the Athenian philosophical thought. Although contemporary "politics" has linguistically retained the same root, with the phenomenal realm that raised it up it has also abandoned the initial context of meaning that fostered it. Now, when one says that humans are political by their nature, we are quick at substituting this "political" with certain strive for power, influence and domination on the large scale of a state. We are often ready to argue that such a statement contains fallacious generalization and that it is not at all politics that constitute the utmost importance for human life. By contrast, when Aristotle in his Politics defined man as political animal, he only articulated a silent presumption common both to the ancient thinking and the later European tradition of republicanism: man can only live in polis. For antiquity, this presumption could not be unfolded into any plan of societal construction � in this sense, most of the problems that constitute the field of contemporary social theory would seem very strange to an ancient eye, to say the very least of it.

Contemporary socio-philosophical ponderings are essentially constructive. Most of the theoretical attempts of ascertaining the true principles of democracy, justice, and correct political order are determined by the technical task of reconstructing these reasonings at the policy level � that is, at the task of the implementation of these principles. Social theory needs them as certain corrections and innovations that, being put into practice, would bring the better results than those currently employed. Thus, contemporary theorizing presumes upon the "only-to-be" status of the present social relations and upon their only function of the mere material that is to be reduced to the normal form and that can either facilitate the process by its being pliable and passive or complicate it by its own unforeseen activity. In other words, our science is perfectly capable of answering the technical question of what the present social relations are to become and it is, at the same time, absolutely unfit for addressing the theoretical problem of what they are.

By contrast, it is this very problem that constituted the ultimate horizon of the ancient social thinking while its consideration, deprived of any sort of the objectively determined activism, did rightfully bear the name of philosophy. In sum, the constructivism of contemporary science directed by the arbitrary set of aims and "wishes" concerning what society ought or is to be, should look as an antipode to the ancient contemplation on what the polis (as a given context of life in which everybody is already involved) is and to the investigation of the various characters of this given polis. Accordingly, the nearly physical torments involved in the process of selection of the society we need and want to live in and all the mental tortures implied by the process of choosing correct principles of the said selection build the direct opposition to the considered patriotism of the ancient who used to collect the descriptions of various city-states� constitutions with the solely task of learning how becoming, appropriate and reasonable their own one was. In other words, the calculating strive for better living conditions that unites social theory, economics, and political science nowadays drastically differs from the understanding and comprehension of general causes unconcerned with any profit or utility and touched � instead � by the tune of general appraisal that distinguished philosophy among all other ancient pursuits.

Similarly, society that we are constantly choosing, building and improving so that it could better meet our needs and necessities disagrees with the native city of the ancient they only wanted to know and understand better. Although ancient polis might seem to share the character of necessity inherent in the contemporary notion of society, it ranked this necessity differently. Instead of the social necessity determined by the ever growing needs of population that are, in their turn, determined by the ever growing needs of social production, the ancient conceived their polis as necessary for bringing the citizens in conformity with their utmost essence: it is polis that can only provide the basis and context for reasonable communication which, in its turn, first constitutes man as a man.

The second part of my dilemma operates with the figure of Socrates. Again, within the philosophical context this name means something else than just a philosopher who lived in the 5^th century BC in Athens and who is reported to be Plato�s teacher. Hegel says in his History of Philosophy that Socrates has reached the understanding of the fact that everything that is is mediated by thinking. For Hegel, who � in his own mind and account � has finally completed the true task of philosophy, this in fact implies that it was Socrates who first established the philosophy that Hegel himself now crowns. However, these glorious deeds are ascribed to the man who did not leave a single written line for he privileged his mission of hanging about the market place and talking to his compatriots and the guests of Athens to the lofty task of teaching them by means of his oeuvres. This highlights that in its treating Socrates as philosopher par excellence European philosophical tradition refers to his personality rather than to his doctrine: Socrates is perceived as the animated and personalized embodiment of philosophical endeavour as such.

II

Let us now closely inspect Socrates�s manner of teaching so that, in the end, while accepting or rejecting Socratic method as a possible tool of teaching law, we would have a clear notion of what it is. In the course of this inspection, I will simultaneously unfold the first part of the dilemma I have started my paper with. More precisely, I will demonstrate that insofar as we ascribe the historically proper meaning to both legal education and Socratic method (that is, insofar as we understand both concepts within the context of the ancient Greek philosophy), the question of the best methods of legal education necessarily turns into one of bringing up virtuous and wise men. In order to accomplish this task and to finally free our question from its seemingly minor methodological importance, I would like to turn our attention to Plato�s dialogue Alcibiades I.

