Plato’s Meno is a dialogue between philosopher Socrates and politician Meno, in their attempts to disclose the definition of virtue and whether it can be taught or not. When Socrates inquires what virtue is, Meno is only able to give examples of virtue. First, he lists the different types of virtue that exist in men, women, and children; since people have differing tasks and activities given to them, they must all have differing respective virtues. In response, Socrates gives an example about bees in a swarm, how each bee in a swarm is unique but all of the bees in the swarm are alike in the sense that they are still all bees. Likewise, though there may be countless different types of virtues, the singular, universal definition of virtue should
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According to priests and priestesses, the soul is immortal and “has seen all things both here and in the house of Hades, [and] there is nothing which it has not learned” (Plato 17, 81C). When an earthly body dies, the soul does not dissipate; rather, it transpires in another, sustaining its everlasting existence. Therefore, since the soul is omniscient in all possible aspects, we are only recollecting already-known insights such as virtue, not discovering completely novel information. This is famously known as the myth of recollection – Socrates asserts …show more content…
With some geometry questions regarding squares and their side lengths, Socrates enables the boy to recollect his knowledge about the area of a square. When asked about the side length a square of area eight, the slave boy started out by thinking that he knew the answer, boldly answered wrong, and finally accepted that he does not know the correct answer. After being perplexed by Socrates, the boy sought to learn; therefore, acknowledging his ignorance benefitted him. Consequently, the boy arrives at the correct conclusion without Socrates having to explicitly say the answer, further strengthening his myth of recollection. Through his example with the boy, Socrates proved to Meno that seeking out what cannot be learned is better than either giving up or contending with the wrong answer. Here, Socrates also introduces the idea of the true opinion, or the objective truth only the immortal soul knows: it is only garnered as knowledge in people by questioning, which undermines Meno’s paradox once
According to priests and priestesses, the soul is immortal and “has seen all things both here and in the house of Hades, [and] there is nothing which it has not learned” (Plato 17, 81C). When an earthly body dies, the soul does not dissipate; rather, it transpires in another, sustaining its everlasting existence. Therefore, since the soul is omniscient in all possible aspects, we are only recollecting already-known insights such as virtue, not discovering completely novel information. This is famously known as the myth of recollection – Socrates asserts …show more content…
With some geometry questions regarding squares and their side lengths, Socrates enables the boy to recollect his knowledge about the area of a square. When asked about the side length a square of area eight, the slave boy started out by thinking that he knew the answer, boldly answered wrong, and finally accepted that he does not know the correct answer. After being perplexed by Socrates, the boy sought to learn; therefore, acknowledging his ignorance benefitted him. Consequently, the boy arrives at the correct conclusion without Socrates having to explicitly say the answer, further strengthening his myth of recollection. Through his example with the boy, Socrates proved to Meno that seeking out what cannot be learned is better than either giving up or contending with the wrong answer. Here, Socrates also introduces the idea of the true opinion, or the objective truth only the immortal soul knows: it is only garnered as knowledge in people by questioning, which undermines Meno’s paradox once