Plato: Meno's Paradox

The primary aim of this paper is to argue that the value of understanding derives in part from a kind of subjective stability of belief that we call epistemic resilience. We think that this feature of understanding has been overlooked by recent work, and we think it’s especially important to the value of understanding for social cognitive agents such as us. We approach the concept of epistemic resilience via the idea of the experience of epistemic ownership and argue that the (...) former concept has Platonic pedigree. Contrary to longstanding exegetical tradition, we think that Plato solves the “Meno problem” with an appeal to the epistemic resilience characteristic of understanding, not the well-groundedness characteristic of canonical cases of propositional knowledge. Finally, we apply our discussion to the case of science outreach and the challenge of global warming skepticism and conclude with directions for future research. (shrink)

As Josef Pieper writes in his study “On Hope,” the virtue of hope is the virtue that completes the human being in its intermediary, temporal state (the “status viatoris,” or condition of being “on the way”). To be human is always to be “on the way” toward a fulfillment and completion not yet available to it (the “status comprehensoris”). Those who are hopeful direct themselves toward this end as to their fulfillment despite recognizing that it, in some sense, exceeds their (...) grasp, whereas those who are not hopeful either reject the possibility of such a fulfillment (despair) or prematurely suppose themselves to have attained it (presumption). While Pieper’s account of hope is largely based on the theologically-inflected account found in Thomas Aquinas, Pieper draws his conception of the nature of philosophy and philosophical reasoning ultimately from Plato. Philosophy, for Plato, on Pieper’s view, is essentially structured by the “not yet” condition that Pieper calls the status viatoris, as we see mythically depicted in Diotima’s account of Eros as being an intermediary daimon who, partaking of his parents’ opposed natures, is fundamentally characterized by poverty and lack (the “not”) on the one hand and by resourcefulness (the “yet”) on the other. The human soul, erotic at its very core, is structured by this twofold relation to the object of its greatest longing, Beauty Itself, which it doesn’t yet possess but for which it strives with all of its being. In this essay, I show that Plato has a “hopeful” sense of reason on account of the erotic condition (the status viatoris) that essentially characterizes the human soul’s spatio-temporal life during its incarnate, earthly state. If reason is, for Plato, to be true to itself, it must strive for the whole of wisdom even as it lacks that wisdom. Because reason is directed toward a fulfillment it can’t quite fathom, it must relate to that fulfillment essentially in the mode of hope. When, by contrast, reason becomes presumptuous, thinking that it already has a clear and secure cognition of the truth for which it seeks, it becomes dogmatic and runs the risk of falling into the misology diagnosed in the Phaedo when it inevitably comes up against some crack in its understanding. Likewise, when reason succumbs to despair—as we see, for example, in Meno’s eristic argument about the impossibility of learning—it becomes excessively skeptical and inert. Only when reason avoids the twin errors of presumption and despair can it continue in its pursuit of the whole of wisdom while remaining mindful of its limitations. (shrink)

This is a review of: Platon: Meisterdenker der Antike by Thomas Alexander Szlezåk (review).

This article seeks to answer why there are two different versions of Meno’s Paradox. I argue that the dilemma contained in Socrates’s version is a pre-existing puzzle, familiar to both Meno and Socrates before their discussion. The two versions of the paradox are thus different because Meno’s version is a mistaken attempt to remember the puzzle contained in Socrates’s version. Although Meno’s version is a mistaken attempt to state Socrates’s version, it is a philosophically richer puzzle that makes three interesting (...) points about inquiry and recognition. After arguing that Socrates’s version is unsound and that Meno’s version is an attempt to recollect or remember it, I analyze Meno’s version in detail. In closing, I consider the relationship between the notion of recognition, which figures prominently in Meno’s version, and the theory of recollection, suggesting that the latter may have arisen as an attempt to explain the origin of moral intuitions. (shrink)

