Plato's Meno and Phaedo are two of the most important works of ancient western philosophy and continue to be studied around the world. The Meno is a seminal work of epistemology. The Phaedo is a key source for Platonic metaphysics and for Plato's conception of the human soul. Together they illustrate the birth of Platonic philosophy from Plato's reflections on Socrates' life and doctrines. This edition offers new and accessible translations of both works, together with a thorough introduction (...) that explains the arguments of the two dialogues and their place in Plato's thought. (shrink)

I argue that Meno’s Paradox targets the type of knowledge that Socrates has been looking for earlier in the dialogue: knowledge grounded in explanatory definitions. Socrates places strict requirements on definitions and thinks we need these definitions to acquire knowledge. Meno’s challenge uses Socrates’ constraints to argue that we can neither propose definitions nor recognize them. To understand Socrates’ response to the challenge, we need to view Meno’s challenge and Socrates’ response as part of a larger disagreement (...) about the value of inquiry. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to argue for the claim that the two problems of geometry presented in the Meno seems to be connected to each other, and secondly, to offer, in connection with the first claim, a conjecture concerning the nature of the second problem of geometry brought up in the dialogue at 86e. This paper offers, in particular, a historical reconstruction of how we should understand this problem of construction in geometry.

ABSTRACT A version of Meno’s paradox applies to intellectualism about knowledge-how. If one does not know that p, one does not know that w is a way of working out that p. According to intellectualists, the latter such knowledge constitutes knowledge how to work out that p. One thus knows how to work out that p only if one already knows that p. But if this is right, nobody can work anything out.

I give an interpretation according to which Meno’s paradox is an epistemic regress problem. The paradox is an argument for skepticism assuming that (1) acquired knowledge about an object X requires prior knowledge about what X is and (2) any knowledge must be acquired. (1) is a principle about having reasons for knowledge and about the epistemic priority of knowledge about what X is. (1) and (2) jointly imply a regress-generating principle which implies that knowledge always requires an infinite (...) sequence of known reasons. Plato’s response to the problem is to accept (1) but reject (2): some knowledge is innate. He argues from this to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. This argument can be understood as a response to an Eleatic problem about the possibility of coming into being that turns on a regress-generating causal principle analogous to the regress-generating principle presupposed by Meno’s paradox. (shrink)

This paper argues that a well known passage from Plato’s Meno exemplifies how to employ scaffolded learning in the philosophy classroom. It explores scaffolded learning by fully defining it, explaining it, and gesturing at some ways in which scaffolding has been implemented. We then offer our own model of scaffolded learning in terms of four phases and eight stages, and explicate our model using a well known example from Plato’s Meno as an exemplar. We believe that any practical (...) concerns one might have against the employment of scaffolded learning in the philosophy classroom ought not serve as an impediment to adopting our model. (shrink)

The Meno is one of the foundational dialogues of the Platonic tradition - it initiates a series of investigations into subjects which lie at the heart of philosophy: What is virtue? How is it acquired?This edition of Taylor's revision of Sydenham's translation adds three introductory essays by Tim Addley and an extract from Procclus' commentary on The Republic on Virtue.

“As one would expect from the team of Brann, Kalkavage and Salem, their edition of Plato's _Meno_ is a fine one. The translation meets their stated goal of remaining 'as faithful as possible to the Greek, while using lively, colloquial English.' Their notes are consistently helpful and will be particularly useful to those readers willing to explore the nuances of Plato's extraordinary prose. Their introduction is clear and compact, and it highlights the most philosophically important themes of the dialogue. One (...) particularly useful feature of this edition is the manner in which it displays the diagrams Socrates draws in order to illustrate his famous 'square within a square.' Instead of relegating them to the notes, it integrates them into the text of the dialogue itself. Readers are able to follow along, and 'watch' Socrates actually construct them." _—David Roochnik, Boston University_. (shrink)

Meno's Paradox from Socrates to Sextus Gail Fine. sense that they consider the issues it raises; and they argue, against its conclusion, that inquiry is possible. Like Plato and Aristotle, they also explain what makes inquiry possible; and they do ...

