As our discipline’s scholars, we must recognize that ours is a
history “that is best recognized as an always incomplete narrative”
and continue to delve into the past as we seek to inform our future
(Lerner 25). In this article, I delve into Plato’s use of “elenchus” or
cross-questioning for the purpose of achieving “aporia”—the sense
of perplexity or confusion that usually accompanies the discovery
that language does not have the ability to mean in any stable sense”
within Theaetetus (Raign 90). In addition to extending our narrative
history, studying the process of elenchus will allow us to share this
methodology with our tutors, so that they can develop the ability
not to merely engage in conversation with their students, or lead
them to a truth not their own, but engage in the type of inquiry
about language and its ability to mean that leads students toward
the sort of self-discovery present in the Platonic dialogues.University Writing Cente