Plato’s Pragmatism offers the first comprehensive defense of a pragmatist reading of Plato. According to Plato, the ultimate rational goal is not to accumulate knowledge and avoid falsehood but rather to live an excellent human life. The book contends that a pragmatic outlook is present throughout the Platonic corpus. The authors argue that the successful pursuit of a good life requires cultivating certain ethical commitments, and that maintaining these commitments often requires violating epistemic norms. In the course of defending the (...) pragmatist interpretation, the authors present a forceful Platonic argument for the conclusion that the value of truth has its limits, and that what matters most are one’s ethical commitments and the courage to live up to them. Their interpretation has far-reaching consequences in that it reshapes how we understand the relationship between Plato’s ethics and epistemology. Plato’s Pragmatism will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Plato and ancient philosophy. It will also be of interest to those working on current controversies in ethics and epistemology. (shrink)

Philosophers of education often view the role of religion in education with suspicion, claiming it to be impossible, indoctrinatory or controversial unless reduced to secular premises and aims. The ‘post-secular’ and ‘decolonial’ turns of the new millennium have, however, afforded opportunities to revaluate this predilection. In a social and intellectual context where the arguments of previous generations of philosophers may be challenged on account of positivist assumptions, there may be an opening for the reconsideration of alternative but traditional religious epistemologies. (...) In this article, we pursue one such line of thought by revisiting a classic question in the philosophy of education, Meno’s Paradox of inquiry. We do this to revitalise understanding and justification for religious education. Our argument is not altogether new, but in our view, is in need of restatement: liturgy is at the heart of education and it is so because it is a locus of knowledge. We make this argument by exploring St Augustine’s response to Meno’s Paradox, and his radical claim that only Christ can be called ‘teacher’. Though ancient, this view of the relationship of the teacher and student to knowledge may seem surprisingly contemporary because of its emphasis on the independence of the learner. Although our argument is grounded in classic texts of the Western tradition, we suggest that arguments could be made by drawing on similar resources in other religious traditions, such as Islam, that also draw upon the Platonic tradition and similarly emphasise the importance of communal and personal acts of worship. (shrink)

The Confessions is an account of Augustine’s search for truth and happiness, terminating in his conversion to Latin Christianity. In recounting the story of his restless quest, Augustine also wrestles with a philosophical paradox related to the possibility of searching for anything. This paradox, first presented in Plato’s dialogue Meno, asks how one can successfully search for something of which one has no knowledge. Gareth Matthews breaks Meno’s paradox into two parts: 1) a targeting problem, which asks how we can (...) know to search for something we have never experienced, and 2) a recognition problem, which asks how we can know we have found something if we do not have any prior knowledge of it. In his paper, ‘The Paradox of Inquiry in Augustine’s Confessions’, Scott MacDonald argues that any successful resolution to the paradox must satisfy what he calls the ‘qualified knowledge constraint on searching’: namely, that, ‘if it is possible to come to know an object by searching for it, it must be that one already knows in some way or to some extent the object one is searching for’. MacDonald goes on to show how Augustine ultimately resolves this problem by considering how God can dwell in his memory. By MacDonald’s interpretation, Augustine discovers that he has memories of joy and truth in his mind which serve as finite ‘tokens’ of God, who is joy and truth itself. In this paper, I will argue that this model based on ‘tokens’ essentially works, though MacDonald’s presentation does not account for the cases of concupiscence and self-deception. To account for these cases, I will show how even ephemeral joys can solve the recognition problem, and how memories of truth can resolve the targeting problem by eliciting a search for higher forms of truth. Augustine's resolution to Meno’s paradox is at once philosophically satisfying and psychologically penetrating. (shrink)

