I find the phrase "Socratic method" problematically ambiguous between Vaniver's usage and Plato's.

I agree that this ambiguity exists, and dislike that it exists. Generally, when there's an ambiguity between ancient use and modern use, I go with the modern use, because moderns read what I write much more than ancients do. The phrase seems to have broadened to "lead by questioning," not necessarily to a contradiction, which even then isn't quite right, because I often want to lead them to a clear description of what they think, not someplace I've decided on. I probably ought to just call it "gentle questioning."

(For example, I think "man" was a beautifully inclusive word- it originally meant "mind," and so meant basically "all sapient beings," and so things like "one giant leap for mankind" also includes any of our robotic descendants, say- but that was at a time when "male adult" was "wer" and "female adult" was "wif," and now that both of those are out of style "man" mostly means "male adult.")