No, what happens through this process is the student gets an idea in their head and thinks it is correct. The only way to check it out is for the student to state it in a prepositional form to some other smart philosophers and see if they punch any holes in it. But I guess you don't want them to do that because you sense, I would say that correctly, that many Plato's ideas couldn't stand up to that sort of critical scrutiny.
By the way, I do think Plato's dialogues are well-worth reading, it's just that I think many of his ideas were mistaken.
And what if was wrong about that? Or is it your assumption that Plato was right about everything, and so therefore he must be right about that particular idea?
As to Aristotle's specific empirical claims in the realm of biology, the great majority have been confirmed by modern science.
The fact that people disagree so much as to Plato's ideas, but far less over works of straightforward exposition, would seem to indicate that, when it comes to written texts, the latter is far superior.
In fact, the dialogue boosters actually seem to believe this. I say this because when they are writing their interpretation of a dialogue, and they get to a point people disagree on, they don't write more dialogue, but rather use a series of propositions to present what they think Plato actually meant.
Beyond that, my impression with the dialogue boosters is that at least most of them are more devoted to the idea of promoting the superiority of dialogue than to rationally determining if Plato's ideas are actually correct.
> Also, for one particular topic, namely biology, do you agree that Aristotle invented scientific biology, and that this was a great advance?
I don't know. If I understand correctly, Aristotle said that women had fewer teeth than men. He was married twice, but apparently never bothered to open either wife's mouth and count. That may have been biology, but it wasn't very scientific.