Problem:
In Plato’s Meno, after being perplexed by Socrates’s elenchus style of argument, Meno poses a paradox of knowledge. It goes as follows: If we have k of x, then there is no need to inquire about x. If we do not have k about x, then we cannot even inquire about x. This seems to be a problem for how we can come to know things. Either we already know what we are seeking and it is pointless to do so, or we have no knowledge of something so we cannot seek it out. Regardless of this paradox, we are able to learn about things we had no knowledge prior to. Plato suggests that we are ‘recollecting’ things that we already knew. Socrates demonstrates this to Meno by having a Greek slave calculate geometrical problems. He argues that the slave had no knowledge of geometry but merely recalled what he already knew.
Thesis: …show more content…
I propose we weaken the standards of how Plato construes knowledge, or at least how he entertains this notion of knowledge. We need not weaken it to the extent that we lose Plato’s fundamental requirements for knowledge (i.e. true belief and the ability to give an account). I argue that ‘partial,’ perhaps marginal, knowledge allows us to hold all the standards Plato stipulates and come to learn knew things. Thus, perhaps we can avoid Meno’s paradox.
What this solution attempts to do is reject the former disjunct (i.e. we have knowledge of x) but preserve the latter. By doing this, we allow for prior partial knowledge of something. In order to learn about anything we must have some idea about what it is. Would we call this knowledge? I don’t believe so. Yet, we can come to learn about new things. The steps go as follows:
Partial knowledge (maybe primitive is a better word)
A belief about x received via sensory inputs or innately
Judgement of whether x is true via, say, ethos, pathos, or
In Plato’s Meno, after being perplexed by Socrates’s elenchus style of argument, Meno poses a paradox of knowledge. It goes as follows: If we have k of x, then there is no need to inquire about x. If we do not have k about x, then we cannot even inquire about x. This seems to be a problem for how we can come to know things. Either we already know what we are seeking and it is pointless to do so, or we have no knowledge of something so we cannot seek it out. Regardless of this paradox, we are able to learn about things we had no knowledge prior to. Plato suggests that we are ‘recollecting’ things that we already knew. Socrates demonstrates this to Meno by having a Greek slave calculate geometrical problems. He argues that the slave had no knowledge of geometry but merely recalled what he already knew.
Thesis: …show more content…
I propose we weaken the standards of how Plato construes knowledge, or at least how he entertains this notion of knowledge. We need not weaken it to the extent that we lose Plato’s fundamental requirements for knowledge (i.e. true belief and the ability to give an account). I argue that ‘partial,’ perhaps marginal, knowledge allows us to hold all the standards Plato stipulates and come to learn knew things. Thus, perhaps we can avoid Meno’s paradox.
What this solution attempts to do is reject the former disjunct (i.e. we have knowledge of x) but preserve the latter. By doing this, we allow for prior partial knowledge of something. In order to learn about anything we must have some idea about what it is. Would we call this knowledge? I don’t believe so. Yet, we can come to learn about new things. The steps go as follows:
Partial knowledge (maybe primitive is a better word)
A belief about x received via sensory inputs or innately
Judgement of whether x is true via, say, ethos, pathos, or