In this paper, I will investigate the logical progress of Socrates’s proof “virtue is knowledge”. The reason why Socrates shows Meno how to prove “virtue is knowledge”, is because it can answer Meno’s question “can virtue be taught”, if virtue is knowledge, thus it can be taught. In brief, first Socrates proves someone who has virtue, knows what is good, then he proves someone who knows what is good, has virtue. Therefore, virtue is knowledge. I divide this whole progress into seven parts, and I will explain them step by step.
In first part (Meno, 78-79, 86c-87c), because Socrates does not know what virtue is and Meno cannot answer it, Socrates says “we would not investigate whether virtue is teachable or not before we investigated what virtue itself is”. What Socrates means here is that, as both of them does not know what is virtue, Socrates uses the same logic as geometers do, when they are asked questions that they do not know, they will make an assumption to answer the questions. Socrates proposes a hypothesis “Among the things existing in the soul, of what sort is virtue, that it should be teachable or not”. Later, Socrates argues “men cannot be taught anything but knowledge?” Which means knowledge comes from teaching. Form this I can say according to virtue is knowledge and knowledge comes from teaching, virtue comes from teaching, because Socrates says “if it is of one kind it can be taught; if it is of a different kind, it cannot.” And both Socrates and Meno agree this.
In second part (Meno, 79-80,87c-d), Socrates asks “do we say that virtue is itself something good, and will this hypothesis stand firm for us, that it is something good?” which means virtue is good. In addition, Socrates suggests “if there is nothing good t...
... middle of paper ...
...time, but also now and in the future if it is to be at all sound”. Since our souls are immortal, virtue as knowledge will be inside our souls forever.
At this point, I would like to say there is still a question “is virtue knowledge?” In my opinion, Socrates’s understanding of knowledge and virtue, are all the knowledge about goodness, which are truth and universal. And from his point of view, all knowledge are something we already have in our souls. The meaning of learning is recollection and self-understanding. So what Socrates teaches is not indoctrinating knowledge from outside to someone, but to inspire and guide others to understand themselves and acquire something they already have. This means some virtue do not need others to inspire and guide to be gained, they can also be received by self-understanding and self-thinking, so there is no so called “teacher”.
Socrates put one’s quest for wisdom and the instruction of others above everything else in life. A simple man both in the way he talked and the wealth he owned, he believed that simplicity in whatever one did was the best way of acquiring knowledge and passing it unto others. He is famous for saying that “the unexplained life is not worth living.” He endeavored therefore to break down the arguments of those who talked with a flowery language and boasted of being experts in given subjects (Rhees 30). His aim was to show that the person making a claim on wisdom and knowledge was in fact a confused one whose clarity about a given subject was far from what they claimed. Socrates, in all his simplicity never advanced any theories of his own but rather aimed at bringing out the worst in his interlocutors.
...e process, Socrates illustrated the fallacy in particular proofs. Socrates deliberately determines excellence is unlike knowledge. This failure furthers Socrates’ argument that a consistent proof must be used correctly. Socrates methods are intended to force Meno’s review of the argument and develop a personal definition of excellence. Meno must determine that a consistent argument develops the same conclusion with every application. As a result, the definition of knowledge will determine that excellence is teachable and attainable. Socratic methods stimulate the development of personal resolutions. Through review, Meno, as the student, must conclude that excellence is attainable because knowledge is attainable. The divinity of the excellence is not sufficient to define excellence in relation to humans. Therefore, excellence must be a genuine characteristic.
