Socratic Irony

In the dialogue called “Meno,” Socrates explores the idea of virtue. Socrates goes along with what his friend, Meno, says, hoping that they’ll elicit some further revelation on their conversational journey. “Okay, so let’s say that virtue can be taught…” Socrates will say, and then, through clever questioning, will go on to reveal why that’s wrong. “Socratic irony” is where you pretend to be ignorant of something so you can get greater clarity about it. In short, it’s a lot like Cunningham’s Law.