JEN: Hi.
This is our lecture
discussion about--
STEPH: It's our dialogue.
JEN: About Plato's "Meno," which
is the first reading that we've
asked you to do from the
textbook, if you have it,
or online-- and we've chosen
this for a bunch of reasons,
but first of all, because we
think it raises some really
thought provoking questions
that we'll come back to a lot.
And one of the questions
that I've put here
on this first slide
is-- what makes
a good student and teacher?
And as soon as I
saw that question,
I realized how similar
that is to Meno's question
at the beginning
of the dialogue,
trying to pin down what
makes something good
and how you transmit
that goodness from one
person to another.
And as we'll talk
about in a little bit,
that's a pretty
problematic thing to do.
But we still we
have this impulse
to try to pin things down.
So the first thing
to talk about is
why we're even
talking about Plato.
And I imagine you've probably
heard of Plato before.
Most people have.
Plato, not the toy, not
the modeling clay-- Plato.
And maybe this
picture is something
that you imagined him to be
like-- very serious, very
solemn, very old,
and very Greek.
And hopefully, as
we talk about Plato,
you'll realize he can
be a lot more than that.
But Plato becomes
sort of the foundation
upon which thinking about so
many different things is built.
And I've put this little
Alfred North Whitehead quote.
He lived-- actually,
we'll be reading Whitehead
later in the semester-- many
100 of years after Plato.
And he says, "The safest
general characterization
of the European
philosophical tradition
is that it consists of a
series of footnotes to Plato."
And so I don't know that
we're all footnotes to Plato.
But we're certainly
building on the things
that he talked about.
He's the founder of a
sort of philosophy called
Western Idealism,
which we're not
going to talk a lot
about in this class.
But it's certainly
dealing with big questions
and trying to find
answers to big questions.
And really, the goal that
he set forth for himself
was the he was going to try
to teach people how to think.
So that's a pretty serious
goal for any teacher,
a pretty ambitious one.
And so the text that
we're starting with of his
is "Meno," one of his dialogues.
And as you can get from
the introduction to it,
it's a dialogue with
a guy named Meno,
which is part of the
reason it's called that.
But it's not a dialogue
between Plato and Meno.
It's a dialogue between
Plato's teacher Socrates
and Meno, a student.
And most of Plato's writings
are reconstructed conversations
between Socrates
and other people.
It's very unclear where
Plato's ideas start
and where Socrates' ideas end.
And it's actually not that
important for our purposes
to know which are which.
So we may use their two
names interchangeably,
as we talk about
Plato's and Socrates.
Don't get confused.
They are two different people.
But for our purposes, they're
working toward similar goals.
STEPH: So Knowing who
Plato is both and advantage
and a disadvantage
for us as readers.
First of all, yeah,
we need to have
a little background
on who this writer is.
But for me, as a reader,
I found myself confused,
not knowing-- how
do I read Meno?
How do I approach it?
Because the way I read but
the first time was not the way
that I read it the
second or the third.
Or even as we're
making this recording,
we're going back
and finding quotes
from the dialogue that
make us say, wait a minute.
Did you realize he said this?
Did you really Meno asked that?
What's going on here?
So how do you read a dialogue?
Why do we want a dialogue?
JEN: And I do want to point
out from what Steph is saying,
notice that we are
first of all suggesting
that you read these
texts more than once.
STEPH: You've got to.
JEN: We do.
We've had to read
them over and over,
to be able to talk
about them in the class.
And so don't expect yourself--
we don't expect you.
We don't expect ourselves to
understand it the first time.
It's one of those texts,
like almost all great texts,
that rewards reading
and rereading.
STEPH: And I think it's easy to
be intimidated by these texts
as well.
I know I was.
I pulled it out late at night.
And thought, I'll read me Meno.
I'm fairly smart.
I know what I'm doing.
Oh, this will be quick.
Well that was not the story.
Three days later, I
was still taking notes.
So I was humiliated there.
But it's intimidating
to think, oh, my gosh.
I'm reading this work
that's been written
by such an important figure
in our entire civilization.
I kind of bow before it.
And I realized later,
that's not what to do.
And if I'm reading
it as a dialogue,
I have to hear characters.
I have to listen to
how Socrates speaks.
I have to pay attention to
how Meno asks his questions.
So I think it might be helpful
for you to read this out loud.
JEN: Maybe even
with somebody else.
STEPH: Perhaps a study buddy
or perhaps a willing child
in your family, who
must go along with you.
