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Plato's Meno

 

            Plato's Meno once again incorporates his favorite character Socrates into another debate with a new person, Meno. Representing an impulsive man, who Socrates commonly refers to as a "rogue", he continually tries to beat Socrates at his own game by forcing him to contradict himself. However, through the dialogue, which eventually leads to the question of virtue, Plato is able to use Socrates to prove one of his most fundamental and important theories, that of knowledge. However, while I recognize Plato's ideas of knowledge as an important catalyst in obtaining what we do not know, or rather what we do not recollect, I have to admit that his concept is some what flawed.
             In our short excerpt Plato attempts to prove that there is no such thing as "a priori knowledge" and offers to explain that knowledge is simply a recollection of what we had once known in an earlier existence. Right in line with his theory of Forms Plato uses mathematics as his example in the dialogue with the boy, trying to demonstrate that he has some concept of the geometry of a square. Plato had hoped that this philosophical inquiry could yield similar results as what were later displayed in the Republic with his concept of justice by examining what was already latent in the boy. Through this concept of the Forms Plato tries to explain that we can only imitate the Forms through accessing them, a reason which late proved successful for not knowing what justice is, or what beauty and goodness is.
             The same is true with the boy in Meno, he is not able to completely grasp these concepts of geometry because he is just imitating the Forms from knowledge in a previous life. Here in lies a paradox, the Forms are thought of as themselves being the answers to the questions, such as "what is X", or, in Meno, what is the value of X line that gives us an eight-foot figure with in a square. The boy cannot answer this question and replies, "Well, on my word, Socrates, I for one do not know.


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