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Title: Plato Meno by G.M.a Grube ISBN: 0-915144-24-7 Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 June, 1976 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: One of Plato's most frustrating early dialogues
Comment: Meno is one of Plato's early and, to my mind, least successful, Socratic dialogues. The conversation centers, naturally enough, on virtue and whether or not it is teachable. Meno's definitions of virtue are woefully inadequate, by and large, and deserving of Socrates' typical arrogance. At one point, Meno says that one cannot learn about what one does not know. To counter this argument, Socrates, arguing that the soul is eternal and that learning is in fact recollection, sets about showing him how an ignorant slave "remembers" the answers to geometrical questions Socrates puts to him. Later, when Meno agrees with the notion that virtue is knowledge and can be taught, Socrates counters the point by saying he has yet to find anyone who truly practices virtue and is thus qualified to teach it. In the end, Socrates concludes that virtue cannot be taught and is in fact a gift of the gods. Only the gods have true knowledge and can thus do nothing wrong, in Socrates' opinion.
The whole "knowledge is recollection" argument dominates my reaction to this dialogue, as the demonstration of geometrical knowledge involving a slave never sits well with me. One should not really look for answers in Meno, as the whole dialogue ends with little more than open questions. Many of the same ideas were developed much more completely in The Republic.
Rating: 5
Summary: Can Virtue Be Taught?
Comment: .
For such a short story, so much is said. Reading Plato answers many questions and exposes the framework of so many later writers of history, a classic that should be read and contemplated. Spending the time reading on Plato's Meno reaps much, far more valuable than vast amounts of mediocre writers. Can you imagine if the masses spent as much time reading Plato as they do their shod journalism!
Actually this idea of virtue has the basics of all philosophical thought, the direction of the whole or the overall purpose always direct the thoughts. Virtue acts as the driving force of the empirical observation and technical craft. Virtue is the purpose, the why, as opposed to the what. And so, it has been determined from the conversation of Socrates and Meno, that virtue is not knowledge, it is not the "what" but rather it is that which moves the direction behind knowledge and therefore cannot be taught. And if it is not knowledge then it can be observed by example, yet Socrates determined that virtue is from a divine source, the inspiration that is behind all knowledge.
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Title: Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, George Sher ISBN: 087220605X Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
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Title: The Nicomachean Ethics (OXFORD WORLD'S CLASSICS) by Aristotle, David Ross, W. D. Ross, J. L. Ackrill, J. O. Urmson ISBN: 019283407X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Meditations on First Philosophy: In Which the Existence of God and the Distinction of the Soul from the Body Are Demonstrated by Rene Descartes, Donald A. Cress ISBN: 0872201929 Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 October, 1993 List Price(USD): $4.95 |
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Title: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford Philosophical Texts) by David Hume, Tom L. Beauchamp ISBN: 0198752482 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: City Kids, City Teachers: Reports from the Front Row by William Ayers, Patricia Ford ISBN: 1565840518 Publisher: New Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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