Through detailed analysis of Plato’s Meno, I identify and set general argumentative rules (useful both to scientists and philosophers) concerning how to use definitions. I show how the character Socrates establishes strong requirements for knowledge in general, i.e., that the knowledge of the definition of a thing must be prior to the knowledge of properties or instances of that thing. Socrate’s requirements and the way he characterizes a definition (as coextensive to the definiendum, not circular, true and explanatorily relevant) lead (...) Meno to aporia and to enunciate the famous Meno’s Paradox concerning the impossibility of inquiry for knowledge. That only occurs because Meno is unable to identify Socrate’s dialectical move: strong requirements for knowing a definition, the priority of the knowledge of the definition and the taking of all knowledge to be like the knowledge by acquaintance. After the paradox, Socrate’s proceeds the discussion using hypotheses to map the truth conditions of some theses Meno is inquiring about. I explain what are Meno’s paradox, the socratic definition and the Method of Hypotheses, in a way só as to find in this classical text in the history of philosophy general principles of argumentation that are still usefull today. (shrink)

Causal reasoning is an aspect of learning, reasoning, and decision-making that involves the cognitive ability to discover relationships between causal relata, learn and understand these causal relationships, and make use of this causal knowledge in prediction, explanation, decision-making, and reasoning in terms of counterfactuals. Can we fully automate causal reasoning? One might feel inclined, on the basis of certain groundbreaking advances in causal epistemology, to reply in the affirmative. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that one still has (...) good skeptical grounds for resisting any conclusions in favour of the automation of causal reasoning. If by causal reasoning is meant the entirety of the process through which we discover causal relationships and make use of this knowledge in prediction, explanation, decision-making, and reasoning in terms of counterfactuals, then one relies besides on tacit knowledge, as might be constituted by or derived from the epistemic faculty virtues and abilities of the causal reasoner, the value systems and character traits of the causal reasoner, the implicit knowledge base available to the causal reasoner, and the habits that sustain our causal reasoning practices. While certain aspects of causal reasoning may be axiomatized and formalized and algorithms may be implemented to approximate causal reasoning, one has to remain skeptical about whether causal reasoning may be fully automated. This demonstration will involve an engagement with Meno’s Paradox. (shrink)

An intensional logic is presented and suggested as a framework for a formal investigation of learning. The framework allows for discussing and comparing concepts and representations, and makes it possible to view learning processes as iterations of a certain type of functions. It is shown how this framework may be used to shed light on Meno’s paradox, but also on concepts such as Vygotsky’s ZPD and learning trajectories. In the case of mathematics, where there are recent attempts to merge ideas (...) from the philosophy of mathematics with ideas from the philosophy of education, a formal framework such as the one presented here, may constitute a common arena of discussion. (shrink)

I give an interpretation according to which Meno’s paradox is an epistemic regress problem. The paradox is an argument for skepticism assuming that (1) acquired knowledge about an object X requires prior knowledge about what X is and (2) any knowledge must be acquired. (1) is a principle about having reasons for knowledge and about the epistemic priority of knowledge about what X is. (1) and (2) jointly imply a regress-generating principle which implies that knowledge always requires an infinite sequence (...) of known reasons. Plato’s response to the problem is to accept (1) but reject (2): some knowledge is innate. He argues from this to the conclusion that the soul is immortal. This argument can be understood as a response to an Eleatic problem about the possibility of coming into being that turns on a regress-generating causal principle analogous to the regress-generating principle presupposed by Meno’s paradox. (shrink)

The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus, by FineGail. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xiv + 399.

This paper provides an interpretation of Aristotle’s criticism to the solution to Meno’s Paradox suggested by Plato. According to Aristotle, when Plato says that reminiscence (anámnēsis) is achieved, what is actually achieved is induction (epagōgê). Our interpretation is based on two aspects: (1) semantic criticism, since Plato’s use of the term anámnēsis is unusual; and (2) the theory is not able to give an adequate explanation of the effective discovery.

Review of Gail Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry (OUP 2014).

I argue that Meno’s Paradox targets the type of knowledge that Socrates has been looking for earlier in the dialogue: knowledge grounded in explanatory definitions. Socrates places strict requirements on definitions and thinks we need these definitions to acquire knowledge. Meno’s challenge uses Socrates’ constraints to argue that we can neither propose definitions nor recognize them. To understand Socrates’ response to the challenge, we need to view Meno’s challenge and Socrates’ response as part of a larger disagreement about the value (...) of inquiry. (shrink)

Meno's Paradox from Socrates to Sextus Gail Fine. sense that they consider the issues it raises; and they argue, against its conclusion, that inquiry is possible. Like Plato and Aristotle, they also explain what makes inquiry possible; and they do ...

