Plato's dialogue, the Meno (part 2) - Introduction to Philosophy
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In this lecture from my Spring 2013 Introduction to Philosophy class at Marist College, we continue our study of Plato's classic dialogue, the Meno. We work our way into the Platonic "doctrine of recollection", which views learning as a process of being reminded of what one already has learned and thus in some way knows. We also examine the conversation between Socrates, Meno, and Anytus (one of his later accusers), focused on the questions whether virtue can be taught, and whether any of the political leaders actually knew what virtue was and successfully taught it. We finish by addressing the distinction between knowledge and right opinion
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Just getting into this Plato playlist after watching your other content on the Republic. From one teacher to another, i really like your lecture style! Engaging and substantive.
Thanks very much for that feedback!
Gregory - I'm currently doing a Masters of Philosophy with the Open University in the UK. Although undertaking a Masters I'm new to philosophy and I have to say how much I enjoy and value your lectiues it is a real boon to all who have an interest and growing passion to philosophy. Thank you for the gift!
Glad you find the videos useful.
If you'd like to support the work I do, here's my Patreon page - patreon.com/sadler
Your videos are one of the reasons I say constantly on my articles that the internet is THE best thing ever (not on those terms, of course), like if mankind finally invented spoken language.
That's quite high praise. It certainly does open up access, and the possibility to develop resources. . .
I'm a middle class law student (scholarship) from Brazil, I had so little opportunity to study philosophy, to study social sciences and human sciences like psychology, history, sociology, I'm mostly on my own, and if it was up to the place I was born, chances are that I would be not studying or being happy about studying things exactly like professors teach and thinking it is the absolute truth... I've always had a taste for philosophy (it will be my second degree, if I can ever get a chance to do one), mostly hermeneutics (which is very, very important when you study law, because hermeneutics is like profiling the author, the society, everything, by the text that was written, by the way they chose to put their ideas on paper, by the historical context, you know better than me about it) and ethics (which applies to my articles published which are on the subject of bioethics, mostly experiments with human subjects). Internet blew the distance between me, on a rural city in the extreme south of Brazil, and knowledge, of being curious about a thing, and then researching it instantly, and finding people like you.
Yes, it is quite a high praise, but it is somewhat earned.
I'm humbled -- why don't you send me some of the articles you're written - greg@reasonio.com
I'll just translate them and I'll send them to you, thank you Gregory.
You're welcome -- and thanks in advance for sending them
Thanks! Eventually, I'll probably create a site connecting the videos with the online texts and resources I steer the students towards
Yes, this is a conception of knowledge in which we reason, think, learn our way towards more and more clear conceptions. Not a conception of knowledge in which it's all built up in a rather atomistic/compositional way.
I hope I'm not spamming your videos, but I'm going through the dialogues in the order you recommended in your self-directed study videos, and then watching your lectures. This one needed a second reading before watching the lecture, but I'm very glad I did. I got so much out of the second pass, and your lectures added extra depth and ideas that I had missed. Many thanks for posting these!
I very much liked the idea of virtue somehow always needing to be balanced by wisdom/prudence. For example, courage without wisdom being destructive over-confidence. In a sense, all (?) examples of virtuous behaviour (in ethics discussions I have seen) are given as showing multiple virtuous values. I think there is some mileage in that idea.
Yes, that connection between courage and the other virtues becomes a commonplace for Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, and later virtue ethics
Thanks for filming this set of lectures! This paper is practically going to write itself. As a musician attending a conservatory, I really appreciated the music references! Very engaging and very impactful
You’re very welcome
Thank you kindly for these educational videos. Unfortunately(or fortunate) for me that I have had to refer to your videos to better understand my philosophy professor while we were reading The Republic. I absolutely love your teachings - many thanks! ^-^
Glad you enjoy and get use out of the videos!
57:20 - aww, it was just getting interesting! Anyway, I've just gone over these after reading Meno - thanks for your in depth analysis. This is quite helpful. You were right in your other video where you recommend students who are starting out in learning philosophy to read Meno and Ion first as they will not make you give up. This is the issue I've always had with learning / education. Maybe it's my fault, maybe not - but when you dive in from the get-go into difficult topics or say subjects that need to be learned at a less intense way, it can demotivate one rather quickly. Not this case. I'm more excited now to read Ion and continue on this path. Definitely Dr. Sadler was the best discovery of 2014 for me.