According to the contents of the dialogue, Alcibiades is about to start his public and political life. He wants to speak before the people and to be the most powerful one in the city. Being unsatisfied with his traditional status and the privileges of his birth, he wishes to gain personal power over others both inside and outside the city. At this point, Socrates intervenes and declares his love for Alcibiades. One must remark here that against the background of the refined homosexuality cultivated in the ancient Athens, Alcibiades is exactly of the age when one can no longer be the beloved desired by an assembly of admirers. At this age, one must become a lover. Earlier, Alcibiades rejected all his suitors for he wished to be dominant rather than dominated. However, with Socrates (who had been patient enough to wait until Alcibiades�s innumerable admirers leave their overweening and restive sweetheart) they make a pact: Alcibiades will submit to his lover Socrates, but in a different sense: not physically but spiritually. Thus, the dialogue starts with the intersection of political ambition and philosophical love: Alcibiades promises to follow Socrates�s thought while the latter claims to show Alcibiades his true nature and true ambitions and thus to contribute to his political career.

At this point, it is necessary for us to realize that however technical and discipular the questions of teaching methodology and instructive devises we use in class might seem, they are always embedded in the broader context of human life. Whatever we teach, we teach young people � aware of their position in life, ambitious of something, inspired by somebody�s example. Whatever they do in class, they necessarily and primarily perceive this in the perspective of their lives and least of all in terms of choosing between easy and complicated classes, those employing interactive methods and classes based on the lecture/seminar division. In other words, since no learning is a mere appropriation of facts, no teaching � and least of all the teaching of a lawyer whose work is intertwined with the questions of public importance � can be reduced to the sum of felicitous methods and devises. Moreover, it is Socratic method that would be the last to appear on the list of such devises. In order to procure sufficient justification to these theses let me take you back to the contents of the dialogue.

Socrates starts his teaching by asking whether Alcibiades, who wants to speak before the people, knows the meaning of the rule of law, justice or social concord. Alcibiades clearly knows nothing. In comparison with his rivals, the Persian and Spartan kings, his education is like that of an old, ignorant slave. Prompted by Socrates�s questions, Alcibiades has to admit that his hesitations are only due to the absence of knowledge or � in Plato�s own terms � to the fact that Alcibiades does not possess the art of governing. Socrates calls upon him not to lose heart and paradoxically suggests that Alcibiades should proceed with the process of his education by taking care of himself. "Care of oneself" is the only art Socrates claims to master. At this point, we are � together with our two gentlemen � to ask of what this art consists and in what relation it stands to the art of governing and legislation.

Alcibiades starts with the art that lies closer to the realm of his ambitions and, after having failed to answer Socrates�s seventh or eighth leading question, finally manages to sufficiently define civic virtue and, correspondingly, the art of fellow-citizens as "good counsel, of which the aim is the better order and preservation of the city". Socrates � whose true purpose is to show the limitations Alcibiades is subject to in his reasoning and to demonstrate how narrow they are � still finds this vague description to be too general to provide the proper guidance for a beginner in the field of stately affairs. He poses his next question differently: "What is that by the presence or absence of which the state is improved and better managed and ordered?" Alcibiades identifies these phenomena as "the presence of friendship and the absence of hatred and division" and describes friendship as agreement. Trying to make Alcibiades discover the true causes of this agreement Socrates inquires whether the art that can give that agreement, gives it to the polis as well as to the individuals. Alcibiades replies positively. As to the nature of this agreement (of which Socrates is also curious), Alcibiades means to say that it is similar to "such friendship and agreement as exists between an affectionate father and mother and their son, or between brothers, or between husband and wife".

At this point Socrates finds it most convenient to make Alcibiades face the inconsistency of his reasoning. He cunningly asks Alcibiades to confirm the innocent statement that women and men usually have different knowledge and possess different arts. Alcibiades does. However, since they have different knowledge, � Socrates continues � in this very knowledge there can be no agreement between women and men, "nor can there be friendship, if friendship is agreement". The conclusion Socrates finally draws astonishes Alcibiades: "Nor are states well administered, when individuals do their own work?". This clearly contradicts his earlier statement that the presence of friendship alone secures the good order of a state. Socrates amplifies the effect of his interrogation by a trivial elderly murmur which, however, makes Alcibiades passionately confess: "But, indeed, Socrates, I do not know what I am saying; and I have long been, unconsciously to myself, in a most disgraceful state". Socrates requests him to cheer up pointing at his young age when it is just "the time for taking care of yourself" and gives him his final advise that will irrevocably make Alcibiades submit to his teacher and true lover: "Answer questions, Alcibiades; and that is a process which, by the grace of God, if I may put any faith in my oracle, will be very improving to both of us".