Recent critiques of veritistic value monism, or the idea that true belief is unique in being of fundamental epistemic value, typically invoke a claim about the surplus value of knowledge over mere true belief, in turn traced back to Plato's Meno. However, to the extent Plato at all defends a surplus claim in the Meno, it differs from that figuring in contemporary discussions with respect to both its scope and the kind of value at issue, and is under closer scrutiny (...) fully compatible with veritistic value monism. Consequently, contrary to what seems to be supposed in the literature, the critics of monism have little to gain from turning to the Meno for support. (shrink)

This work articulates two thesis: one Socratic and one Platonic; and displays how the first one is heir of the second. The Socratic one is called the principle of priority of definition; the Platonic one is the Recollection theory. The articulation between both theses is possible due to the Meno’s paradox, which makes a criticism on the first thesis, but it is solved with the second one. The consequence of this articulation is a new interpretation of the Recollection theory, as (...) a theory of knowledge acquisition that depends, mainly, on a distinction between knowledge and true opinion. To conclude, a new interpretation of the knowledge/true opinion distinction is displayed –not in the traditional fashion, evaluating the propositions one by one, and in an atomic way–, but as big blocks or chains of propositions shaping knowledge through explanatory reasoning (aitías logismós). (shrink)

This work articulates two thesis: one Socratic and one Platonic; and displays how the first one is heir of the second. The Socratic one is called the principle of priority of definition; the Platonic one is the Recollection theory. The articulation between both theses is possible due to the Meno’s paradox, which makes a criticism on the first thesis, but it is solved with the second one. The consequence of this articulation is a new interpretation of the Recollection theory, as (...) a theory of knowledge acquisition that depends, mainly, on a distinction between knowledge and true opinion. To conclude, a new interpretation of the knowledge/true opinion distinction is displayed –not in the traditional fashion, evaluating the propositions one by one, and in an atomic way–, but as big blocks or chains of propositions shaping knowledge through explanatory reasoning (aitías logismós). (shrink)

The pseudo-Platonic dialogue Sisyphus considers the nature of deliberation, asking whether it does or does not involve knowledge. Difficulties for both options are canvassed, in ways that recall Meno’s Paradox and that also compare interestingly with Aristotle’s account of deliberation in his ethical writings.

This article explores the conception of self-knowledge in book 10 of Augustine’s De Trinitate. Augustine starts from the worry in Plato’s Meno that one cannot search for something entirely unknown and engages with Plotinus, Ennead 5.3 in developing his own understanding of the mind’s self-knowledge. He concludes that this knowledge is paradoxical in nature: it is necessary and, at the same time, futile; and it is separated from the knowledge of God. Augustine reaches this point by rejecting the Aristotelian identity (...) of the knower with the known, as well as by grounding self-knowledge in the fact of the mind’s intimate presence to itself. Ultimately, self-knowledge appears to be an ‘objectless’ knowledge, a knowledge that the mind exists rather than knowledge of what the mind is. (shrink)

