Erkenntnis und Wissenschaft als Geburt der Freiheit: Betrachtungen zu Sokrates' Hebammenkunst

An unprejudiced perception of the modality in which Socrates’ midwifery is characterized by Plato leads to the encounter with the intellectual gesture which specifies every authentically free process of knowledge as well as every honest scientific research. This contribution analizes tha passage from Plato’s Theaitetos (148e-151d3) dedicated to Socrates’ midwifery – the only source regarding this subject –, with special attention to the presupposed, but never completely explicated strict analogy between Socrates and midwives. The intended analysis shows how, on the basis of the aforesaid analogy, the fact that Socrates, while acting as midwife, does not generate wisdom, should not be understood as an expression of scepticism, but, on the contrary, as manifestation of unrestricted trust in the creative individuality of the knowing self as well as in the irreducibility of true knowledge to abstract models and theories.