A Socratic View of Assessment
The History of Assessment Series
By Emily Andrews
Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes
Questions lie at the heart of assessment. Required answers may variously demand factual recall, proof of acquired skill, or critical reflection and innovative reasoning; however, questions and answers will always comprise the basic rhythm of testing. No matter your theory or pedagogy of assessment, its essential building blocks remain the same.
When studying the nature of questions, it is impossible to overlook the significance of Socrates, the Father of Questions in the Western tradition. His method of Socratic Dialogue not only stands at the very origins of philosophy in the West, but it also weaves through the whole “Great Conversation” about transcendent ideas, from Ancient Greece to Modernity, as the heartbeat that drives the tradition forward. Consequently, if we are to discover a classical mode of assessment, then there is no better place to start our investigation.
Socrates the Examiner
For Socrates (as he is portrayed by Plato), probing questions are a tool for the collective pursuit of truth. Pedagogically, however, they also allow the master teacher to help individual students realize what they know – or more accurately, what they don’t know. Whereas a lecture hands a student a gift that they may or may not accept, the process of asking and answering questions requires students to take possession of knowledge for themselves.
As an example, here is a passage taken from Theaetetus wherein Socrates poses the initial question, “What is knowledge?”:
Theaetetus: I think that the sciences which I learn from Theodorus–geometry, and those which you just now mentioned–are knowledge; and I would include the art of the cobbler and other craftsmen; these, each and all of them, are knowledge.
…
Socrates: When you speak of cobbling, you mean the art or science of making shoes?
Thea.: Just so.
Soc.: And when you speak of carpentering, you mean the art of making wooden implements?
Thea.: I do.
Soc.: In both cases you define the subject-matter of each of the two arts?
Thea.: I do.
Soc.: But that, Theatetus, was not the point of my question: we wanted to know not the subjects, nor yet the number of the arts or sciences, for we were not going to count them, but we wanted to know the nature of knowledge in the abstract. Am I not right?
Thea.: Perfectly right.
Soc.: Let me offer an illustration: Suppose that a person were to ask about some very trivial and obvious thing–for example, What is clay? And we were to reply, that there is a clay of potters, there is a clay of oven-makers, there is a clay of brick-makers; would not the answer be ridiculous?
Thea.: Truly.
Soc.: In the first place, there would be an absurdity in assuming that he who asked the question would understand from our answer the nature of “clay,” merely because we added “of the image-makers,” or of any other workers. How can a man understand the name of anything, when he does not know the nature of it?
Thea.: He cannot.
….
Soc.: And when a man is asked what science or knowledge is, to give in answer the name of some art or science is ridiculous.
….
Thea.: Yes, Socrates, there is no difficulty as you put the question. (1)
Socratic Questions as Tools of Learning
Perhaps the first thing worth noticing about this passage is its length. Socrates takes his time asking questions, moving slowly and covering ground inch by inch, to allow his interlocutor to keep in step with the movement of his reasoning. Good assessment takes time, inviting the one under evaluation to slow down and watch themselves think.
In The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook, Ward Farnsworth explores the effectiveness of Socrates’ method, not just externally between conversants, but internally within the self. He highlights Hippias Major, in which Socrates puts forward objections to his thought from some unnamed quarrelsome individual. It eventually becomes clear that the quarrelsome individual who opposes Socrates is Socrates himself. The dialogue he has with Hippias is a reflection of the dialogue happening within himself. (2)
Could it be that good tests act as a kind of Socrates, spurring internal examination within students during the process of external examination? In Farnsworth’s words, “Questions and answers are the sound of thought happening.” (3) The more an assessment can model sound questioning and invite answers that require complex reasoning, the more readily students can echo that rhythm of question and answer within themselves outside of a testing environment.
It is interesting to note the blurry lines between instruction and assessment in the passage quoted above. We are not looking at an instance where Socrates has no determined answer to his question in mind, although many such instances exist across the dialogues. Socrates knows what it is he wants Theaetetus to realize: that his definition of knowledge is actually a tautology. Yet, instead of simply telling Theaetetus that his logic is flawed, Socrates shows him it is so by forcing Theaetetus to think through and agree to various statements of truth in order to arrive at the conclusion himself. Theaetetus’ knowledge of the argument now has roots in his own reasoning; it is not simply borrowed from Socrates.