I propose that an ill‐appreciated contrast between the examples Socrates gives Meno, to show him how he ought to philosophize, is the key to understanding the Meno. I contend that Socrates prefers his definitions of shape to his account of color because the former are concerned with what shape is, while the latter is concerned with how color comes to be. This contrast suggests that Plato intends an analogous contrast between the (properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads (...) to Socrates' definition of knowledge as “true belief tied down with an account” and the (not properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads to Socrates' account of how knowledge comes to be, that is, the “theory of recollection.”. (shrink)

The conversations between Meno and Socrates and between Mencius and King Xuan are philosophical dramas whose "plots" are intellectual arguments. Although both texts present historical characters at particular times in their lives, the texts were written some years after the events they describe by disciples of Socrates and Mencius. The authors had a number of motives: they wanted to represent what the characters thought and said, to explain the philosophical theories underlying the dramatic plots, and to justify the failure (...) of their mentors to teach something very important. Meno did not learn how to live a good life. Xuan did not become a sage king. It is argued here that while both dramas end in failure, Socrates leaves the conversation confidently optimistic about the future. The conversation between Mencius and Xuan, on the other hand, has deeply tragic overtones. (shrink)

Given its brevity, Plato's Meno covers an astonishingly wide array of topics: politics, education, virtue, definition, philosophical method, mathematics, the nature and acquisition of knowledge and immortality. Its treatment of these, though profound, is tantalisingly short, leaving the reader with many unresolved questions. This book confronts the dialogue's many enigmas and attempts to solve them in a way that is both lucid and sympathetic to Plato's philosophy. Reading the dialogue as a whole, it explains how different arguments are related (...) to one another and how the interplay between characters is connected to the philosophical content of the work. In a new departure, this book's exploration focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy. (shrink)

The measurement of diagnostic accuracy is an important aspect of the evaluation of diagnostic tests. Sometimes, medical researchers try to discover the set of observations that are most accurate of all by directly inspecting diseased and not-diseased patients. This method is perhaps intuitively appealing, as it seems a straightforward empirical way of discovering how to identify diseased patients, which amounts to trying to correlate the results of diagnostic tests with disease status. I present three examples of researchers who try to (...) produce definitive diagnostic criteria by directly inspecting diseased and not diseased patients. Despite this method’s intuitive appeal, I will argue that it is impossible to carry out. Before researchers can inspect these patients to discover definitive diagnostic criteria, they must be able to distinguish diseased and not-diseased patients; and they do not know how to do this, because this is what they are trying to discover. I suspect the intuitive appeal of directly inspecting patients makes this difficult to appreciate. To counter this difficulty, I present this problem as a manifestation of ‘Meno’s paradox’, which was described in classical antiquity, and of ‘the problem of nomic measurement’, described more recently. Considering these philosophical problems may help researchers address the methodological issues they face when evaluating diagnostic tests. (shrink)

The paper introduces a new puzzle about reflection—albeit one that is reminiscent of the famous paradox about inquiry in Plato’s Meno. We often make our thoughts clear to ourselves in the process of putting them into words. Our puzzle is that, on the one hand, coming to know what we are thinking seems to require finding words that would express our thought; yet, on the other hand, finding the words seems to require already knowing what we are thinking. I (...) argue that the puzzle cannot be solved by accounting for the knowledge that we gain in such cases on the models of self-interpretation and self-constitution. The primary purpose of introducing the puzzle is to provide a tool for systematically investigating this category of non-interpretive and non-constitutive self-knowledge, and I conclude with some words about the scope of the category and the value of finding a solution. (shrink)

Recent critiques of veritistic value monism, or the idea that true belief is unique in being of fundamental epistemic value, typically invoke a claim about the surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief, in turn traced back to Plato's Meno. However, to the extent Plato at all defends a surplus claim in the Meno, it differs from that figuring in contemporary discussions with respect to both its scope and the kind of value at issue, and is under (...) closer scrutiny fully compatible with veritistic value monism. Consequently, contrary to what seems to be supposed in the literature, the critics of monism have little to gain from turning to the Meno for support. (shrink)

Se analizan algunos usos del tópico de la política en el Menón, para mostrar que la virtud discutida es política, no sólo porque los interlocutores están interesados exclusivamente en la cualidad que debe poseer el gobernante, sino también porque tal cualidad consiste en una forma de autogobierno del alma. El alma es vista así como una entidad política cuya excelencia depende del tipo de gobierno impuesto. Se relaciona esta propuesta con la psicología implícita en la primera sección del diálogo, en (...) la que se discute la unidad de la virtud. El Menón se muestra así como un diálogo que prefigura la analogía de alma y polis expuesta en la República. The article analyzes some of the uses of the theme of politics in the Meno in order to demonstrate that the virtue under discussion is political not only because the interlocutors are exclusively interested in the quality that a good ruler must possess, but also because such quality is a form of self-rule of the soul. Thus, the soul is seen as a political entity whose excellence depends on the type of government imposed. This proposal is associated with the psychology implicit in the first section of the dialogue, in which the unity of virtue is discussed. The Meno thus appears as a dialogue that anticipates the analogy of soul and polis set forth in the Republic. (shrink)