JEN: And you don't
happy have to.
That could be just one of
the ways that you read it.
But it is a conversation.
And Plato wrote it
as a conversation,
I think, on purpose,
probably because it probably
did happen something like
this as a conversation.
But also, a conversation
forces us to process it
in a very different way than
if he had just spoon fed us.
In fact, that's
kind of the point
of a lot of Plato's writing.
It's that spoon feeding is
not a very effective form
of education.
And in fact, it can get
you into a lot of trouble.
STEPH: So if I can make a
quick suggestion, hopefully,
you saw my concept
map of "Meno,"
before you turned this on.
And if you haven't,
maybe you want
to pause here and go take
a look at my concept map,
because that was
my second reading.
My first reading was just
taking notes in the margins.
My second reading
was, oh, my gosh,
I need to just follow
what was said here.
I need to understand the
organization of this piece,
in order to understand
the flow of ideas.
And so that's what my
flowchart concept map is.
These are how the ideas are
presented in what order,
and this is how Socrates
builds this argument.
You might call it that.
He takes Meno
through this argument
from a question to a conclusion.
And once I had that down,
then I could go back
to the much more
difficult questions, which
is what we're going
to deal with here.
JEN: Yes.
Of course, reading is
the starting place.
But you're going to want to
keep going back to the text.
We want you, at least, to
keep going back to the text,
to think about
what it might mean,
to tease out different meetings,
with the goal of learning-- not
just summarizing, not
just regurgitating--
although summarizing is
a good starting place.
So one of the things to
think about in this essay,
in this dialogue is
what Socrates' goal
is in this conversation.
Here, Meno has come to
him full of enthusiasm
apparently, after having
studied with Gorgias--
or gorgeous sounds
better, but it's probably
Gorgias-- comes to him
and is ready to talk
about some big ideas.
Or at least, he
thinks he's ready.
And so Socrates
doesn't give Meno
what he wants from
the beginning.
I don't think so at least.
STEPH: No, it
doesn't seem to be.
JEN: He doesn't seem to answer.
Meno comes with what he thinks
is a pretty straightforward.
Can virtue be taught?
If it's not taught, can you
learn it through practice?
And if you can't learn
it through practice
or get taught, then
how do we become good?
How do people become good?
But of course, Socrates
treats this as not
at all a straightforward
question.
He's much more interested in
trying to get Meno to think,
think through his ideas.
And in doing so, he
becomes kind of irritating.
And I think not just to Meno.
Maybe you felt irritated with
Socrates, as you were reading.
I certainly did.
STEPH: I was perplexed.
JEN: Hey, just like Meno on
page 11 of our textbook, which
is starting at about line
80, a little before line
80 in the reading.
This is where Meno expresses
his own perplexity.
He says, "Socrates, I kept
hearing before I met you
that you are yourself
in perplexity
and cause perplexity in others.
And now I think you've
cast a spell on me.
I am utterly subdued
by enchantment,
so that I have too have
become full of perplexity.
Am I allowed a small joke?"
I don't know how much
he's joking in this.
"You are both in appearance
and in other ways
very like the stingray
in the sea, which
benumbs whatever it touches.
I think you've done
something of the sort to me.
My tongue, my soul
are numb truly.
And I cannot answer you.
And yet, I've said many things
about virtue 1,000 times
and to a host of people.
And as I thought, spoken well.
But now, I'm utterly at a
loss to say even what it is."
And Socrates describes himself
similarly in other texts.
He calls himself a gadfly
that's stinging everybody.
So I don't think he probably
minded this stingray analogy.
But this does seem to
be one of his goals,
to get people to realize
that they are not nearly as
smart or as knowledgeable
or in control of things
as they thought they
were, because that
is the starting place,
or can be the starting
place, of real learning.
Once you think you
know everything,
then you can't be
taught, which is
what I tell my
13-year-old daughter.
As soon as she's
like, I know, mom.
I know.
Then I say, your brain
has just shut off.
So it's realizing
that you don't know
or having someone like
Socrates sting you
into realizing that you don't
know that makes you teachable,
I think.
STEPH: And I think one of the
interesting things about how
Socrates does this
is that he does not
beat Meno over the head.
Meno may feel like
that, by the end of it.
But he doesn't come out.
And he doesn't say,
no, you're wrong.
This is what it is.
He constantly asks
Meno questions.
And the fact that Meno
doesn't have an answer
to these questions
that he thought he did
have an easy answer for-- it's
this constant questioning that
picks things apart
and shows Meno
that he's not thinking
very carefully.