Socrates also uses everyday, concrete examples to help his interlocutor enter into the more abstract ideas he wishes to address. He embodies intangible realities in more accessible comparisons. By using clay as an analogy of knowledge, Socrates allows Theaetetus to enter into knowledge from the place where all of us must begin: with his feet (of clay) on the ground.
The Effects of Socratic Assessment
Theaetetus is a good sport about Socrate’s badgering questions, but there are plenty of other instances in the dialogues where Socrates’ victims lose their patience, walk away, or vent their spleen. In the same way, teachers often wrestle with student frustration on test day (standardized or otherwise) when questions take too long or are too difficult to answer. Socrates’ example is a good reminder that sometimes such frustration is actually a sign that learning is taking place. The trick is to encourage students to grow comfortable with their discomfort. Rather than a sign of failure, coming up short in response to a test question is actually a door for opportunity. As long as both student and teacher are clear on that point, good tests can become tools of learning instead of challenges to a student’s worth or obstacles to future success.
I named Socrates the Father of Questions in the Western tradition above, however it might be more accurate to find the primordial example of good question asking in the Book of Job. There God rains down rhetorical question after rhetorical question on Job’s head – not to test his intellect, but to test his spirit. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4). The correct answer, of course, is that Job most definitely wasn’t there at the beginning. Therefore, he is not qualified to have opinions about God’s will and design.
The effect of God’s questions on Job bears a striking resemblance to the effect Socrates’ questions have on those who willingly enter into the spirit of dialogue with him. After God has finished speaking, Job replies, “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know….I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:3-5). God’s assessment shows Job the limits of his knowledge.
In the same way, most Socratic dialogues do not resolve on a firm answer, but leave the reader with more questions than he had before he started. Farnsworth writes of the results of the Socratic Method, “You’re more humble, more aware of your ignorances, less likely to be sure when you shouldn’t be, and more understanding of others.” (4) For Socrates, questions are a pathway to humility instead of mastery. While an assessment modeled after his example would leave students even more confident of what they do know, it would, more importantly, also leave them in awe of what they do not and never will know.
Defining a Socratic Test
It is for this reason that CLT ensures our test takers are confronted with passages from the Great Authors of the Western tradition. While exercising, and therefore growing more confident in, verbal skills and reasoning, students are also introduced to texts that explore the great mysteries of existence.
Similarly, CLT emphasizes critical thinking over factual recall, and we measure aptitude in addition to achievement. A high school student has not completed their education – a truth belied by the fact that standardized tests are presumably taken in hopes of continuing education at a higher level. The true measure institutions need when evaluating individuals for admission is of their potential for future formation.
An assessment that strives to incorporate Socratic principles will not be ancillary to curriculum, rather it will prove a vital component of education. Its questions will be carefully crafted to engage the full student, body and mind, in self-conscious reflection about their progress on the road of education. It will shore up knowledge and skills they’ve already gained by forcing the student to watch themselves think, and it will flag limitations and opportunities for further learning by provoking further questions. It is from these foundational truths that we can begin to build a classical idea of testing.
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(1.)Plato, Theaetetus, in The Dialogues of Plato and The Seventh Letter, trans. Benjamin Jowett, vol. 7 of Great Books of the Western World, ed. in chief Robert Maynard Hutchins (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1952), pg. 514-15.
(2.) Ward Farnsworth, The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook (Boston: Godine, 2021), 36-38.
(3.) Ibid., 38.
(4.) Ibid., 28.
Emily Andrews is the Marketing Content Manager for CLT. She lives with her husband and daughter in Spokane, WA and enjoys hoarding books, eating good meals, and failing to complete crossword puzzles.
If you enjoyed this piece, be sure to check out The Anchored Podcast. For more Journal content, check out this post on the classical understanding of testing. From all of us at the Journal, thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week.
Published on 31st July 2026.