Plato's Meno: can virtue be taught?
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- Опубликовано: 2 авг 2024
- Can virtue be taught? What is the nature of learning? Dr. Johnson discusses the major ideas from Plato's Meno in detail, including the geometry example and anamnesis, the idea that we remember rather than learn.
Dr. Johnson teaches philosophy at Georgia Tech. He is the author of Paradox at Play: Metaphor in Meister Eckhart's Sermons by Catholic University of America Press. It includes many sermons never before translated into English.
Meister Eckhart, Paradox at Play
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I hope you found these ideas good to think with!
#plato Meno #meno dialogue #meno geometry #Meno philosophy
Thank you very much for sharing. This dialogue was my Ph.D thesis 40 years ago.
You’re quite welcome! I did my master’s thesis on Plato’s Republic, but pivoted to Eckhart for my doctoral work
As I get older, I appreciate philosophy more and more each day, and it compounds. I love the depth of your discourse, especially bringing up the Greek terms, thank you.
Amazing video, thank you! You were the only person I could find that provided an actual in depth analysis on the topic and I loved how you brought things like language and other supplementary things to think about into the equation. It really enhanced my understanding and I will definitely subscribe.
I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I'm getting into philosophy on my own and this video was great, thanks!
I’m so glad to hear that! Part of my hope in posting these videos is to reach people who are studying this material on their own 😀
Thanks for the video. Learn a lot from it.
You’re very welcome!
Thanks for making this video! I wonder if you know why some texts choose the word virtue and others the word excellence.
You’re quite welcome! That’s a great question. Both are good translations of arete. It depends on what the translator wants to emphasize. The ancient usage of arete is closer to what we would describe as “excellence” since it applies to objects as well (though we do say that “this software does have certain virtues” when we mean “excellences” or simply “good things”). That said, in the context of ethics and ethical theory, it may be less confusing to simply say “virtue” and then explain what the word means in a footnote. I had that same issue with Eckhart on occasion (e.g., “blessed” and “image). Sometimes I had to translate a word in a way that wasn’t the best for a particular sentence, but was instead one that preserved the continuity of the whole work since the same word was used repeatedly. Translation is an art 😄
@@goodtothinkwith Awesome! Well thanks again for the work, I'll most likely come back!
Is it possible to teach someone to be a good person?
In Socrates and the Slave, Socrates purports to "teach" a slave math. The gist of it is that the "teaching" is transformed into memory. Socrates doesn't teach the slave math as much as "reminds" the slave of "self-evident truths" and using them to apply to mathematical questions. Examples of "self-evident truths" are general principles that are universally taken to be so and that are homogeneously, cognized by all beings: concensually agreed to. Examples such as the logical principle of non-contradiction, mathematical functions of addition, subtraction and so forth, and mathematical properties of identity, commutation and so forth.
The trouble with the Examples are that they aren't "self-evident". They don't present themselves to the senses like the sun 🌞 does; in fact they are the product of "anamnesis", of "recollection". But recollection of what? Not "things in themselves": things of the senses; but, rather, RULES. Rules that "seem" true but that are not obvious. Rules that come from WHERE? Why from Socrates. Without Socrates pointing out these rules, the rules themselves can only be arrived at by...speculation, imagination, a kind of thought or thinking? The "process" of a linguistic mind. But a linguistic mind speculating about what? Truth? Eternal truths? Generalities of thought? What is NECESSARY to think about to come up with the math function of "addition"? Similarly of the principle of non-contradiction and so forth?
What pretext are we missing, is Socrates keeping from us? In fact there is nothing NECESSARY that allows us to assert these rules at all. These RULES are actually Assumptions, with a capital A. What would later (earlier?) be called axioms by mathematicians such as Euclid. Axioms like a line is made of point (but what is a point made of, precious?).
Axioms and Rules are fundamental parts of a "coherency". Coherentism is any theory that is made up to fit reality or some model of reality. As such it is the basis of game theory which is the basis of computer programming. It is also the basis of ethics, government, economics, possibly evolution, possibly religion, possibly science and so forth. I say possibly religion and science as empiricism is involved in their origin. Empiricism having to do with the senses. Science being concerned with things of the senses or experience that can be experimented on; religion being concerned with things of experience or the senses that experiment on us.
As for the question of virtue the question becomes is virtue like math? Is there a concensus on the rules which make for a coherent basis? Kant would say yes. But those rules are really assumptions. So what are the moral equivalents of the mathematical functions and properties? Are there any, or is it all based on the principle of non-contradiction?
So, you raise a number of excellent points. Socrates is notoriously unclear about how anamnesis (this process of “recollecting” rather than learning) is supposed to work. I’m of the opinion with Plato (and other scholars will disagree, I’m sure of that) is that when Plato leaves something ambiguous, he’s doing it on purpose. He’s no fool - he had to be well aware that he wasn’t fully explaining things and that people would have questions. So I think he did this to provoke us to explore further how the “recollection” might be a kind of ineffable experience. In other words, he didn’t say more about it because it can’t be said. You just kind of have to see it for yourself. That’s one aspect of it. The other is that Plato’s many Forms are ultimately all “children of the Good,” the unitary Form at the top of the hierarchy. So he may also be implying that the unity of order (cosmos as a principle, rather than a “rule/axiom”) was something we all could tap into. Thoughts?
This anamnesis is the pretext for the "Platonic world of forms". Because, the narrative goes, Socrates was merely "reminding" the slave of things he already "knew". Therefore where did the slave encounter these things "before"? Because in order to be reminded one must have a "memory". Supposedly the "encounter" occurred before we were born - they are memories of the eternal soul in its existence in the "eternal world of Platonic form". Otherwise, if they weren't recollections, they could be taken, in lawyerly speech, as leading questions. As forced or imposed concensus. For what is a slave supposed to say when "wise" Socrates mentions something plausible? "No" Socrates or "I don't know about that" Socrates? Concensus or agreement by "assumption" is the definition of teaching. After all we have to "learn" our ABC's and numbers: we're not born knowing them. Unless you believe only Russian children can learn Cyrillic or Chinese children can learn their characters?
After Socrates anyone else born to his level of intelligence or AI be able to his stature in near future.