Cet article cherche à préciser les modes d' appropriation médiévale du paradoxe du Ménon selon lequel il est impossible de rien apprendre, c'est-à-dire de connaître quelque chose de nouveau. Dans un premier temps, on met en évidence les vecteurs de transmission textuelle. Dans la mesure où le dialogue lui-même a été mal connu au Moyen Âge, c'est principalement par l'intermédiaire du résumé qu'en donne Aristote que le paradoxe et ses possibles solutions ont été appréhendés. Pour les commentateurs des Seconds analytiques (...) au XIIIe siècle ce paradoxe vient appuyer une conception innéiste de la science auquel est opposé un empirisme aristotélicien. Cette opposition est radicalisée par les nominalistes du XIVe siècle. La réfutation de l'argument de Ménon devient alors l'occasion de développer une conception strictement naturaliste de l'acquisition du savoir. This article undertakes to define the modes of medieval appropriation of the Menons paradox according to which it is impossible to learn anything, that is to say, to know something new. First, we outline the vectors of textual transmission. The dialogue itself was not well known during the Middle Ages, so that the paradox and its possible solutions were apprehended mainly through the summary provided by Aristotle. For the 13 century commentators of the Posterior Analytics, this paradox favors an innatist conception of science. This conception is opposed by Aristotelian empiricism. The 14th century nominalists made this opposition still more radical. The refutation of Meno's argument provides an opportunity to develop a strictly naturalistic conception of the acquisition of knowledge. (shrink)

This paper discusses some issues about Aristotle’s theory of scientific investigation in Posterior Analytics II 8. Aristotle says that scientific investigation comes in three stages. My point is that Aristotle’s theory of scientific investigation cannot avoid Meno’s paradox – the paradox about the impossibility of whatsoever sort of investigation – unless its second stage, the stage in which one establishes that an object exists, is understood in terms of establishing that the object is a legitimate explanandum in the domain of (...) a given science. (shrink)

Plato articulates a deep perplexity about inquiry in ?Meno's Paradox??the claim that one can inquire neither into what one knows, nor into what one does not know. Although some commentators have wrestled with the paradox itself, many suppose that the paradox of inquiry is special to Plato, arising from peculiarities of the Socratic elenchus or of Platonic epistemology. But there is nothing peculiarly Platonic in this puzzle. For it arises, too, in classical Indian philosophical discussions, where it is formulated with (...) great clarity, and analysed in a way that casts it in a new light. We present three treatments of the puzzle in Indian philosophy, as a way of refining and sharpening our understanding of the paradox, before turning to the most radical of the Indian philosophers to tackle it. The Indian philosophers who are optimistic that the paradox can be resolved appeal to the existence of prior beliefs, and to the resources embedded in language to explain how we can investigate, and so move from ignorance to knowledge. Highlighting this structural feature of inquiry, however, allows the pessimist philosopher to demonstrate that the paradox stands. The incoherence of inquiry is rooted in the very idea of aiming our desires at the unknown. Asking questions and giving answers rests on referential intentions targeting objects in a region of epistemic darkness, and so our ?inquiry sceptic? also finds structurally similar forms of incoherence in the pragmatics of interrogative discourse. (shrink)

According to David Charles, in the Meno Socrates fleetingly distinguishes the signification from the essence question, but, in the end, he conflates them. Doing so, Charles thinks, both leads to Meno's paradox and prevents Socrates from answering it satisfactorily. I argue that Socrates doesn't conflate the two questions, and that his reply to Meno's paradox is more satisfactory than Charles allows.

Plato invokes the Theory of Recollection to explain both ordinary and philosophical learning. In a new reading of Meno's Paradox and the Slave‐Boy Interrogation, I explain why these two levels are linked in a single theory of learning. Since, for Plato, philosophical inquiry starts in ordinary discourse, the possibility of success in inquiry is tied to the character of the ordinary comprehension we bring to it. Through the claim that all learning is recollection, Plato traces the knowledge achievable through inquiry (...) back to our pretheoretical comprehension, showing not just that knowledge is in us, but that it is inchoate in the grasp of a property—akin to a concept—that enables us to speak and think about it ordinarily. Plato acknowledges in the Meno that a second step of argument, and a second application of Recollection, is needed to explain how knowledge comes to be inchoate in our ordinary grasp of a property. Though this second argument is provided most fully in the Phaedo, the evidence of the Meno is sufficient to outline Recollection as a two‐stage theory of learning, beginning in ordinary speech and thought and extending, through philosophical reflection, to knowledge. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning research in recent years on what is called analogical reasoning and transfer, the problem of how similarity or invariant relations are fundamentally accessed is typically either unrecognized, or ignored in componential and computational analyses. The access problematic is not a new one, being outlined by the paradox found in Plato’s Meno. In order to understand the analogical-access problematic, it is suggested that the concepts of analogical relations including the lexical concept metaphor, isomorphic relation in mathematics, homology in (...) biology, stimulus generalization in psychology, transfer of learning in education, and transposition phenomena in perception, be reconceptualized as subsets of a higher-order domain as all share the problem of how invariance relations are generated and accessed. A solution is suggested based on two specific evolutionary and neurological models, coupled with findings regarding the cognitive importance of knowledge-base. The paper constitutes a reciprocal complementarity analysis of a previous paper on metaphor. A higher-order form of analogical reasoning called analogical progression is introduced. Implications for research are discussed that indicate the need for a paradigm shift. The paper concludes with a four-stage model of analogical access. (shrink)

