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Originally Posted by AVoiceOfReason
It's a highly effective method of teaching--let the student form the answers. Socrates and Jesus both used it effectively.
Let's try to answer the questions:.....
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O.K., your point is basically a good one, but I have a couple of my own to make. Firstly, the way you answered Stein's questions was great. Open minded and thoughtful, but his way of questioning was not designed to get those kind of answers. They are questions that lead one to certain responses which back up the agenda of the person asking - "leading" questions.
Keep in mind that Socrates and Jesus were both characters in books/philosophical writings. So, if they were asking questions, there was definitely an agenda being pushed by the authors. In both cases, there was never a list of leading questions being asked. There was always a full context to the question. In the case of the dialogues, Socrates would ask many questions in the way a computer tech support person does: trying to arrive at the truth by the process of elimination. This is far from what Ben Stein is doing.
Questions maybe an effective method of teaching, but I've never been convinced that Ben Stein could be a person I could learn from. Maybe he should stick to trivia.