Encyclopedia Britannica(2015), explains the term "paradox" as one that "arises from false assumptions, which then lead to inconsistencies between observed and expected behavior".…
Socrates does not in fact tell his associates anything, but rather helps them understand ideas that were already in them through his series of questions that test whether what his associate says is of truth or not, and so he is not actually giving any knowledge. In the Meno, he shows an example of what he does when he attempts to “bring forth” geometry knowledge from a Greek slave boy. The boy answers some questions incorrectly at first before stating that he does not know. Socrates then continues to ask the boy more questions, and as the boy answers them, he comes to understand it without Socrates ever actually telling the boy anything at all. Socrates then states that “Then he will have knowledge without being taught by anyone but only questioned, since he will have recovered the knowledge from inside himself” (Meno, 85c-85d). He is saying that the boy is able to gain knowledge from Socrates asking him multiple questions about it constantly, and it will come forth within his associates, without him actually telling them anything at all. He also elaborates on this type of wisdom that he has in the Apology, saying “I thought this man seemed wise to many people, and especially to himself, but wasn’t. Then I tried to show him that he thought himself wise, but wasn’t.” (Apology, 21c-21e). Here, Socrates is stating that he has no knowledge, but rather questions the ideas of his associates to help them become more wise. This also showcases the type of wisdom that he does possess, which is knowing that he does not know…
In the Meno, Socrates tries to walk Meno through the discovery of if virtue can be taught. Along the way they come across the theory that if virtue can be taught then it is knowledge. If knowledge then it can be taught but the Geometric argument was brought up where a person can have the capacity to learn based on their previous life and their soul conjuring up prior knowledge to understand the topic. Socrates called upon a slave, a person who has no formal education and walked him through a geometry problem. This problem was meant to illustrate that a person’s knowledge is not based on what this person has learned in their lifetime but their capacity and ability to understand is based on what their soul has learned in previous lifetimes. Socrates uses this example show his thesis is true but what about different scenarios that aren’t math based and through different problems you can see that Socrates theory is half correct and that there are several implications that prove that souls don’t know it all.…
At one point during a philosophical debate between Socrates and Phaedo, Phaedo attempts to compares the human body to a lyre and the soul to the lyre’s harmony. Socrates, however, argues that this an inaccurate comparison. He explains that a harmony can be more and more fully harmonized or less and less fully harmonized, to which Phaedo confirms. Socrates then claims that a soul cannot be neither more nor less of a soul than another, a fact which Phaedo also confirms. Consequently, if the harmony of a lyre were to represent the human soul, then the harmony of all lyres must be the same, since no soul is greater nor lesser than another. Now, if virtue represents harmony and wickedness disharmony, then all souls must have the same amount of virtue…
The Meno, although not for certain, is thought to be one of Plato's earliest dialogues. The dialogue opens with Meno asking Socrates whether virtue can be imparted, or taught, with the two men dwelling on this question (alongside more central questions of what virtue is) for the entirety of the text. Within the text, Socrates tries to dichotomize an ethical term by inquisitively questioning an individual who believes to know the term's denotation, but ultimately determines that neither he nor the "expert" really know what the word means.…
The Meno Paradox starts around page 79, in these pages Meno and Socrates argue about weather knowledge is learnable or merely a recollection. Lets start by reading the “Meno Paradox”. Meno says, “How will you look for it, Socrates, when you don’t know what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know what to look for?”(80d) My interpretation of the text is this, if you know the answer to a question you cannot gain knowledge by asking it. But if you do not know the answer to the question, you will not differentiate the correct answer when given. How can I ever truly know if something is true or false? If I could just keep going to the source of the previous answer and question weather that source is true or false? One might respond by…
There is a commanding belief that our experiences of reality are just simply deceptions of the truth. In Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave”, Socrates illustrates his perception about human knowledge. He contends that people are rarely able to escape from personal ignorance and with greater knowledge comes confusion and conflict when their own beliefs are challenged. (Socrates 20)…
“[Having] been reduced to the perplexity of realizing that he did not know… he will go on and discover something.” (Meno 84a-d, Lamb translation). He is stating here how the once “ know it all's” are now going to discover new things because now they know they don’t know everything. Socrates believed this was a way everyone should live. “Life without this sort of examination is not worth living.”(Aporia and the wisdom of emptiness, Socrates pg??). “Socrates modeled the ultimate peace within aporia in his confrontation with death, maintaining his curiosity and seriousness, his awe and levity.”(Aporia and the wisdom of emptiness, Socrates pg??) He did his best while speaking to these people that he kept the conversation serious using what he was wondering and lighting the conversation up a bit with his…