The complex way Meno's paradox is presented in the Meno forces reflection on both the external conditions on inquiry—its objects—and its internal conditions—the state of mind of the person who inquires. The theory of recollection does not fully account for the internal conditions—as Plato makes clear in the critique of Meno's puzzle to be found in the Euthydemus. I conclude that in the Euthydemus Plato is inviting us to reject the externalist account of knowledge urged on Socrates by the sophists (...) in favour of a more richly internalist epistemology. (shrink)

The paper offers an analysis of the forms of the Socratic paradoxes as well as their importance for the epistemological inquiries. In the author’s view there are various kinds of paradoxes. A special attention is paid to the Meno paradox from Plato’s Meno. In dealing with paradoxes there are three possible strategies: their critical overcoming, their demythologization or their acceptation. The author gives the descriptions of all of these strategies, reminding us that each of them put the stress on a (...) specific epistemological problem, whereby they are completing each other. (shrink)

The Confessions recounts Augustine 's successful search for God. But Augustine worries that one cannot search for God if one does not already know God. That version of the paradox of inquiry dominates and structures Confessions 1–10. I draw connections between the dramatic opening lines of book 1 and the climactic discussion in book 10.26–38 and argue that the latter discussion contains Augustine 's resolution of the paradox of inquiry as it applies to the special case of searching for God. (...) I claim that he develops a model, relying on the universal human experience of joy and truth, that identifies a starting point that is common to all human beings, is sufficient for guiding a successful search for God, and avoids commitment to recollection of experiences prior to birth. The model is crucial to Augustine 's rejection of traditional Platonist views about recollection. (shrink)

Given its brevity, Plato's Meno covers an astonishingly wide array of topics: politics, education, virtue, definition, philosophical method, mathematics, the nature and acquisition of knowledge and immortality. Its treatment of these, though profound, is tantalisingly short, leaving the reader with many unresolved questions. This book confronts the dialogue's many enigmas and attempts to solve them in a way that is both lucid and sympathetic to Plato's philosophy. Reading the dialogue as a whole, it explains how different arguments are related to (...) one another and how the interplay between characters is connected to the philosophical content of the work. In a new departure, this book's exploration focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy. (shrink)

This article analyzes three approaches to resolving the classical Meno paradox, or its variant, the learning paradox, emphasizing Charles S. Peirce’s notion of abduction. Abduction provides a way of dissecting those processes where something new, or conceptually more complex than before, is discovered or learned. In its basic form, abduction is a “weak” form of inference, i.e., it gives only tentative suggestions for further investigation. But it is not too weak if various sources of clues and restrictions on the abductive (...) search are taken into account. We present three, complementary versions of abduction: as a sort of guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious clues are important; as a form of inference, where a strategic point of view is essential; and as a part of distributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interaction with the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized. Our starting point is Peirce’s own notion of abduction, but we broaden the perspective, especially to the direction of distributed cognition. (shrink)

The author suggests that educational philosophy should benefit from addressing questions traditionally asked within discourse in the philosophy of mind, namely: the relation between the mind and world and the problems of intentionality , meaning, and representation. Peirce's semiotics and his category of creative abduction provide a novel conceptual framework for exploring these questions. A model of reasoning and learning, based on Peirce's triadic logic of relations, is analysed. This model, it is argued, is fruitful for overcoming the paradox of (...) new knowledge that was first debated by Socrates in his dialogue with Meno. (shrink)