This quote can be used to argue what kind things he would say to our society by providing an example of what his beliefs are. He is saying that once we can only become philosophers we will be able to stop indulging ourselves with our senses and only use them when necessary. Socrates point view of philosophy is when one wants to acquire prudence and irrefutable truth, which was discussed in a classroom community among classmates, simply when wants continuously want to learn and can never be satisfied with what they know. By learning, what Socrates means is our soul 's recollecting knowledge that body hinders the soul from remembering. This is seen in Meno where Socrates shows Meno how a boy figuring out the answers to a question is actually recollecting the knowledge instead of learning something new. He would make a statement about our education system and what we currently see as knowledge what was we should see as knowledge. The way we should learn by his definition would be to have classroom discussions sessions as agreed upon by critical think by my classmates and myself in a philosophy course. Socrates would tell us how we would need to focus on recollecting and focus on feeding our soul instead of our bodies, how we would need to make major changes such as our use of technology for only necessary uses and not merely for mindless entertainment much like how we all use laptops, phones, and the
"Aristotle felt that virtue is the ability habitually to know the good and to do the good." (Dreisbach 2009, p. 84) However; what did he mean by this? Can a person be considered morally virtuous, if he is judged by a single action he has committed? What is virtue any way? Well according to Dictonary.com "virtue is moral excellence, righteousness and goodness. (Dictonary.com, 2014) Humans are not born virtuous or moral in nature. They are characteristics that are learned. Such as being compassionate, kind, honest or modest. Aristotle called them habits; habits are a learned behavior pattern. Some can be good, while other a course is not so good.
I totally agree that Socrates found it important to research about life’s morality and not just think the same way others do. That is a way of proving the knowledge of men. Ones sitting quiet in the corner usually have more knowledge than others that talk so much about what they know. Many men with a high position in life do not always have the most knowledge.
This brought them back to virtue. It is a type of knowledge; clearly able to be taught says Meno’s. They both question virtue. Does is make us good? Yes. Beneficial? Yes. It comes from the soul, Socrates states. He doubts that virtue is knowledge, therefore unteachable and coming from within. To really say who is virtuous, and if it cannot be taught, then there can’t be teachers because who is virtuous enough to teach it?
In the Meno, Plato addresses the question of virtue, what it is, how to obtain and if virtue can be taught. Meno came to conclusion after a long discussion with Socrates that it is impossible to know what virtue is. The Meno’x paradox states, “if one knows what virtue is, he does not need to search for it. However, if one does not know what virtue is, how can he search for it? He may not know he has it even when he gets it.” Seeing how hopeless Meno is, Socrates propose the theory of recollection as a way to obtain virtue. This paper will argue against this theory.
Right after Socrates comments how they can both look for virtue, Meno gives him these questions: “How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? 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 you did not know (80d)?” This is Meno’s paradox which explains the discovery of knowledge is impossible and if you do not know what you are learning, and that you cannot discover it either. Meno states in his first premise that you either know what knowledge is or you don’t, and whether you do know it or not, you cannot discover what that piece of knowledge is. This,
Virtue is very tough to define, as evidenced in the difficulty that Socrates, Nicias, and Laches have with trying to define both courage and virtue. In Socrates’ arguments with Nicias, he does seem to indicate that Nicias stumbled into a possible definition of virtue. Socrates says in regards to what Nicias thought was that, “Courage is the knowledge not just of the fearful and the hopeful, but in your [Nicias’] opinion, it would be the knowledge of practically all goods and evils put together” (Laches and Charmides, 199D). However, after Nicias agrees that this is not the definition of courage that Socrates and Nicias are searching for, Socrates asks if “[Does] a man with this kind of knowledge seem to depart from virtue in any respect” (Laches and Charmides, 199D)? The simple answer to this question is no. The definition that was suggested by Socrates for the definition of courage has become the definition of virtue. “Then the thing you are now talking about, Nicias, would seem not be a part of virtue but rather virtue entire” (Laches and Charmides, 199E). To summarize, for a person to be virtuous, he or she must have knowledge of all goods and evils...
When discussing specific knowledge, it is often hard to pin down an exact definition of what it is you are discussing. Often a concept or word will get thrown around so often that it will begin to be taken for granted and when pressed, a person may struggle to pin down specifically what it is they mean. Realizing this, Socrates often went out and attempted to fix these kinds of problems and find out what people actually knew, compared to what they just thought they knew. In the dialogues Euthyphro and Meno, Socrates attempts to pin down definitions for piety and virtue, respectively. In doing so, we are shown that the thinkers in question struggle to define these terms, and attempt to do so in vague terms that may vary heavily under different circumstances. What Socrates is attempting to find is one definitive definition of piety and virtue, what is called his One Form Requirement. Rather than defining something by classifying different parts that make it up, Socrates maintains the belief that piety and virtue both can be simplified into one specific form that describes exactly what makes all F actions F.
