Plato Meno
In Plato’s dialogue Socrates discusses ways in which virtue can be acquired with
Meno. Three possibilities are confronted, first that virtue is innate within the human
soul. The second suggests that virtue can be taught, and the third possibility is that virtue
is a gift from the gods. These ways are debated by Socrates and Meno to a very broad
conclusion.
Socrates poses the question that virtue may be innate within the human soul. This
is to say that all people would have virtue within them, but it is only those who find it
that can truly become virtuous. To prove the concept of innate understanding to Meno,
Socrates, acquires the help of one of Meno’s slave boys to demonstrate. Socrates
establishes that the boy has never been taught mathematical geometry and starts
bombarding him with a series of questions on the physical properties of a square. First he
asks the boy to multiply the square by two, and he succeeds. However, the boy fails when
asked to divide the same square into two parts half the original size. By asking the boy a
series of questions yet, never actually telling him the answers Socrates helps the slave to
“recollect” the knowledge that is within him. Meno is of course astonished with this feat
that Socrates maintains is simply a matter of recollection.
This example given by Socrates, though obviously persuasive to Meno is
somewhat unstable. It can be shown that Socrates manipulated the boy into recollecting
the information by offering suggestive material within his questions. For example, if a
person did not know the sum of the equation two plus two one could ask: if a person had
two apples and someone else gave them two more would the person then not have four
apples in total? A question was asked yet the information on how to perform the
operation was directly given in the statement. Thus it can be reasoned that Socrates in a
sense did teach the boy how to divide the square.
Following this demonstration Socrates poses a second idea that virtue may be
taught. He begins by looking for teachers of virtue and comes up with four examples.
The first is Themistocles who is agreed to be virtuous by the debaters and obviously a
good teacher of his virtue. However the debaters also agre...
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...finite preference to any of the possibilities
that have been stated.
Now the question is would Socrates have maintained that ignorance is bliss based
on his views of the possible ways of acquiring virtue? I would conclude that he would
not see ignorance as bliss because Socrates believes that the truth is far greater than the
unknowing. Throughout the dialogue Socrates and Meno journey to put aside their
ignorance to come to the truth on how virtue is acquired and possibly more importantly
what virtue is. Even though the path to truth has proved painful in that the two are more
perplexed on the topic at the end of the dialogue then at the beginning Socrates would
have seen this as the first step to achieving the truth. This of course is better than not
achieving that step at all.
Socrates is ultimately concerned in finding the whole truth and would have
defiantly preferred knowing some of the truth rather than being ignorant to it. Even
though Socrates knew that the journey to reach the truth may be painful, ignorance would
be far worse than a painful truth. Ultimately he knew that the way must be tried!
Seeing as both Socrates and himself do not know what virtue is, Meno declares that they are unable to recognize or even discover it. After that Socrates refutes by stating the theory of recollection, and the immortality of the soul. Since Socrates believes that a soul is immortal, any knowledge can be recollected, which is what the theory of recollection is. He proves this through Meno’s slave, who had no prior learning of math or geometry. Through a series of questions, the slave boy is able to determine all of the lengths of the squares that Socrates draws, which explains to Meno that virtue can be recollected if they take enough time to find the
Crito is worried that his dear friend is accepting that he will be executed, so he explains that he has made arrangements for Socrates to escape though some bribes. Crito thinks that no one would believe that Socrates had been willing to face his execution but, instead that Crito would be accused of not aid...
The last activity that we did was taking ten Q tips and made three attached squares and her assignment was to make a 4th enclosed box without adding an additional items. Once I told her to start she immediately started moving the Q tips around trying to create another box. After trying for a few minutes she then say there is no way to add another box.
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.
Louden opens this section with this statement: “… it is commonplace that virtue theorists focus on good and bad agents rather than on right and wrong acts.” This is a good th...
What began as Socrates’ process of inquiry, the impression that one cannot obtain knowledge about something without having a definition for it first, led to Meno’s Paradox, a seemingly intelligent argument that mindlessly concludes that knowledge of something can never actually and fully be obtained. Seeing that the paradox had this visibly defective conclusion, Plato disproves Meno’s third premise, and by its fault, premise four is restated as, you can, actually, discover something, which corresponds with Plato’s view of how a person obtains knowledge.
...importance of virtue here is that, virtues are needed for living well; But in order to obtain
`Why on what lines will you look, Socrates, for a thing of whose nature you know nothing at all? Pray, what sort of a thing, amongst those things that you know will you treat us to as the object of your search? Or even supposing, at the best that you it upon it, how will you know it is the thing you did not know?'
Virtue, then deals with those feelings and actions in which it is wrong to go too far and wrong to fall too short but in which hitting the mean is praiseworthy and good….
I believe that by Socrates complying with he sentence order by Athenians, he got his point across and he stood up for what he believe in and he never back down.
Using a square, both the length & the width are equal. I am using a
Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from 469-399 B.C.E. Socrates believed that Philosophy was primarily a social activity, which in fact he made use of quite often. He would find himself roaming the streets of Athens questioning the youth or just anyone who would give him the chance to talk to them. Furthermore, Socrates questions drove people absolutely insane, until the point of absolute consternation if you will. He tried proving a point which is quoted “Look, here we are, two ignorant men, yet two, men who desire to know. I am willing to pursue the question seriously if you are” (Palmer, 31).Ultimately, this meant that the person Socrates was questioning actually didn’t know anything at all, just as well as Socrates himself, so which for the both of them would remain in search of the truth.
It is true that virtues are not feelings because we are not moved by feelings because we do good and bad things depending on our virtues and vices not through how we are feeling. Someone will not commit murder because of his or her feelings but because of their vices that are playing in their head. No one is forced to do anything because of his or her feelings. Also the excellence of virtue is needed because it is what makes something good and allows it to function well. For example I believe god created excellence in our bodies and the ways in which we were created because through the excellence we are able to survive, breath, walk, and function well. This virtue is what makes us as people good because I believe we are all born good but what can change that is if a person develops bad habits, which would lead him or her to not function properly.
... when he is discussing the unexamined life. When Socrates mentions the oracle, he is explaining how one can believe he knows all but still can question life. Although he believes that a smarter man will not be found, Socrates still questions and examines the life he leads. This is the basic concept of philosophy, to try to examine and understand what is going on in life. Socrates understands that without this questioning, there would be no philosophy or a worthwhile life. (Plato 25)
Socrates was a greek philosopher that lived from four-hundred-sixty-nine BCE to three-hundred-ninety-nine BCE. He is one of the most influential Greek philosophers. He created the socratic method which, is a method of thinking where a person asks a question in a circle. After the question is posed the rest of the circle goes around one by one answering the question. The way it works is it breaks big problems down into small and answerable questions. A key aspect of the method is the idea that there are no wrong ideas and all answers are accepted. This method causes people to think harder and more critically about the questions being asked. The questions must be more than a yes or no question. They must be a question that evokes thought and takes explaining to answer.