Welcome to Philosophy 4: Knowledge at Las
Positas College.
This is Module 2, Lecture 1.1 on Plato’s
Meno.
This reading can be found in your textbook
entitled “Human Knowledge” by Paul K Moser
on pages 33-38.
Plato was born some time around 428 BCE in
Athens, Greece.
He was the most the most impactful student
of the earlier Athenian philosopher Socrates
is perhaps most famous for stating that “the
unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates was put to death by the Athenian
state for encouraging the youth question their
parents, and or challenging the religion of
Athens.
After the death of Socrates, Plato continued
to write in the voice of Socrates.
As time goes on, Plato probably drifts further
and further from the real beliefs of Socrates
and uses the voice of Socrates more and more
to promote his own views.
This dialogue is referred to as the Meno because
in this dialogue Socrates discusses philosophy
with his friend Meno.
As in all of Plato’s dialogues, eventually
Socrates convinces his skeptical friend that
he is correct using a series of philosophical
proofs.
In our selection from the Meno, Socrates is
trying to convince his friend that all knowledge
is really remembering.
We don’t start with a blank slate as infants,
and then learn from the world.
Instead, he believes we existed with immense
knowledge before we were born, and life just
reminds us of the truths that we already knew.
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Meno is understandably skeptical that all
knowledge is really remembering, but Socrates
claims he can prove it.
Socrates calls on a boy who had been a slave
in Meno’s house since his birth, so Meno
knows that the child had never been educated
to understand the principles of mathematics.
After confirming that the boy has not been
taught mathematics, Socrates asks the boy
a series of questions, about the nature of
squares.
The series of leading questions allows the
boy to figure out, for example that the length
of a square that is 2 feet tall and two feet
wide has an area of 4 square feet.
Obviously, the textbook author translates
the Greek units to feet for our convenience.
But then Socrates and the boy begin a discussion
about how to double the size of a square.
The boy believes that if you doubled the length
of both sides of a square, you would thus
double the square.
This gives fuel to Meno’s claim that the
boy does not already know math.
So Socrates begins again with more leading
questions.
He tells the boy to imagine that he took the
existing square, and then drew an additional
square like this, so that it fits around the
original square with the points of the original
square touching center lines of the new square.
He then asks the boy to draw lines from corner
to corner on the original square.
Once that is complete, he asks the boy about
the relationship of the four outer triangles,
represented by this one in blue to the four
inner triangles, represented by this one in
brown.
The boy realizes that each inner triangle
has a corresponding equivalent outer triangle,
and ultimately realizes that this is how you
double the size of a square, not, as he originally
thought by doubling the size of every line
in the square.
Meno is impressed, but Socrates is not trying
to prove that he is a good math teacher, after
all Socrates does not believe in learning,
only in remembering.
The reason that Socrates “teaches” the
boy through a series of leading questions
is because Socrates is trying to prove to
Meno that the boy already has the knowledge,
he just needs some guidance to remember it.
Socrates ends this section of the dialogue
by saying that because there is no learning
only remembering, we must also be eternal
beings, who existed with that knowledge before
we were born to earth.
We will see more of Socrates’ explanation
and attempted justification of these claims
in later lectures.