One of the problems in his argument is how he believes the soul cannot be taught anything because it knows all and just recollects prior knowledge, but then argues that virtue is a kind of knowledge and it can be taught. (Plato, 87c) This implies that Socrates believes that virtue can be taught to the soul and it’s not something that we are born with. His principal argument of the theory of recollection, tied with immortality of the soul contradicts his other idea that virtue can be taught since it is knowledge. This causes Socrates’ argument to become very questionable, and as a result, can create the following questions; How can virtue be taught to the soul if it’s supposed to know everything? If the soul actually knew everything, then it would know what virtue is. If it does not know everything, especially what virtue is, then does that imply that the soul is not immortal? Socrates agrees, in the beginning, with an idea that he heard wise people talk about in regards to the immortality of the soul. The idea is that the soul is immortal and can, at times, reborn but never destroyed. (Plato, 81b) When relating this idea to Socrates’ argument that the soul is eternal, therefore all knowing, and has been born multiple times, wouldn’t it have been able to know what virtue is, implying that it is part of our knowledge and it is something that we are all born with?
Socrates attempts to make other people reason well and therefore be virtuous by performing their human function; I believe that this action inwardly reflects Socrates’s own virtue. For example, if a professor can effectively teach mathematics to his students, then he most likely holds knowledge of the subject within himself. In a similar way, Socrates instills virtue in other people, which shows that he himself is a virtuous being. Although some people criticize him, evidence of his positive impact is reinforced by the approval and support of his friends in the Apology. While promoting virtue when alive, Socrates wishes to continue to encourage virtue even after death. For example, at the onset of his death, Socrates asks the jurors to ensure that his sons are given grief if they care for anything else more than virtue (Plato and Grube 44). While Socrates could have been thinking about himself or other things at that moment, he is thinking of how to guide people towards living virtuously. Both his actions while living and his intentions after death reveal that Socrates wished to aid people in living virtuous lives, which highlight his own state of
Socrates challenges Protagoras if virtue is really something that can be taught and he continues to argue with Protagoras because he simply wants to understand the truth about virtue. He knows that Protagoras has the reputation as being the best and he wants to know the answer. Socrates wants to know if all parts of virtue are separate and distinct or all one and the same. As the argument progresses Protagoras does not give Socrates clear answers to his questions, and the conversation is not going where Socrates wished it would. Socrates continued to ask Protagoras questions, that was until Protagoras could no longer answer the questions, he gave up and realized that in the argument he turned into the answerer. This is probably due to the fact that Socrates wanted the answers, and who else go to for those answers than
In The Abolition of Man, Plato comes up with a question that he answers himself. Can virtue be taught? In his writings, he answers this question with eleven simple words. “No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous”. This is simply implying that virtue can’t be taught because being virtuous is something you are born with. A twist to this question that could possibly give us a positive answer would be asking if virtue could be learned. The only difference between these questions is that when you ask if virtue can be learned, you’re inferring that there is a teacher and a pupil. Asking if something can be learned simply suggests that there is a student and he teaches himself virtue by experiencing life lessons. To give an example, asking if a person was taught how to play soccer means that there was someone to teach that person; while asking whether a person learned to play soccer has certain inclination towards that person learning from life experiences or by watching soccer being played.
Socrates was a philosopher who set out to prove, to the gods, that he wasn't the wisest man. Since he could not afford a "good" Sophist teacher, surely a student of one had to be smarter than he. He decides to converse with the youth of Athens, but concludes that he actually is wiser than everyone he speaks with. He then realizes that their lack of intelligence is the fault of their teachers. Socrates understands that the practice of "sophism" leads to a lack of self-knowledge and moral values. Socrates was later accused of corrupting the youth of Athens and put on trial. In The Apology of Socrates he sta...