Self-centered, me? Maybe... But I'm also a philosophical method! :P
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Weird Words: Maieutic /mI'ju:tIk/
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Bringing a person's latent ideas into clear consciousness.
The maieutic method is Socratic: a person is engaged in a dialogue
by a questioner until frustration caused by challenges to his ideas
leads him to dissatisfaction with his settled convictions and makes
him refine his views. In practice, of course, the questioner knows
the answers already and leads the dialogue by supplying clues to
allow the other person to work them out.
The word is from Greek "maieuesthai", to act as a midwife, from
"maia", a midwife. Socrates compared himself to a philosophical
midwife, who through his questioning could induce the delivery of
superior understanding in the other person, because the knowledge
was already present in that person's mind.
Though the word is first recorded in the seventeenth century, it
has become very much more common in modern times, especially in
discussions of philosophy, education and psychotherapy.