Meno has progressed because he has come to some new level of understanding just by admitting he doesn’t know the answers to virtue and being willing to seek out those answers by asking them of someone who does know the answers, Socrates. Socrates doesn’t see this as enough. He considers Meno to be like the slave boy, someone who has opinions that are a compilation of other peoples’ ideas, Gorgias and Socrates, but have yet to be anything of value because these ideas aren’t his own. It is not enough to just want to know the answers if Meno isn’t willing to investigate on his own. Just as the slave boy would become an expert at geometry “if he were repeatedly asked these same questions in various ways” because he will have practiced many different variations of the same concept and will gain true understanding, Meno will only come to claim true understanding by taking the ideas of Gorgias and Socrates and making them his own by practicing his own…
Socrates has “numbed” Meno’s mind and essentially made him feel stupid. “In response to Meno, Socrates says he is willing to accept the torpedo-fish simile so long as it is true that the torpedo fish numbs not only other fish but also itself. “I myself do not have the answer when I perplex others,” he…
What exacty is virtue and how does one describe it? In the dialog Meno, two men, Meno and Socrates, attempt to define virtue. The dialog begins with Meno asking Socrates if virtue can be taught. Personally, I do not imagine that virtue can be taught. Meno does not exactly know what virtue is but guesses that it is to possess power and to retain good things. Socrates argues that learning is impossible because a soul has already learned everything from passed lives and that learning is simply recollection from those past lives. The purpose of this paper is to discuss Meno’s paradox and to determine how Socrates resolves it.…
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, Socrates illustrates a metaphorical story about attaining knowledge. He describes a cave with men who are chained, prisoners of the cave. They face a wall; that is all they can see because they cannot move their heads. They cannot even look behind them to see a walkway and a fire. As a person passes on the walkway, a shadow is projected onto the wall in front of the prisoners; this is all they know. Only the shadows are what is real to them because it’s all they have ever known. Socrates says, “How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?” (Plato 479). The main point is that people cannot understand anything except what is being projected right in front of them. Socrates’ point is that society has a limited understanding of knowledge, and is ignorant about what is beyond the surroundings.…
Socrates states that the human soul is immortal and it is reborn again, but it’s never destroyed. Socrates also points out that the soul has learned everything that is to know. Therefore, when we “learn” about something, it is merely just a “recollecting” what our soul’s have learned in the past. This idea is essentially the basis of the argument between Socrates and Meno. Socrates tries to prove this to Meno by calling over one of Meno’s servant and confirms that the boy has no knowledge of mathematics. At first, the boy seemed to have no knowledge about Socrates problem. But, through step-by-step questions, the boy was able to provide a correct answer to Socrates problem. Therefore, Socrates states that, since he had no knowledge of geometry in his life, he must have already known it and he was able to…
According to the ancient god, the Oracle of Delphi, Socrates was wiser than any other man of his day. Socrates at first questioned this, but then found out, after investigation, that it was mainly due to the tremendous extent of his humility. He discovers that men who are supposedly wise and claim to be wise really aren’t because they claim to know more than they actually do. Unlike these “wise” men, Socrates is not afraid to admit to what he does not know and still does not concern himself with the judgment of others. He understands that it is impossible for someone to be absolutely certain about anything in this world, and it would be foolish to convince oneself otherwise. If all people held the same sort of convictions Socrates did about humility, it would promote the common good by terminating many of the petty quarrels and larger-scale arguments which, time after time, provoke great rage within us. As we already know, admitting what he did not know is what made Socrates the wisest man of all.…
The learning paradox in the Meno describes the problem that a person cannot inquire about what they know or don’t know, because if they know they do not need to ask and if they do not know then they do not know what to ask for. For example, if you are trying to discover what a person looks like, how can you know you’ve found them if you don’t already know what they look like? As I will discuss later on, there are very few contexts in which the learning paradox is valid, this being one of them. The learning paradox was used by Socrates to try and prove innatism, that everything is inside us and has to be brought out. The idea of innatism and learning as recollection all tie together into the main theme…