> It proves only that the person isn't capable of supporting their own premise, not that the premise is wrong. It doesn't lead to truths on its own,
But that's the only we can aspire to! Any statement exists because somebody is stating it. You cannot really "have" a truth that is not held by anybody; that means that you still have to find it. The Socratic method thus serves to find a person that is able to hold a certain premise, by sieving away all the people who are not. Notice that this does not yet mean than the premise is true, but it is a necessary condition.
> and doesn't point in the direction of improved hypotheses.
I do not know of any systematic method that does that. Do you? It seems to be a purely creative, not inductive, process.
Regarding the "trollishness" character of Socrates I agree with you. If Socrates was born again today, we (the society) would kill him again.
You're correct that science proceeds by creativity, and that it's not at all the rigorous process we often imagine it to be. There are plenty of contemporary philosophers of science who will point that out.
Feyerabend's approach is literally called Epistemological Anarchy. Not a lot of people really follow Feyerabend in that, not because it's wrong but because it doesn't feel very helpful. If all Socrates wants is for us to admit that we're not rigorous, all I can say is, "Yeah, sure. Thanks for telling me what I already knew."
I don't know the truth. Fine. I don't have a truthful way of finding out the truth. Also fine. The track record of science at finding things that are useful isn't really evidence of anything. That, too, is fine.
I suppose Socrates might deserve some special credit for being the first to realize that. Here ya go, here's a Socrates Snack. But it really is kinda old hat to me, even if the people practicing "scientism" still haven't realized that.
They are, perhaps, the ones who really would benefit from Socrates' work, but all I ever got from Socrates' dialogues is "No, that's a pretty stupid assertion right on the face of it, do I really need to spend 50,000 words watching this guy realize that it's stupid?"
Socrates sieves out everybody. Nobody can hold any premise. Which just leaves me right back where I started.
But that's the only we can aspire to! Any statement exists because somebody is stating it. You cannot really "have" a truth that is not held by anybody; that means that you still have to find it. The Socratic method thus serves to find a person that is able to hold a certain premise, by sieving away all the people who are not. Notice that this does not yet mean than the premise is true, but it is a necessary condition.
> and doesn't point in the direction of improved hypotheses.
I do not know of any systematic method that does that. Do you? It seems to be a purely creative, not inductive, process.
Regarding the "trollishness" character of Socrates I agree with you. If Socrates was born again today, we (the society) would kill him again.