Meno's Paradox Analysis

St. Thomas Aquinas and Meno’s Paradox

[Intro]

Plato introduces a problem regarding knowledge identified as Meno’s Paradox whereby Meno reaches a point of confusion through his discussion with Socrates; the latter is willing to help him inquire about ‘virtue’ given the fact that he doesn’t know anything about it. The paradox is that in either case, whether you know or you don’t know something, you wouldn’t even inquire about it. From this paradox, Plato introduces his theory of knowledge that the soul comes pre-filled with knowledge, and that all we need to do is recollect that knowledge. However, Aquinas disagrees with this theory and gives his own theory instead. In this paper, I will identify Plato’s problem and the resolution he gives to

Socrates goes on by referring to a Greek poet Pindar, to highlights the belief that the human soul is immortal and that every time “it comes to an end-that which is called death – and at another is born again” (81b). Thus, he concludes that given that the “soul has been born many times, and has seen all things both here and in the other world” (81d), then it must have acquired all knowledge possible already. Further, he adds that since the soul has indeed learned everything already, then there is no such thing as “seeking and learning [for they] are in fact nothing but recollection” (81d). To illustrate his point, Socrates uses a slave boy who most likely is very limited in his knowledge of things. He uses a process whereby he simply start by interrogating the boy and leading him to give his opinion on geometrical questions. He concludes that, the fact that the boy is able to answer positively, negatively or by a number to the questions asked, it must be that “his opinions were somewhere in him” (85c), and that “the spontaneous recovery of knowledge that is in him is recollection”