Professor Michael Sudduth
Philosophy 110
Plato: Handout #2
The Meno, Part I
The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates a question about virtue. The question is whether virtue is something that is innate or whether it is something acquired. Socrates claims that, unlike many others, he does not know the answer to this question. In fact, he does not even know what virtue is. Immediately the focus in the dialogue shifts to this second question (call it the primary question): what is virtue?
Socrates distinction indicates something important. Many of the questions we ask presuppose more fundamental questions. Therefore, the answers that we give to some questions presuppose answers to more fundamental questions. Socrates is attempting to examine a fundamental assumption, something presupposed in Meno’s initial question. If we can’t answer the more basic or fundamental question, then we can’t reasonably answer Meno’s first question.
Meno attempts to answer Socrates’ question first by appealing to the "wisdom" of his teacher Gorgias. But Socrates wants Meno to tell him what he (Meno) thinks.
Meno’s own answers are consistently incorrect.
His first answer involves giving examples of virtue. There is manly virtue, womanly virtue, slave virtue, and child virtue. But as Socrates points out, this answer does not tell him what virtue itself is. It would be like defining a car by listing types of cars. We need to know what they all have in common.
Meno expresses some confusion with the question at hand, but attempts another definition. He defines it as "the capacity to govern men." Socrates gets him to see rather quickly that this definition is inadequate because slaves (who by Meno’s own standard can be virtuous) do not have the capacity to govern men AND one can govern men unjustly and this would not be virtuous. So the definition proposes a definition of virtue that is neither necessary nor sufficient. Meno then suggests that "justly" be added to the definition to avoid the counterexample of governing in an unjust way. And slaves, though they cannot govern other men, can govern themselves. Unfortunately, though,
Meno expresses frustration with Socrates persistent questioning and perhaps feels the weight of the accumulation of incorrect answers he (Meno) has provided. He accuses Socrates of trying to numb Meno, like a sting ray. He says that the rumors about Socrates are correct. He seeks to instill confusion in people. In short, he accuses Socartes of playing head games with him.
Socrates claims that it is not that Socrates knows the answers the questions he asks, and is simply playing games with Meno. Rather Socrates says that he also is perplexed and hence seeks to instill in others something that is true also of himself. Socrates suggests that the recognition of one’s own ignorance is an important step in rendering dialogue useful and efficient to get to the answers.
One of the important Socratic principles is thus
established: the recognition of one’s own ignorance or intellectual
limitations is necessary in the search for truth and knowledge.
Meno believes that Socrates has trapped himself. Meno argues that if we recognize that we are ignorant, i.e., that we don’t know, then there’s no point of searching for the truth because you wouldn’t recognize it if you found it. This lays the foundation for Meno’s Paradox. Either we know what we’re looking for or we don’t. If we already know something, then there’s no point of looking for it because we already know it. (No point of searching for what is not lost). If we don’t know, there’s no point of looking for something because we would not recognize it even if we happened upon it. (You can’t successfully search for what is lost if you don’t know what it is that you’re looking for). So either way, there’s no point to carry out the sort of project that Socrates suggests.
The Slave Boy demonstration aims to show that Meno’s Paradox is mistaken. There is a sense in which we do and yet do not know what we’re looking for.
We are given a square whose area is 4 ft. and whose sides are thus 2 ft. in length. Socrates asks the boy what the area of a square will be that is twice the size of a square with an area of 4. The boy correctly responds, "8." Socrates then asks the boy, what the length of the side of such a square will be. The boy incorrectly answers, "4." Socrates does not tell him that he is incorrect. He gets the boy to see it by working with him through the implications of what he says. He does this by asking the boy more questions. After several failed attempts to answer Socrates’ question, the boy eventually gets the correct answer and he is able to show this by reasoning it out.
The solution is found by realizing that if 4 equal squares generated a square 4 times the size of the first square that had sides 2 ft. in length, then if we cut each of the 4 squares in half we will have a square that is 2 times (double) the original square. The relevant theorem is: a square whose area is twice that of a given square is the square on the diagonal of a given square.
B. Deductions from the demonstration
Socrates uses the discussion with the boy to prove several things.
First, the demonstration is supposed to show that knowledge is recollection. Socrates claims that no one had taught the boy the correct answer previously. Moreover, Socrates himself just asks him questions. He doesn’t tell him the answer. He forces the boy to work out. The boy begins by giving a false answer to the question. After Socrates asks him questions, the boy realizes that he does not know the answer. At the end the boy is able to provide the correct answer having reasoned it out. Since Socrates does not tell him the answer, he claims that it follows that the boy in some sense already knew the answer. The truth was already within the boy, but the boy just hadn’t recognized it yet. Socrates’ questions enable him to recall this latent knowledge in his mind.
Second, the demonstration is supposed to show that recognizing one’s ignorance is a precondition for learning or the search for truth or knowledge. Only after the boy recognizes that he does not know is he able to make progress and get the correct answer and see its correctness upon reflection. This supports Socrates' point to Meno before the discussion with the boy, namely that Meno must recognize his own ignorance if he is to have success in the search for truth.
Third, asking the right sort of questions is essential to coming to recognize one’s ignorance. Notice that this happens in both the case with the boy and with Meno.
Fourth, contrary to Meno’s paradox, one can inquire into questions to which one does not know the answer, know in the sense of have a conscious understanding of. We can know the nature of the questions we ask and hence recognize the answers when we find them and see that they fit with the question. And the answers are already within us, so when we find them it is not the first time that we are encountering them. We already had this truth within us. We just didn’t see it.
It is crucial to see the parallels between the dialogue with the boy and the framework of the dialogue between Socrates and Meno. As Meno admits that the boy is better off at the end, despite his various frustrations, so also Meno is better off having recognized his ignorance, and he should recognize this and not criticize Socrates for numbing him.