The rest of the text is devoted to an analysis of this notion of "taking care of oneself". It takes Socrates five steps to demonstrate to Alcibiades � this time with no logical trapping employed � the link that exists between the prospects of his being a successful politician (who must also be a wise legislator) and his talks � seemingly idle � with Socrates. First, the talkers agree that "taking proper care means improving". Since it seems obvious to both gentlemen that it is certain skill or art that can only be responsible for the improvement of something, it remains them to find and properly describe this art.

Yet, having witnessed the failure of Alcibiades�s several attempts of such description, Socrates questions him: "Can we ever know what art makes a man better, if we do not know what we are ourselves?" Thus, second, the task of determining the art Alcibiades seeks to possess gets replaced with the task of defining "what we are ourselves".

After performing a number of successive reductions of properties (self is not clothing, tools or possessions) Alcibiades, third, concludes that "self" is to be found in the principle that variously uses all these tools � that is, in the soul.

Fourth, for soul to know itself it appears to be necessary to look at another soul as an eye needs a similar element to see itself, namely the mirror. This general postulate of the ancient science (otherwise formulated as "the similar can only be known by means of the similar") invokes no protests in either of the two conversing souls. Alcibiades readily nodding, Socrates suggests: "And if the soul, my dear Alcibiades, is ever to know herself, must she not look at the soul; and especially at that part of the soul in which her virtue resides?" It also does not take the two long to agree that the part of the soul they are interested in is one that, being closest to the divine, "has to do with wisdom and knowledge" and that "he who looks at this and at the whole class of things divine, will be most likely to know himself".

Self-knowledge, wisdom and virtue as the ability to discern good from evil have been equated, Socrates states: "Cities, then, if they are to be happy, do not want walls, or triremes, or docks, or numbers, or size, without virtue". Since it seems fairly impossible to give something one does not have, Socrates, finally, completes the argument in the instructive tone: "Then you or any one who means to govern and superintend, not only himself and the things of himself, but the state and the things of the state, must in the first place acquire virtue".

Thus, should we agree with logic of the dialogue, we have � for the sake of intellectual consistency � to immediately turn our legal departments into Departments of Virtue since (as it has become clear for us from the analysis we got through) one who does not understand what good and evil, justice and tolerance are, can not be a good lawyer. However, before suggesting such renaming to your Dean, make sure your life will not be ruined together with the loss of your current job.

III

Let me now put aside the essence of jurisprudence and take for granted all general definitions of its scope and subject-matter that are commonly circulating in the University curricula. In this part of my paper, I will concentrate my attention solely on the specificity of "Socratic method" in its original, Socrates�s own, version regardless of the subject it might be applied to.

In the history of philosophy Socrates�s name and personality is most often juxtaposed with the names and teachings of the sophists, his contemporaries and rivals. Ironically, these men whom Socrates apparently did not like and whom he teased on every occasion seemed to do the very same job as Socrates claimed to accomplish � at least, in the dialogue I deal with in this article. Like Socrates, the sophists claimed to teach virtue. Like him, they talked to the youths, preferably the offsprings of the noble and rich families who were ambitious of political careers, and promised to show them the right way of acquiring power and respect in polis. Like Socrates, the sophists were the masters of logical tricks and paradoxes that would unfailingly turn their listeners into their most faithful adherents. Unlike Socrates, they made their living on doing that and unlike him, they were never prosecuted for doing their job.

Philosophical meaning of the sophistic pursuits may be defined � quite defiantly from the scientific point of view but at the same time quite precisely � as a sort of ancient Enlightenment that shares with the modern European Enlightenment its aspiration in all questions to rely solely upon one�s own courage and power of understanding. Apart from the assertion of man as an entity potent of designing and building up his environs according to his own standards (of which the brightest expression is Protagoras�s famous saying that man is the measure of all things), such aspiration also implies challenging the commonly accepted norms and customs and revealing them as regular human settings and rulings that can, therefore, be overridden by those we would find more appropriate at the moment. Like Socrates, the sophists called upon young souls to discover and recognize themselves in all their capacities and to have enough courage to pave their way to the fulfilment of all their ambitions. For instance, someone blocked from the possibility of being appointed to certain position by a city law may question the validity of this law by arguing that this particular regulation was set by a man no more intelligent than one suffering from its effects. Similarly, one accused of a crime and sentenced to certain punishment may free oneself from the obligation to suffer it by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the authority that rendered the verdict and by showing the officials to be incompetent and slow-witted.

