Plato:

Meno

Is it impossible to know whether I have learnt something correctly?

[Knowing whether I have learnt something correctly] is impossible.

Background

Meno is one of the most famous of Plato’s dialogues, but one about which different philosophers have many different views. It’s always difficult to know exactly what Plato’s own thoughts were - firstly, because the dialogues are over 2,300 years old, and secondly, because Plato wrote most of his work as dialogues. In what follows, I have taken a particular interpretation of Plato’s work based on the ideas of the philosopher R F Holland.

A paraphrase of the first half of Plato’s dialogue Meno

(NB: I have taken huge liberties with the text in these dialogues. They are very different from the actual texts themselves, but I have tried to outline some of the key arguments in the order in which they appear in the text and to maintain the sense of dialogue. My aim was to give you an introduction to the ideas discussed and to use those ideas as a catalyst for your own thoughts.)

Meno: Socrates, can virtue be taught?

Socrates: Well to answer that question, we first need to know what kind of thing virtue is. Is it the kind of thing that can be taught? Is it knowledge? I don’t know what virtue is, and neither does anyone else I know. So I don’t think I could teach it.

Meno: Well, Gorgias thinks that virtue is different for different people. Being a good worker in the city is different from being a good home-maker. Being a good child is different from being a good adult and so on.

Socrates: But isn’t virtue common to all people - shouldn’t everyone, child or adult, worker or home-maker have self-control, be just, courageous, and wise?

Meno: OK, is ‘leadership’ a virtue then?

Socrates: Well leadership can’t be a virtue of someone who isn’t a leader - otherwise they’d be a leader! Look, Meno, your problem is that you keep wanting to list differences, but your question was ‘can virtue be taught’ - so we need to know what virtues have in common - we need to know what kind of thing virtue is and whether or not it is a teachable kind - i.e. is virtue knowledge?

Meno: Well we’re in a pickle then, Socrates, because we don’t know whether virtue is teachable, because we don’t know what virtue is - and how can we learn (or be taught) about something that we don’t know? We don’t even know what we want to learn about! And if we find out what we want to know, how will we know that this was the thing we wanted to learn?!

Socrates: Yes, it is a pickle, Meno. Someone can’t learn about either what they know, nor about what they don’t know. If they know it, then there’s no need to search for it. And if they don’t know it, then they won’t know what they’re looking for!

Meno: Our inquiry is doomed, isn’t it, Socrates?

This is a very famous problem called Meno’s Paradox. A paradox is an idea that seems contradictory in some way. One idea contradicts another idea if both cannot be true at the same time. We think that it’s obvious that we can learn stuff, but this argument contradicts that idea. We can write out the paradox in a formal way like this:

Either you know X or you do not know X.
If you know X, then you do not need to learn X
If you do not know X, then you do not know whether you have learnt X.
∴ either you do not need to learn X, or you do not know whether you have learnt X.

So learning stuff is impossible!

Just imagine you want to know when the battle of Hastings occurred. If I tell you it was in 1066, how will you know whether I am right? If you know that I am right, then you didn’t need me to tell you, and if you don’t know I am right, you won’t know whether you have learnt anything.

Just like in Phaedo, Plato has Socrates argue that we are able to learn because we recognise the truth, we recollect it. Socrates refers to the same kind of myth - the idea that we know things before we are born, but here Plato gives a detailed example of the meaning behind this myth.

Socrates: I don’t think so. Because I don’t think that this is really what learning is, or at least, I don’t think all learning is like this - learning is more than memorising facts. It also involves a kind of recollection.

Meno: How so, Socrates? What do you mean?

Socrates: Well, perhaps it’s best if I demonstrate what learning is. Ask one of your attendants to come here - someone who you know to not know much about maths and geometry.

Meno: Can you please, come here?

Attendant: Yes sir.

Socrates: Do you know what a square is?

Socrates draws a square on the ground

Attendant: Yes sir.

Socrates: Do you think you could double the area of this square? Imagine the square has sides that are all 2cm.

Attendant: Yes, sir - I think so. If I draw a square with sides that are 4cm long, that would be double the area wouldn’t it?

Socrates: Can you explain to me why you did that?

Attendant: Well 4 is double 2.

Socrates: But how do you work out the area of a square?

Attendant: Well you multiply the height and the length.

Socrates: And so what is the area of a square that has sides that are 4cm long?

Attendant: 16cm2

Socrates: And what is the area of the square that has sides that are 2cm long?

Attendant: 4cm2 - ah right. I see. Well I don’t know.

Socrates: So we have a square that is four-times the size of the original one and we need it to be only two-times the size. So our square needs to be half as big as the one you’ve created. How could you do that?

Attendant: Well I don’t know how to do that, Socrates. Because if I divide that square in two, it isn’t a square!

Socrates: Is that the only way of dividing a square in two?

Attendant: How else could we do it?

Socrates: Well what if we divide it diagonally?

Attendant: But how does that help us - these aren’t squares either.

Socrates: But what if I did this?

Socrates: I’ve halved the size of the first square. I could then also do this:

And what shape have we now drawn?

Attendant: A square

Socrates: … and is this square not half the size of the square you drew?

Attendant: It is!

Socrates: You see Meno, learning is not just about memorising facts or sentences, it is not just about hearing or seeing things, it is also about recollection, about understanding. Your attendant had to collect together new ideas with ideas that he already knew. To know something we need to work through our problems and find a solution. And because learning builds on top of what we already know and collects together new and old ideas, we have our solution to our initial paradox.

… The dialogue continues on, returning to the topic of virtue, but - as is often the case in Plato’s dialogues - the participants come to no clear conclusion.

Tasks

Explain Meno's argument for the claim that learning is impossible?
Explain Socrates’s solution to the paradox
Are you convinced by Plato’s solution? Explain your answer.

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