Is there a name for a method in which one agrees with someone but does so in such terms the someone feels like they're being browbeaten and insulted? I'm not certain you need to quibble about how people speak with you, eventually they'll just stop entirely.
Yes, of course there is, it's a form of negging. I'm surprised that you of all people don't use it more.
I am having real trouble understanding the thought process that comes up with a sentence like that in a context like this.
Well if that's your only objection, I think we've reached a point of cordial agreement.
If what we're agreeing on is that Socratic questioning isn't a particularly effective way of winning a debate, then yes. I still maintain its usefulness in pedagogy.
It's not worthless. You only say that because you are wrong. A dictionary isn't the ultimate authority on what words mean, but it does provide a standard that documents their usage. Without a consensus on what words mean they are useless. Trying to win an argument by using a definition that nobody else does is both dishonest and lazy.
Forget the context and consider the source, then you will understand.
Is that intended as a subtle ad hominem? No, I was specifically questioning the process of reasoning behind it.
I think the Socratic method is most useful when it's least needed. If you're engaged in a relatively cordial debate with a person who is reasonable and a subject that is not rubbing on someone's nerves, it can, I think, be a way of clarifying one's thoughts, and as much of tuning one's own arguments as of winning them. Maybe once upon a time when philosophers were milling about the agora trying to figure out what the world was made of it worked. On important and ideological matters, it's more likely to end up with turtles all the way down.
I don't think it's a matter of one upon a time. But otherwise, yes.
Arguments can be torn down by methods other than leading questions in a necessarily condescending manner, by someone who pretends to be superior to the person they're questioning.
Likely so, but I think Socrates himself spent a lot of his philosophical time arguing with sophists, whose main characteristic was theoretical, logical or pseudo-logical rhetorical argument. In that world, I imagine the logical "gotcha" element of Socratic argument could work pretty well.
The Socrates of the method is a fictional character in hypothetical scenarios authored by Plato, scripted to "prove" certain rhetorical points. It's completely unknown whether the real Socrates customarily argued in this manner, or whether it ever worked out according to plan.
Yes, much of what is written about him is fictional, though we can be fairly sure he did exist. I'm only guessing, based on some long-ago reading of Plato and of the sophists Socrates is said to have argued with, that a clever person would not have too hard a time finding the flaws in their theories and flummoxing them. It's likely enough, though, that Plato conflated stories and neatened them up, if not actually making them up, for his own purposes. But the world is complicated and chaotic, so it's not really all that hard to find a contradiction or a fault when someone tries to reduce it all to a grand over-arching theory, which is something philosophy tries so often to do.
Exactly! It's about having a dialogue with students. It's about involving them in the material as opposed to lecturing them without intercourse.
Please read or re-read Plato's Euthyphro and tell me what anybody "proved" because I don't see it. Sure, there were some works of Plato where they actually came to a conclusion, but Euthyphro was not one of them. It did, however, pose a few rather interesting questions.
You're misunderstanding the method as presented by Plato. It's not about finding flaws in someone else's argument. The questioner starts with a predetermined conclusion, and then walks a willing patsy through a series of scripted questions leading to that conclusion.