This volume contains new translations of two dialogues of Plato, the Protagoras and the Meno, together with explanatory notes and substantial interpretive essays. Robert C. Bartlett's translations are as literal as is compatible with sound English style and take into account important textual variations. Because the interpretive essays both sketch the general outlines of the dialogues and take up specific theoretical or philosophic difficulties, they will be of interest not only to those reading the dialogues for the first time (...) but also to those already familiar with them. The Protagoras and the Meno are linked by the attention each pays to the idea of virtue: the latter dialogue focuses on the fundamental Socratic question, "What is virtue?"; the former on the specific virtue of courage, especially in its relation to wisdom. An appendix contains a short extract from Xenophon's Anabasis of Cyrus that vividly portrays the figure of Meno. (shrink)

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The original Meno problem is to explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. In this paper I argue that evidentialists face an additional Meno problem, a Meno problem that, to date, no evidentialist has considered. Specifically, evidentialists must account for the additional epistemic value of a doxastically justified doxastic attitude as compared to a doxastic attitude that is merely propositionally justified. I consider the nature of the problem facing evidentialism and critically discuss two attempts (...) to account for this additional epistemic value. Then, I highlight the remaining options and present the alternative I favor. According to this alternative, while the nature of doxastic justification is analyzed in terms of propositional justification, the value of doxastic justification is not. Holding a doxastic attitude on the basis of propositionally justifying evidence is a fundamental epistemic good. In virtue of this, doxastically justified doxastic attitudes have fundamental epistemic value. (shrink)

Scholars ubiquitously refer to the method εξ υποθεσεως, introduced at Meno 86e1-87d8, as a method of hypothesis. In contrast, this paper argues that the method εξ υποθεσεως in Meno is not a hypothetical method. On the contrary, in the Meno passage, υποθεσις means “postulate”, that is, cognitively secure proposition. Furthermore, the method εξ υποθεσεως is derived from the method of geometrical analysis. More precisely, it is derived from the use of geometrical analysis to achieve reduction, that is, (...) reduction of a less tractable problem to a more tractable problem. As such, the method εξ υποθεσεως does not by itself serve to solve problems. (shrink)

The doxastic view (DV) of trust maintains that trust essentially involves belief. In a recent paper, Arnon Keren (Citation2020) gestures toward a new objection to the view, labeled Trust’s Meno Problem (TMP), which calls into question the DV’s ability to explain the widely held intuition that trust has distinct and indispensable value. As of yet, there has been no attempt to take up TMP on behalf of DV. This paper aims to fill precisely this lacuna. I do so in (...) three main stages. In §1 I contextualize and elucidate the problem, to which Keren gestures but does not address in detail. In §2 I disambiguate multiple possible interpretations of TMP, seeking to identify the most philosophically challenging. Finally, in §3, I argue that DV can solve even this interpretation. In order to do so, I make use ofthe highly plausible claim we find in the work of Katherine Hawley (Citation2012, 2019): that trust pays a compliment to the trustee. The payoffs of exploring the doxastic view in the context of Trust’s Meno Problem are twofold: we better understand the nature of the problem itself, and we see that the doxastic view can give a satisfying answer. (shrink)

According to David Charles, in the Meno Socrates fleetingly distinguishes the signification from the essence question, but, in the end, he conflates them. Doing so, Charles thinks, both leads to Meno's paradox and prevents Socrates from answering it satisfactorily. I argue that Socrates doesn't conflate the two questions, and that his reply to Meno's paradox is more satisfactory than Charles allows.