And Socrates doesn't
really tell him
how to think more carefully.
He just shows him that he's not.
Is that right?
JEN: Yeah, I think that's true.
And so maybe the
part about how you
learn how to think
more carefully
is the process of what
we're going through.
You go back through.
You say, where did
that fall apart?
At what point did
Meno stop being
able to answer those questions?
And I haven't done this yet, but
to be able to reconstruct it,
that we have it as a text.
Socrates never wrote down
any of his teachings.
Plato did.
And I think that this may
be part of the reason,
so that we could continue
to learn from them.
STEPH: So I am such a Meno.
I say that, over and over again,
as I come back to this text.
And in many other aspects of my
life now, I find myself saying,
I'm being such a Meno.
Because when I first came to
this text, on my first reading,
I thought, I'm at
the foot of a Plato.
I'm going to learn
something important.
I know how to read.
I'm smart.
I'm going to get this answer.
Can virtue be taught?
OK, I want to know.
And as I slowly went through--
I went through the whole piece.
And I thought, OK,
I think I get it.
Meno asks the question.
Can virtue be taught or
learned or by practice?
Or is it divinely bestowed?
And Socrates takes him
through this argument
that includes that
when virtue is present,
it has been divinely bestowed.
And by the time I got
to the conclusion,
I thought, wait a minute.
That can't be right.
I think Socrates is
messing with people.
And my first thought
as I reading--
when I first started to think,
oh, he's so messing with Meno.
It started to sound like a
bunch of people in a bar.
And Socrates is saying,
yes, don't we believe this?
And all the people are pounding
their hands and saying,
yes, we do, Socrates,
without even thinking.
And Socrates has gotten to
this point, where I think--
and I think I do
this as a student.
There's a teacher.
And I thought, OK,
this person knows.
They're going to
tell me the answer.
And if they ask
me, do you agree?
I just kind of blindly say, yes.
And if they say, do
you have any questions?
I say, no.
But I really do have questions.
And by the time I end the
conversation or the piece
of reading, I'm just baffled.
And so I think that the more
I go back and reread this,
the more I think
that I need to learn
how to think more clearly.
I need to learn what
sort of questions to ask.
I need to question assumptions.
Just because somebody
can speak well and say
that they know something or that
they know what something is--
just because they're convincing
in their presentation
doesn't mean they know
what they're talking about.
JEN: And I think
that all of us are
like Meno, which is
part of the reason
that this dialogue that's that's
hundreds and hundreds of years
old still has meaning for us.
It's because it's
so much easier,
we think, just said to have
someone give us something.
Hey, teacher, will you just tell
me what you want me to think.
And I will think it.
And I will give it
back to on an exam.
STEPH: Is this is on the test?
JEN: And then
we'll all be happy.
But the problem with
that, as we see from Meno,
is that Meno I he understood,
because he had been learning
how to parrot these things back.
But when it really
came down to it,
he hadn't questioned
these ideas.
They weren't his own.
He hadn't ingested them and
made them part of himself.
They were something that
was still foreign to him.
And so I think we're like Meno,
because we want the easy path.
But perhaps we're
also like Meno,
in that we're seeking wisdom.
We're seeking knowledge.
And we just don't expect it
to be as painful as it is.
STEPH: So we're supposed
to learn from this
that knowledge and
wisdom are painful.
JEN: Yes.
STEPH: Understanding is painful.
JEN: And irritating sometimes.
And sometimes, the experiences
that teach us the most
are those that hurt.
Not to say, they always have to.
But I think that Meno
certainly learns this.
He came in diploma from Gorgias
in hand, feeling super smart.
And he learned by
the end that, man,
he still had a lot to learn.
And I feel like that too.
It seems like, the
more I've learned,
the more I realize that
there's so much that I don't
understand, that I won't
have time in this lifetime
to learn about.
So there's a certain humility
that's necessary for learning.
And so Meno, by the end,
at least he's humbled.
STEPH: Humbled-- he
is quite humbled.
Yes, he's very
humbled by the end.
So this is a very
upsetting piece
to start the semester
with perhaps.
Or it can be liberating too.
When I was a freshman, I
wanted the clear answers.
I wanted to read a piece and
think, OK, I understand it.
This is going to be
what's on the test,
and I can spout it back.
But now, not so much--
it's more the questions
that we learn from it.
And I think there's
a couple of things.
You can learn from
Socrates teaching Meno
to ask the questions
and ask these questions
in the further
reading that we do.
