PHL105Y Introduction to Philosophy Wednesday, October 25, 2006

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PHL105Y Introduction to Philosophy Wednesday,
October 25, 2006

• For Wednesdays class, read to page 92 of the
  Plato book ( finish the Meno).
• The Philosophy Club is meeting TODAY, from 3-5pm
  in the Deans Lounge (North Bldg. Room 262).
  Theme philosophical conversation about music
  students are invited to bring a tape or CD with
  up to 4 minutes of music to discuss. Free pizza.
  
• Tutorials continue this Friday. For this week,
  answer one of the following two questions, in
  about 200-250 words (about one typed
  double-spaced page) hand in the hard copy to
  your TA at the beginning of Fridays tutorial.
• After cross-examining a servant boy about a
  geometrical problem, Socrates asks Meno whether
  the opinions the boy expressed were all his own
  opinions (85bc) Meno agrees that the boy has
  only been expressing his own opinions. What
  convinced Meno that the opinions belonged to the
  boy himself, and what is the significance of this
  point?
• Starting at 97a, Socrates and Meno have a
  conversation about right or true opinion and
  knowledge. In what ways is knowledge different
  from true opinion?

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The Meno
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Meno defines virtue

• Meno virtue is to desire beautiful things and
  have the power to acquire them (77b)

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Meno defines virtue

• Meno virtue is to desire beautiful things and
  have the power to acquire them (77b)
• Socrates gets Meno to agree that by beautiful
  he means good Socrates then asks whether all
  men desire good things.
• Do we all desire what is good?

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Desiring bad things

• Meno thinks that some people desire good things
  and others desire bad things
• Socrates wonders whether he means that people
  desire bad things under the mistaken impression
  that those things are good Meno thinks that
  people desire bad things knowing that those
  things are bad

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Desiring bad things

• Socrates gets Meno to agree that bad things harm
  their possessor, and that those who believe that
  bad things benefit them do not know that these
  things are bad
• Socrates then urges that those who desire bad
  things do so thinking that those things are good
  no one wishes to be miserable, so no one wants
  what is bad (Are we convinced?)

7
Menos definition revisited

• Virtue (1)desiring good things and (2) having
  the power to get them
• Since (1) is common to all of us, differences in
  virtue have to be understood as differences in
  the capacity to get things some people are
  better at getting things (like health and wealth)
  than others

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Menos definition revisited

• Virtue (1)desiring good things and (2) having
  the power to get them
• Getting things like wealth doesnt count as
  virtuous if you do it unjustly (say, by fraud)
• The virtuous man must get things in a just way.
  (Whats wrong with that?)

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Menos definition collapses

• To say that virtue is getting things justly,
  where justice itself is part of virtue, is not to
  define virtue Menos definition is unhelpful
  Socrates asks him to try again to define virtue
  (80a).

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Menos definition collapses

• To say that virtue is getting things justly,
  where justice itself is part of virtue, is not to
  define virtue Menos definition is unhelpful
  Socrates asks him to try again to define virtue
  (80a).
• Meno compares Socrates to the broad torpedo fish,
  which numbs whoever contacts it he feels
  speechless. (80ab)

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Menos famous question

• When Socrates asks Meno to renew his search for
  the nature of virtue, Meno says,
• How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do
  not know at all what it is? How will you aim to
  search for something you do not know at all? If
  you should meet with it, how will you know that
  this is the thing that you did not know? (80d)

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The story of the immortal soul

• Socrates then quotes the ancient Greek poet
  Pindar, and describes a myth according to which
  the soul is immortal and gets reborn many times
  into the world.
• As the soul is immortal, has been born often,
  and has seen all things here and in the
  underworld, there is nothing which it has not
  learned before, both about virtue and other
  things.
• searching and learning are, as a whole,
  recollection. (81cd)

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Learning and recollection

• Socrates there is no teaching but recollection

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Learning and recollection

• Socrates there is no teaching but recollection
• Knowledge is not transferred from one person (the
  teacher) to another (the student) rather, the
  one who appears to learn is recollecting
  knowledge from within himself. (How does that
  help with Menos famous question?)

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What can you recollect?

• Socrates picks an uneducated household slave or
  servant and asks him a series of questions about
  geometry.
• The boy gets some questions right and others
  wrong he is capable of realizing when he has
  gone wrong.

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The geometrical argument
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The geometrical argument

• A square is a four-sided figure, in which all
  four sides are equal.
• Each side gets bisected the boy sees that the
  square composed of 4 1-foot squares is itself
  four square feet.
• The challenge figure out how to draw a square
  based on this one that is twice the size (e.g
  starting from a unit square, draw a square that
  is 2 square feet).

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The geometrical argument

• Meno and Socrates agree that the boy makes
  progress when he moves from thinking that he
  knows the answer to realizing that he doesnt.

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The geometrical argument

• Meno and Socrates agree that the boy makes
  progress when he moves from thinking that he
  knows the answer to realizing that he doesnt.
• How does the boy escape the condition of
  realizing he doesnt know the answer? Is any
  such avenue open when you realize you dont know
  the answer about virtue?

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Teaching and recollection

• The boy comes to realize, for himself, that you
  can double a square by using the diagonal as your
  base.

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Teaching and recollection

• The boy comes to realize, for himself, that you
  can double a square by using the diagonal as your
  base.
• Socrates points out that the boy has expressed
  strictly his own opinions in the course of
  figuring this out. (What does that mean?)

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Teaching and recollection at 85cd

• Socrates So the man who does not know has within
  himself true opinions about the things that he
  does not know? So it appears.
• Socrates These opinions have now just been
  stirred up like a dream, but if he were
  repeatedly asked about these same things in
  various ways, you know that in the end his
  knowledge about these things would be as accurate
  as anyones. It is likely.
• Socrates And he will know it without having been
  taught but only questioned, and find the
  knowledge within himself. Yes.

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Teaching and recollection at 85de

• Socrates then argues that finding the knowledge
  within yourself is recollection.
• What is recollected was either always in you, or
  taught to you at some earlier time.
• Socrates and Meno agree that the boy had not been
  taught geometry they conclude that if the truth
  about reality is always in our soul, we can seek
  to recollect what we dont already know.