Philosophy 101 (Bentley College)

Assignment for Wednesday, October 6

Reading:

Plato, Meno (in Five Dialogues), translator's introduction (pp. 58–59) and 70a–86c (pp. 59–78)

Notes and questions on the reading:

What is Meno's first attempt to explain what virtue is (71e), and what does Socrates find wrong with it? (Having studied the Euthyphro, you should find this to be familiar ground.)
What is Meno's second attempt (73d), and, again, what does Socrates find wrong with it? (Socrates' criticism is unfolded in 73d–74b; he then leads the discussion into a long and involved digresson on color and shape (74b–77a). This discussion initially seems to be intended to shed some light on the question about virtue by means of an analogy, but in the end does not seem to shed much light on anything, so I advise you not to get bogged down in it.)
What is Meno's third attempt to explain what virtue is (77b)? (Socrates takes a more roundabout route in criticizing this answer.)
In the discussion that immediately follows (77b–78b), Socrates argues that no one desires what is bad. What is his argument for that claim? How does the claim require Meno to modify his definition of virtue (yielding a fourth definition, at 78b–c)?
Meno adds to his definition an explanation of what he means by "good things" (78c–d): from this point, how does Socrates establish that this definition has the same fault as the earlier one (78d–79e)?
Why does Meno liken Socrates to a torpedo fish, and what does Socrates make of the comparison (80a–d)?
On what grounds does Meno claim that it is impossible to find out what virtue is (80d–81a)? This passage is very short, but very important in the argument of the dialogue. The problem that Meno presents here is commonly called Meno's paradox or the paradox of inquiry. Socrates says that the argument does not seem sound to him (81a). Why not? How does Socrates propose to avoid Meno's paradox (81b–e)?
What is Socrates' examination of the slave boy (82b–85b) supposed to show? Does it show that? Socrates asks the boy how long on a side a square must be that has twice the area of a given square: initially, the boy thinks he knows, but gives a wrong answer; he then admits that the answer is wrong, but says that he does not know the correct answer; at the end of the examination, he is able to give a correct answer; but does Socrates teach him the answer? If not, how has he become able to give the correct anwer?