Socratic method is a dialectical process in which élenkhos is first performed by irony interlocutors are brought into the state of aporia and are methodically cleansed of all fallacies and misapprehensions, in order to prepare themselves to give birth of true knowledge - by process of maieutics. Socrates did not write because he claimed that the written word can not express full and live richness of philosophy. That can only be achieved through a sincere dialogue between two equal participants and in ideal conditions - as a positive game of parrhesia. The purpose of this parrhesia is gnō͂thi seautón - the knowledge of ourselves, for the knowledge that is born from his maieutics is self-knowledge. Accepting his idea of how unexplored life is not worth living, Socratic dialogue will become, in the middle of the last century, the foundation of philosophy in practice - the branch of philosophy which applies dialogue in order to solve practical, personal, problems of its participants, using surroundings such as philosophical counseling, group philosophy or Socrates Café. One of the most interesting students of the Socratic method is Leonard Nelson. In attempt to combine dialogue with critical thinking, he argued that Socratic method was the only true method of philosophy, utilizing it to develop a regressive method of critical philosophizing. Nelson's conclusion is that philosophy can not be learned, one can learn only how to philosophize. Furthermore, it is not by virtue of intelectual gifts that one becomes a philosopher, he argued, but only through exercise of will and use of proper method – the Socratic method.