The author suggests that educational philosophy should benefit from addressing questions traditionally asked within discourse in the philosophy of mind, namely: the relation between the mind and world and the problems of intentionality (or aboutness), meaning, and representation. Peirce's semiotics and his category of creative abduction provide a novel conceptual framework for exploring these questions. A model of reasoning and learning, based on Peirce's triadic logic of relations, is analysed. This model, it is argued, is fruitful for overcoming the paradox (...) of new knowledge that was first debated by Socrates in his dialogue with Meno. (shrink)

Scholars of Plato are divided between those who emphasize the literature of the dialogues and those who emphasize the argument of the dialogues, and between those who see a development in the thought of the dialogues and those who do not. In this important book Russell Dancy focuses on the arguments and defends a developmental picture. He explains the Theory of Forms of the Phaedo and Symposium as an outgrowth of the quest for definitions canvassed in the Socratic dialogues, by (...) constructing a Theory of Definition for the Socratic dialogues based on the refutations of definitions in those dialogues, and showing how that theory is mirrored in the Theory of Forms. His discussion, notable for both its clarity and its meticulous scholarship, ranges in detail over a number of Plato's early and middle dialogues, and will be of interest to readers in Plato studies and in ancient philosophy more generally. (shrink)

One of the most astonishing aspects of Levinas’s philosophy is the assertion that other persons are absolutely other than the self. The difficulties attending a relationship with absolute otherness are ancient, and immediately invoke Meno’s Paradox. How can we encounter that which is not already within us? The traditional reply to Meno (anamnesis) reduces other persons to the role of midwife and thereby, says Levinas, mitigates their alterity. Although Descartes seems to provide a rejoinder to anamnesis in theThird Meditation, this (...) response alone is not adequate for Levinas’s purpose. St. Augustine, in De Magistro, describes a form of “recollection” that accounts for infinity while still reducing the human interlocutor to the role of midwife, thus reasserting a marginal role for the other. Levinas needs additional help to overcome the specter of anamnesis, which he finds in Kierkegaard’s relationship of the individual to “the god” in the Philosophical Fragments. (shrink)

One of the most astonishing aspects of Levinas’s philosophy is the assertion that other persons are absolutely other than the self. The difficulties attending a relationship with absolute otherness are ancient, and immediately invoke Meno’s Paradox. How can we encounter that which is not already within us? The traditional reply to Meno (anamnesis) reduces other persons to the role of midwife and thereby, says Levinas, mitigates their alterity. Although Descartes seems to provide a rejoinder to anamnesis in theThird Meditation, this (...) response alone is not adequate for Levinas’s purpose. St. Augustine, in De Magistro, describes a form of “recollection” that accounts for infinity while still reducing the human interlocutor to the role of midwife, thus reasserting a marginal role for the other. Levinas needs additional help to overcome the specter of anamnesis, which he finds in Kierkegaard’s relationship of the individual to “the god” in the Philosophical Fragments. (shrink)

This thesis will argue that Plato's influential philosophical puzzle known as the Meno Paradox and the related Problem of False Belief are a more serious threat to Plato's philosophical programme than many interpreters recognize. Furthermore, Plato's most obvious candidate for a solution to these problems, the Theory of Recollection, is not sufficient to explain how the Paradox misunderstands the epistemic processes of learning which it treats. ;This failure of Plato's account motivates a close consideration of Aristotle's sophisticated attempt to resolve (...) the difficulties Plato raises. I will argue that a proper understanding of Aristotle's philosophy of mind and the forms of cognition through which he thinks humans progress yields the key to a powerful and heretofore unrecognized Aristotelian solution to the Meno Paradox and the Problem of False Belief. (shrink)

