Summary Of Plato By Meno

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Meno starts with Meno’s question about if virtue can be taught. It is the main theme of the entire dialogue. They both try to answer that question, but at the end it does not seem they both find the exact answer. But, at least they know what they do not know. The conversation between Meno and Socrates is to know what exactly the virtue means and if it can be taught to other people. Meno thinks he know what virtue is in the beginning of the dialogue, but when Socrates starts asking questions to him, Meno realizes that he does not know what virtue is and cannot teach it to Socrates. After that Meno starts realizing what virtue is by asking the question: how can one try to find something even he does not know what he/she is looking for? This is Meno’s paradox. It is important because the paradox shows that without knowing what one is looking for; asking question would not make any sense. Even if one can find an answer, it is not clear that he has knowledge of the answer. It is simply suggests that one can find answers if he/she knows his/her question. With this knowledge, he/she can obtain true belief. Plato’s theory of knowledge is recollection. For Plato, our souls are immortal and lived before our birth. Therefore, they have obtained a lot of knowledge, so we do not obtain knowledge by learning. We already know knowledge of something. We just recollect them.
Socrates believes knowledge is way better than true belief. He uses the slave boy to prove his knowledge. He calls one of Meno’s slaves to show Meno that even that slave boy does not have any knowledge, he can recollect it. Socrates starts asking geometrical question to the slave boy. With each wrong answer, Socrates asks him another question to lead him to the correct answ...

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...is not. Meno’s paradox is significant because one cannot look for what he already know since he/she knows it and there is no need for search again. Also it is important because if one does not know what he/she is looking for, then he/she cannot find what he/she is looking for. Therefore, it is not necessary to look for it since you do not know it. When they conclude their conversation, they still do not know what the virtue is or it is teachable for sure. Socrates’ reasons for knowledge give Meno a good lesson that knowledge is more important than true belief. Of course true belief as important as knowledge, but they are mistaken to recollection theory. Therefore, for Socrates knowledge is ultimately better than true belief. At the end, Meno is taught by Socrates that what the virtue is not and therefore, his question about what is virtue is answered in some cases.

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