However similar Socrates�s intellectual armature may seem (for he, too, apparently called upon young souls to disclose their true abilities and needs and to find their own way to virtue and wisdom), his own death did provide sufficient evidence that beyond the blatant validity of the sophistic argument he saw something which by far outweighed all the interests and demands of an individual. Sentenced to death by the court of Athens for the felony of corrupting the young and deliberate atheism (accusation the absurdity of which made half of the court members wake up � this seems to be the only plausible explanation why only half of the jury voted for the sentence), Socrates was suggested by his influential friends to break out of prison and to escape from the city. He rejected this proposal arguing that as justice as such is not a matter of social agreement or one�s voluntary decision, the judgement of his own case also can not be considered solely as the result of a fault and partiality of the jury. However unjust this judgement was with regard to Socrates�s personality, it was at the same time the expression of justice on the scale of the city. In other words, a single mistake of jury could not, according to Socrates, abolish the laws of the city, and as long as they remained valid, he personally had no acquittal from obeying them.

Thus, Socrates�s assertion of the might of human mind was always aimed at its proper application. Human mind is potent enough not only to question the validity of traditional establishments whose roots and justification are long forgotten (as the sophists brilliantly did) but also to ask what is it that makes some of them valid and the good ones good. The question of the goodness of the good � that is, the question of the good as such alone constitutes philosophy�s subject-matter. Philosophy starts and ends at this point of revealing of the good as such. As the ultimate concentration on the most important, philosophy makes no progress and carves no way. In this sense, it does not make up any method, method being understood in its initial Greek meaning as "a way". Philosophy�s only "way" is standing by and insisting on being as it is.

Insofar as the essence of philosophy can not be represented as a sequence of certain steps leading to the proper understanding of a particular circle of problems, it can hardly be taught at all. More precisely, to teach philosophy as such seems to be as hopeless a task as to teach seeing and hearing: not everyone who has eyes can see � one who sees, needs nothing else than eyes.

However, the whole body of philosophy can certainly not be reduced to the �standing by� and �insisting on� I mentioned. As a science, it has its own history and the variously perceived methodologies. As one, it is successfully taught at Universities. What I have described constitutes, rather, philosophy�s essential character. The importance of the figure of Socrates to any philosopher lies in the fact that it reduces to nothing the scientific part of philosophy with all its disciplinary character and methodological chicanery. It is in the very texture of his life and death rather than in the conceptual constellation of his doctrine that Socrates�s perception of philosophy is fixed. He never attempted to create any conceptually integrate philosophical system. Rather, the very integrity of his life may be grasped as such a system.

Understanding of philosophy as the understanding of Socrates�s life and death does not require special training. Therefore, in the process of education Socrates performs the role totally different from that played by Aristotle or Hegel. While the elaborate doctrines of these two are indispensable for the formation of the conceptual "muscular system" of the students, the figure of Socrates works as personal example each student lays to the core of his personality. In this sense, the example of Socrates teaches in the same way as he taught himself.

Thus, Socratic method consists in the indication � by means of personal example � of the being of great things (good as such, being as it is) that endow our own life with its sense. However, it is quite problematic to demonstrate these things: they are invisible and intangible, there is no particular place one could catch them at as well as there is no special time one would encounter these things. One can only grasp them by discovering their traces in one�s own soul. To show his students these traces, Socrates has only two means at his disposal, namely words (that were also skillfully used by the sophists) and love he had towards his listeners.

Socrates often compared his pursuits with the art of which his mother, midwife, was a master: the art of facilitating labour pains and assisting the birth throes of the infant-souls just coming to existence. Following what method do humans succeed in bringing forth that which did not exist before? Whether you call it "method" or not, this is love. The same holds for the second birth, that of our soul:

Nobody may be prohibited from repeating Socrates�s deeds and, in this sense, from exercising Socratic method. However, one ambitious of implementing it should show the simultaneous presence of the two opposite qualities. In order not to sink into sophistic with its discussions of non-existent problems one must be extremely serious. At the same time, one must remain extremely self-ironical in order not to sink into megalomania.

And make sure you love each and everyone of them, sitting in your class