But you can also just learn
that not all texts assigned
in a class are going to
be taken at face value,
that they're not all deadly
serious and therefore
deadly boring.
They may seem so the first time.
The first time I
read this, I actually
wrote a note that
said, I am so bored.
I'm going to be.
But then when you go
back and you start really
getting into it.
You can see that these texts
really have something to offer,
because they're very
thought provoking.
And they give you something
to keep going back to
and keep going back to.
JEN: And I think that actually
relates to one of the quotes
that I starred on one of my
readings through this dialogue.
And it's on the top of page 16.
It's around-- let's see if
I can even see what line.
It's somewhere in the 80s.
I guess everything is somewhere
in the 80s, about line 86 B,
I think, where Socrates says,
"We shall be better men,
more courageous and less idle,
if we think we ought to inquire
into what we do not know,
instead of thinking that
because we cannot find
what we do not know,
we ought not seek it.
And I think this is something
that I've encountered myself.
Sometimes, I think, I
don't understand this.
It's boring, so I
can't know this.
This is too hard.
And so we are better
people, for trying to learn
or trying to understand
what we don't know.
Even if we don't understand it,
that process of trying to learn
makes us smarter, makes us more
interesting, more interested,
and makes life a lot richer,
than just being satisfied with,
I don't understand that.
I'm done.
It's too hard.
STEPH: Which brings me to the
point of dialogic learning,
which is something we
want in this class--
and I know that
because it's online,
it's hard to sit down with
one of your team members
and talk about the readings.
But that's what the
discussion board is for.
You have the write it, which
is not the same as sitting next
to your friend and having lunch.
But you can find other people
to talk about with this.
And there will be opportunities
for a lot of interaction.
And that's what we
want to have here.
And that's what
we want to model.
I would not have gone
back to this text
if, one, I weren't teaching
it and if I wasn't having
so much fun talking
with Jen about it.
So that's where I think a lot
of the fun from learning comes.
If you have something
that, on first glance,
this is difficult.
This is boring.
I've just got to
get through this,
to get my grade in this class.
Find somebody you can
talk about it with.
And you can find something
worthwhile in there.
And you might have a
lot of fun, because it's
supposed to be fun too, even if
it's painful, which is really
kind of a sick, twisted
way to look at it, perhaps.
I don't know.
JEN: I don't know.
A lot of painful things
can be fun in retrospect.
I probably won't go
into detail about that.
STEPH: We won't go into that.
JEN: So the final
question we want
to deal with is--
how did this relate
to my life, Steph's
life, your life?
And I think there are
a lot of-- hopefully,
you can find a lot of
points of connection.
We've pointed out some
of them, in the sense
that this can be a sort of model
for how not to be a student,
or at least a way of
questioning yourself.
Am I being a Meno at this point?
Certainly, there's a
certain amount of material
that we need to learn, in
order to master any subject.
But the way that we learn that
is often most effective, when
we are actively
questioning, when
we are trying to understand,
when we are questioning
our own understanding
of things, questioning
the people around us, instead
of just trying to be a flash
drive downloading
somebody else's knowledge
and experiences, which Meno
kind of seems to be doing.
Another way that it
relates is that there's
a real skill in learning
how to ask good questions,
ask the right questions,
ask productive questions.
And so that's a skill that
goes way beyond college,
way beyond a specific
career-- learning
how to give to the heart of
a matter, by the questions
that you ask.
STEPH: I think too, there are
ideas-- in not just this text,
but in all the
texts that we read--
that are very pertinent
to our personal lives.
The question of can
virtue be taught
is one-- I think about
this as a parent.
I think about it as a teacher.
I think about it just as a
human being looking at society.
Wow, this affects public policy.
It affects the private
rules in my home.
How much sugar do you
get to eat after school,
that sort of thing?
Will this make my
daughter crazy?
Will she then be mean?
Am I not teaching her
how to be virtuous,
if I don't make her practice
her piano every day?
These sorts of questions
come up over and over.
And I think they're
quite relevant.
And they're worth
living with it,
even if you don't
have an answer.
JEN: And we're going
to present or talk
about a multitude of
answers to these questions
throughout this course.
And you'll see that there's
a lot of disagreement
about whether people can be
taught to be good; what kind
of goodness they
should be taught;
and how that affects society
and affects the individual.
STEPH: I think we've
reached the end.
Thank you very much.
We'll see you for the next
one, for the discussion
of Protagoras.
