Examples Of Meno's Paradox

“How could a man know that he has found which he searches if he does not know which he searches?” Meno uses his paradox to claim that virtue is impossible to define virtue. this may be a result to Meno’s incapableness of welling learn and go on the journey of finding the definition of virtue along with Socrates’. Meno symbolizes the ruler whom claims to know but in reality does not know and does not care to know, therefore he gives up. Thus, Meno’s purposes his paradox, “how will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?” (80d). Meno realizes that if both Socrates and he are unaware of the meaning of virtue, then there is logically no way that either can actually know what the meaning is because they will not know that the meaning of virtue is really the meaning of virtue when they encounter it. If then Meno's assumptions were to be true, then men could

neither search for which they know for they already have it, nor would they be able to gather something new since they would not be able to identify this thing to be what they were inquiring for at the beginning. Socrates’ tries to convince Meno why he believes Meno’s paradox is invalid. In response, Plato proposes an hypothesis to this riddle: it's his theory of recollection.
Socrates’ theory of recollection, fails to accept Meno’s paradox.

Socrates reiterates Meno’s paradox as a ‘debater’s argument’ and states that a “man cannot search for what he knows” because there is no need to seek what one already knows, and he cannot search “for what he does not know, for he doesn’t know what to look for” (80e). Meno claims that we have no knowledge about what we are seeking, in contrast Socrates purposes that the soul already learned everything due to its immortality, therefore the soul must be reminded. He believes that if you “believe the debater’s argument” it will make you “idle” and worse than before; however, if you reject the argument and seek through recollection the meaning of virtue, then it would make you virtuous (81d). Socrates’ response to Meno’s paradox is to point it that it is not impossible to define virtue because recollection will allow them to recall the meaning. It is not that we do not know that we do not know but that we already know and need to be

reminded.
Socrates’ reinforces his idea of recollection to Meno by example of Meno’s slave boy. Socrate consecutively draws a square while proposing multiple questions, that are used to help the slave recollect the size of the square without being taught the size. The slave, is “not teaching the boy anything, all [he does] is question him” to which the boy answers correctly, thus recollecting the answer without learning anew (82e). In result, Socrate convinces Meno on accepting the theory of recollection after watching the slave boy answer Socrates’ questions.
In attempt on finding the meaning of virtue, Plato brings up Meno’s paradox in an attempt of Meno giving up on the journey of knowledge. Socrate rejects the idea that one cannot be taught something that one does not know, thus he proposes his theory of recollection. The theory implicates that contains knowledge that it already knows and that it needs to be reminded, to which Meno’s is convinced that virtue can be define through recollection. Meno does argue that the demonstration supports his fervent belief that we will live better lives if we believe that knowledge is worth pursuing as opposed to lazily assuming that there is no point in trying.