The paper provides close commentary on an important but generally neglected passage in "Prior Analytics" B.21 where, in the course of solving a logical puzzle concerning our knowledge of universal statements, Aristotle offers his only explicit treatment of the Platonic doctrine of Recollection. I show how Aristotle defends his solution to the "Paradox of Knowing Universals", as we might call it, and why he introduces Recollection into his discussion of the puzzle. The reading I develop undermines the traditional view of (...) the passage and lends fresh insight into Aristotle's conception of Plato's particular version of innatism; more specifically, when understood as I recommend, the passage strongly suggests that, on Aristotle's view, Plato's theory of Recollection is specifically designed to explain our apprehension of universal truths. The reading I propose also enables us to see how the allegedly non-standard use of the technical term ἐπαγω³ή in B.21 can be understood in a perfectly straightforward fashion to refer to an inductive inference from singular statements to the universal truth they exemplify. Owing to this last point in particular, the paper carries serious consequences for our understanding of the purported doublet in the problematic opening chapter to the "Posterior Analytics" where Aristotle offers his only explicit attempt to solve Meno's Paradox. (shrink)

In Meno 80d5-e5, we find two sets of objections concerning the possibility of inquiry in the absence of knowledge: the so-called Meno's paradox and the eristic arguments. This essay first shows that the eristic argument is not simply a restatement of Meno's paradox, but instead an objection of a completely different kind: Meno's paradox concerns not inquiry as such, but rather Socrates' inquiry into virtue as is pursued in the first part of the Meno, whereas the eristic argument indicates a (...) manner in which Meno's paradox can be generalized. This implies that they cannot be resolved by the same argument. It is then argued that the theory of recollection, as presented in Socrates' experiment with the slave, cannot resolve Meno's paradox, its target being only the eristic argument. Only the hypothetical method of inquiry is the effective answer to Meno's paradox. Finally, this essay contends that, contrary to what the text might suggest, Socrates, by introducing the hypothetical method, does not abandon his principle that knowing what something is precedes knowing what something is like. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to demonstrate in the work of Augustine the intellectual foundations for a theory of Christian speech. It examines an early and short text entitledThe Teacher in which Augustine considers a version of the Socratic thesis called Meno's paradox. Augustine restates this paradox in such a way as to make the issue of language or speech primary: Why is it that no one teaches without the use of signs, he asks, but no one learns anything from them? His (...) resolution to this question is to suggest that words can prompt us to look for things from which we ultimately will derive knowledge. Language is an instrument which makes our acquisition of knowledge possible but has little worth of its own. In light of this insight, the four chapters provide a close reading of Augustine's comments on language as they are detailed in theories of semiotics, scriptural hermeneutics, and rhetoric in four seminal works that span the course of his lifetime: On Dialectic, The Teacher, On Christian Doctrine, and the Confessions. (shrink)

SummaryTruth‐definitions play a crucial role in the foundations of logic and semantics. Tarsik‐type truth‐definitions are not possible to formulate in a usual first‐order language for itself, and they have been criticized because they do not account for what makes them definitions of truth. It has been suggested that truth should instead be characterized by reference to the «language‐games» of verification and falsification. The author's game‐theoretical semantics here explained for formal first‐order languages, can be thought of as a realization of this (...) idea. More technically speaking, GTS can also be thought of as a systematization of the well‐known aepsilon‐delta, definitions in the foundations of analysis. In GTS, truth is not defined by reference to winning a play of a game, but as the existence of a winning strategy in the game for the verifier. In a first‐order language, the game‐theoretical truth‐condition of a sentence S can accordingly be expressed by an explicit second‐order sentence asserting the existence of the Skolem function of S.The semantical games of GTS must be distinguished not only from the «games» of formal proof but also from the «games» in volved in our ordinary activities of verification and falsification. The latter have been modelled as games of inquiry by the author, and they are essentially epistemic games where the meaning of truth is taken for granted and where the aim of the game is to come to know certain truths. To assimilate them to the semantical games constitutive of truth is a form of Meno's paradox. (shrink)