Plato invokes the Theory of Recollection to explain both ordinary and philosophical learning. In a new reading of Meno's Paradox and the Slave‐Boy Interrogation, I explain why these two levels are linked in a single theory of learning. Since, for Plato, philosophical inquiry starts in ordinary discourse, the possibility of success in inquiry is tied to the character of the ordinary comprehension we bring to it. Through the claim that all learning is recollection, Plato traces the knowledge achievable through (...) inquiry back to our pretheoretical comprehension, showing not just that knowledge is in us, but that it is inchoate in the grasp of a property—akin to a concept—that enables us to speak and think about it ordinarily. Plato acknowledges in the Meno that a second step of argument, and a second application of Recollection, is needed to explain how knowledge comes to be inchoate in our ordinary grasp of a property. Though this second argument is provided most fully in the Phaedo, the evidence of the Meno is sufficient to outline Recollection as a two‐stage theory of learning, beginning in ordinary speech and thought and extending, through philosophical reflection, to knowledge. (shrink)

I propose that an ill‐appreciated contrast between the examples Socrates gives Meno, to show him how he ought to philosophize, is the key to understanding the Meno. I contend that Socrates prefers his definitions of shape to his account of color because the former are concerned with what shape is, while the latter is concerned with how color comes to be. This contrast suggests that Plato intends an analogous contrast between the (properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads (...) to Socrates' definition of knowledge as “true belief tied down with an account” and the (not properly philosophical) way of inquiry that leads to Socrates' account of how knowledge comes to be, that is, the “theory of recollection.”. (shrink)

This article is an analysis of the Internet as a mnemonic system and an assessment of its debt to and impact upon the classical tropes of memory established by Plato in the dialogue Meno.

In most of the Socratic dialogues, Socrates professes to inquire into some virtue. At the same time, he professes not to know what the virtue in question is. How, then, can he inquire into it? Doesn't he need some knowledge to guide his inquiry? Socrates' disclaimer of knowledge seems to preclude Socratic inquiry. This difficulty must confront any reader of the Socratic dialogues; but one searches them in vain for any explicit statement of the problem or for any explicit solution (...) to it. The Meno, by contrast, both raises it explicitly and proposes a solution. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to argue for the claim that the two problems of geometry presented in the Meno seem to be connected to each other, and secondly, to offer, in connection with the first claim, a conjecture concerning the nature of the second problem of geometry brought up in the dialogue at 86e. This paper offers, in particular, a historical reconstruction of how we should understand this problem of construction in geometry.

2. The Meno offers a dramatic demonstration of the validity of the first argument put forward for Anamnesis and the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo.

In these four dialogues Plato considers virtue and its definition. Charmides, Laches, and Lysis investigate the specific virtues of self-control, courage, and friendship; the laterMeno discusses the concept of virtue as a whole, and whether it is something that can be taught.

He aquí una razonada, y razonablemente apasionada, defensa del liberalismo frente a las viejas retóricas que siguen predicando utopías adormecedoras e «ilusionantes», y también frente a las corrientes políticas que, como el nacionalismo y el multiculturalismo, adulteran sus propuestas con constantes apelaciones a la tradición y a lo emocional.Por el contrario, en este magnífico ensayo Juan Antonio Rivera define y defiende un liberalismo «igualitario y fraternalista», según el cual la libertad de los individuos es el bien más sustantivo y sólo (...) cabe renunciar, prudencialmente, a porciones de dicho bien para garantizar mejor la igualdad de todos ante la ley, la igualdad política y el impulso de fraternidad hacia los maltratados por la fortuna. El «liberalismo igualitario» descrito en estas páginas no es el liberalismo egoísta y racional pregonado por la escuela neoclásica de economía; aunque reconoce la legitimidad de buscar y reclamar una mayor igualdad económica y valora los beneficios del altruismo, el autor no deja de llamar la atención sobre los peligros inherentes al hecho de reducir las libertades a costa de una mayor igualdad.Menos utopía y más libertad es sin duda uno de los libros más renovadores y sugerentes en el panorama actual de la teoría política de nuestro país. (shrink)

A new Meno would say: it is knowledge that is nothing more than an empirical figure, a simple result which continually falls back into experience; whereas learning is the true transcendental structure which unites difference to difference, dissimilarity to dissimilarity, without mediating between them—not in the form of a mythical past or former present, but in the pure form of an empty time in general.1In Difference and Repetition (1968), Gilles Deleuze calls for a new Meno. The Meno (...) is one of the Platonic dialogues in which Socrates asserts that learning is recollection. While Deleuze’s central philosophical writing has not been interpreted as a text on learning, his treatment of Plato’s Meno cannot be reduced .. (shrink)

Given its brevity, Plato's Meno covers an astonishingly wide array of topics: politics, education, virtue, definition, philosophical method, mathematics, the nature and acquisition of knowledge and immortality. Its treatment of these, though profound, is tantalisingly short, leaving the reader with many unresolved questions. This book confronts the dialogue's many enigmas and attempts to solve them in a way that is both lucid and sympathetic to Plato's philosophy. Reading the dialogue as a whole, it explains how different arguments are related (...) to one another and how the interplay between characters is connected to the philosophical content of the work. In a new departure, this book's exploration focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy. (shrink)

