Ancient Philosophy

Plato - Meno

Primary Source:

  • Plato, Meno from Baird and Kaufmann, Ancient Philosophy, pp. 157-171 (Stop at 86c, where Meno says “There too, I am sure you are right”.)
    [We’re reading the first half, and will do the second half next class.]

Secondary Source:

  • Irwin, “Socrates and Plato”, “The Theory of Socratic Argument”, “Inquiry and Recollection”, and “Knowledge and Belief” from Classical Thought, pp. 85-89.

Background:

From Malcolm Schofield’s Routlegde Online Encyclopedia article on Plato:

Plato was an Athenian Greek of aristocratic family, active as a philosopher in the first half of the fourth century BC. He was a devoted follower of Socrates, as his writings make abundantly plain. Nearly all are philosophical dialogues – often works of dazzling literary sophistication – in which Socrates takes centre stage. Socrates is usually a charismatic figure who outshines a whole succession of lesser interlocutors, from sophists, politicians and generals to docile teenagers. The most powerfully realistic fictions among the dialogues, such as Protagoras and Symposium, recreate a lost world of exuberant intellectual self-confidence in an Athens not yet torn apart by civil strife or reduced by defeat in the Peloponnesian War.

In dialogues of Plato’s middle period like Meno, Symposium and Phaedo a rather different Socrates is presented. He gives voice to positive positions on a much wider range of topics: not just ethics, but metaphysics and epistemology and psychology too. And he is portrayed as recommending a new and constructive instrument of inquiry borrowed from mathematics, the method of hypothesis. While there are continuities between Plato’s early and middle period versions of Socrates, it is clear that an evolution has occurred. Plato is no longer a Socratic, not even a critical and original Socratic: he has turned Socrates into a Platonist.

Meno is a dialogue of the simplest form and structure. It consists of a conversation between Socrates and Meno, a young Thessalian nobleman under the spell of the rhetorician Gorgias, interrupted only by a passage in which Socrates quizzes Meno’s slave, and then later by a brief intervention in the proceedings on the part of Anytus, Meno’s host and one of Socrates’ accusers at his trial. The dialogue divides into three sections: an unsuccessful attempt to define what virtue is, which makes the formal requirements of a good definition its chief focus; a demonstration in the face of Meno’s doubts that successful inquiry is none the less possible in principle; and an investigation into the secondary question of whether virtue can be taught, pursued initially by use of a method of hypothesis borrowed from mathematics. [At this point, you are reading the first two sections.] Although the ethical subject matter of the discussion is thoroughly Socratic, the character and extent of its preoccupation with methodology and (in the second section) epistemology and psychology are not. Nor is Meno’s use of mathematical procedures to cast light on philosophical method; this is not confined to the third section. Definitions of the mathematical notion of shape are used in the first section to illustrate for example the principle that a definition should be couched in terms that the interlocutor agrees are already known. And the demonstration of an elenchus with a positive outcome which occupies the second is achieved with a geometrical example.

It looks as though Plato has come to see in the analogy with mathematics hope for more constructive results in philosophy than the Socratic elenchus generally achieved in earlier dialogues. This is a moral which the second and third sections of Meno make particularly inviting to draw. In the second Socrates is represented as setting Meno’s untutored slave boy a geometrical problem (to determine the length of the side of a square twice the size of a given square) and scrutinizing his answers by the usual elenctic method. The boy begins by thinking he has the answer. After a couple of mistaken attempts at it he is persuaded of his ignorance. So far so Socratic. But then with the help of a further construction he works out the right answer, and so achieves true opinion, which it is suggested could be converted into knowledge if he were to go through the exercise often. The tacit implication is that if elenchus can reach a successful outcome in mathematics, it ought to be capable of it in ethics too.

Dialogue Outline and Questions:

  • Part I – The Request for a Definition (70a-79e)
    • Setting Up the Question (70a-71e)
      • What does Meno want to know from Socrates? What five options does he give Socrates for a proper answer?
      • Why does Socrates say he cannot answer it?
      • What question does Meno have to answer first? Why?
    • Definition One (71e-73c)
      • What is the first definition given by Meno? Why does this definition fail to satisfy Socrates?
      • How does the metaphors of bees, strength, and temperance and justice illustrate Socrates’ dissatisfaction?
    • Definition Two (73c-d)
      • What is the second definition given by Meno?
      • Why does this definition fail to satisfy Socrates? (Don’t blink or you might miss it because it is so brief a refutation.)
    • Definition Three (73d-75a)
      • What is the third definition given by Meno? Why does this definition fail to satisfy Socrates?
      • How does the metaphors of shapes and colors illustrate Socrates’ dissatisfaction?
    • Interlude: Shape and Color (75a-77b)
      • A very subtle section here. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why Plato includes it. (Hint: it fits into the purpose of the dialogue as a whole, so you might have to come back to this section once we have finished with the remainder of the dialogue.)
    • Definition Four (77b-78b)
      • What is the fourth definition given by Meno? Why does this definition fail to satisfy Socrates?
    • Definition Five (78b-79e)
      • What is the fifth definition given by Meno? Why does this definition fail to satisfy Socrates?
  • Part II – Recollection and Meno’s Slave (80a-86c)
    • Meno’s Paradox (80a-80e)
      • At this point, what does Meno complain to Socrates about? How does Socrates respond to this?
      • After Socrates suggests that they investigate things further, Meno presents a little paradox about education to Socrates, which Socrates then repeats. What is this paradox (which is often called Meno’s Paradox)?
    • The Theory of Recollection (81a-e)
      • Socrates suggests an alternative to Meno’s Paradox. What is it? Why does Socrates prefer it to Meno’s Paradox?
    • The Conversation with Meno’s Slave (82a-86a)
      • Socrates draws a 2x2 square (which has an area of 4), and Socrates then asks what length sides would a square of twice this area (so an area of 8) posses.
      • What is the slave’s first answer to Socrates’ question? How does Socrates show the slave is wrong?
      • What is the slave’s second answer? How does Socrates show the slave is wrong?
      • What happens to the slave at this point? Why does Socrates say this is important?
      • How does Socrates “teach” the slave to reach the right answer?
      • At this point, the slave has a true opinion. How can the slave turn this into knowledge?
    • Conclusion (86b-c)
      • Does Socrates claim to believe the theory of recollection? Why does he say it is a good theory?
 

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