This article analyzes three approaches to resolving the classical Meno paradox, or its variant, the learning paradox, emphasizing Charles S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. Abduction provides a way of dissecting those processes where something new, or conceptually more complex than before, is discovered or learned. In its basic form, abduction is a “weak” form of inference, i.e., it gives only tentative suggestions for further investigation. But it is not too weak if various sources of clues and restrictions on the (...) abductive search are taken into account. We present three, complementary versions of abduction: as a sort of guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious clues are important; as a form of inference, where a strategic point of view is essential; and as a part of distributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interaction with the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized. Our starting point is Peirce’s own notion of abduction, but we broaden the perspective, especially to the direction of distributed cognition. (shrink)

In Meno 80d5-e5, we find two sets of objections concerning the possibility of inquiry in the absence of knowledge: the so-called Meno's paradox and the eristic arguments. This essay first shows that the eristic argument is not simply a restatement of Meno's paradox, but instead an objection of a completely different kind: Meno's paradox concerns not inquiry as such, but rather Socrates' inquiry into virtue as is pursued in the first part of the Meno, whereas (...) the eristic argument indicates a manner in which Meno's paradox can be generalized. This implies that they cannot be resolved by the same argument. It is then argued that the theory of recollection, as presented in Socrates' experiment with the slave, cannot resolve Meno's paradox, its target being only the eristic argument. Only the hypothetical method of inquiry is the effective answer to Meno's paradox. Finally, this essay contends that, contrary to what the text might suggest, Socrates, by introducing the hypothetical method, does not abandon his principle that knowing what something is precedes knowing what something is like. (shrink)

At the Editors' request, I have given this paper the final revision which Mr. Morrison has not time to give. This was needed chiefly in II, in the establishment of the stemma, and in the early part of IV. In these parts Mr. Morrison must not be held responsible for the details, though I have endeavoured to give his conclusions. In II the credit is his for the identification of the sororis filius in Quintilian, Inst. Or. xi. 2. 14, as (...) Antiochus, for the view that Antiochus is an Aleuad, and therefore the three Echecratidae also, and for the consequent interpretation of Thuc. i. i n . In IV I found it difficult to revise Mr. Morrison's detailed interpretation of ‘Herodes’ and have omitted much. It will be understood that this procedure does little justice to his views, though I have tried to suppress nothing which bore directly on his main argument. (shrink)

The objectives of this book are to provide a new translation of Plato's M eno together with a series of studies on its philcisophical argument in the light of recent secondary literature. My translation is based mainly on the Oxford Classical Text, 1. Burnet's Platonis Opera (Oxford Clarendon Press 1900) Vol. III. In conjunction with this I have made extensive use of R.S. Bluck's Plato's Meno (Cam bridge University Press, 1964). At critical places in the dialogue I have also (...) consulted A. Croiset's Gorgias, Menon (Bude text). My debt ~o two other sources will be clearly in evidence. They are E.S. Thompson's Plato's Meno (London, MacMillan 1901), and St. George Stock's The Meno of Plato (Oxford Clarendon Press, 1894). One of the greatest difficulties facing a translator is to achieve a balance between accuracy and elegance. Literal translations are more likely to be accurate, but, alas, they also tend to be duller. Free translations run into the opposite danger of paying for elegance and liveliness with the coin of inaccuracy. Another hurdle, for a translator of a Platonic dialogue, is posed by the challenge to maintain the conversational pattern and fast moving character of the discussion. This is easier where the exchang~s are short, but much more difficult where Socrates gets somewhat long-winded. (shrink)

In Plato's Ion & Meno, Socrates questions Ion, an actor who just won a major prize, about his ability to interpret the epic poetry of Homer. As the dialogue proceeds, the nature of human creativity emerges as a mysterious process and an unsolved puzzle. A similar discussion between Socrates and Meno probes the subject of ethics. Can goodness be taught? If it can, then we should be able to find teachers capable of instructing others about what is good (...) and bad, right and wrong, or just and unjust. Socrates and Meno are unable to identify teachers of ethics, and we are left wondering how such knowledge could be acquired. The text is presented in an updated version of the Jowett translation, which helps to bring the work to life for students and non-academic audiences. (shrink)