I'm glad that you're finding your way into Plato's texts!
Gregory B. Sadler Curious if you'll be updating the aforementioned video - ruclips.net/video/Ngk0tLuls1w/видео.html - with another chapter anytime this year?
sedna
I'll be adding other videos, if that's what you mean
Gregory B. Sadler oops, yeah I meant if you'd be updated the series that video is part of. Good to know.
Notice though that there are some things that Socrates uses along the way to the conclusions "we don't know what virtue is yet" and "nobody is really teaching virtue" -- for instance, the discussion about the various sorts of goods and their relations to each other.
Plato is tricky that way
I just finished reading Meno on my own and came across your lecture. I really enjoyed it, and it enriched my understanding of the text. Thank you for posting this. I hope you do more of these if possible.
+MrZpasm I haven't been teaching face to face classes for several years. If you search plato meno sadler, however, you'll find a number of core concept videos on the dialogue
+Gregory B. Sadler Sorry to hear that.
MrZpasm I made the move to teaching entirely online by choice, actually. I still do provide workshops and talks face to face.
+Gregory B. Sadler I am glad to hear that! I meant to imply that you are good at leading discussions, and that it would be a loss to others. I'm not sure what teaching online is like, although I imagine the same thing is possible there, but anyway, glad to hear you're still at it.
As I read the text for the first time, the problem of teaching virtue stood out to me. It seems to me to be a central political issue, one we never figured out as mankind. This makes me appreciate the "project" of the Republic better than any secondary text ever did. I definitely made the mistake of reading too many histories of philosophy and not enough primary sources.
Well, you hopefully have a long future of hitting those primary texts ahead of you!
No, what it means is that Plato does not have the problem entirely worked out in this particular dialogue
It's one of what are called the "aporetic" dialogues (a-poria - not being able to make progress), because it shows us what virtue can't really be
Did Socrates think we literally learned our knowledge in previous lives or is it more the idea that there is knowledge that is somehow inherent but latent in us (perhaps in our Soul)?
And if knowledge can be recalled from previous incarnations then how did the first incarnation learn it?
next Intro to Philosophy course lecture, wrapping up our study of the Meno
I love your online classes, Professor Sadler; I always wanted to take philosophy in college, but my Pell grants ran short after the current administration dropped short the lifetime Pell award limitation. But anyway, I did attain an associates degree in the social behavioral sciences/liberal arts/humanities call it what you will, and one class I did excel in was sociology. In sociology we talked of different actions driven by different motivations/causes (and as Parmenides ascertained all human actions even human thoughts are as susceptible the laws of cause and effect as billiard balls on a billiard table) and one action of which we discussed was called "instrumentally rational action" of which attested that people committed certain actions in the expectation that they would benefit personally from the action at some time sooner or later in the future. The expectance of reciprocation from these instrumentally rational actions could be rewarded from the public and/or from a religious deity, karma, or whatever religion a person may so subscribe. If they subscribed to no religion at all, then they would logically expect society or at the least their closest neighbors or community to reciprocate to them for their benevolence or noble actions "virtues acts". Some thinkers believe, give that human beings are naturally self-interested and self-centered for that matter, that the expectancy of reciprocation was the birth of so called virtues acts in the first place and is the impetus that drives them on. That the paradox lies in the fact that all good deeds are done with the person that is doing them interest in mind and not the one to whom the deeds are being done. Also, a driving force of virtues acts can be the negative reinforcements or consequences that the person may think will hound or follow them if they do not perform a benevolent or virtues act, which still has the person's own interest pinned first and foremost in the equation rather than the deed itself or the recipient of the virtues deed. So the big paradox would be, or least some thinkers believe, that benevolent and virtues acts are the biggest acts of selfishness that there feigningly are.
Yep, that sort of thing has been said before.
A decent response to that sort of interpretation is that those making it fail to see the difference between the consequence of an action and the purpose or motive of an action. They're not always the same, and in the case of actual virtue expressed in action, they're not.
Usually, those interpretations stem from a lack of understanding of what virtue and the virtues are. Sociology will not particularly well-equip anyone to think about virtue in ways that are actually adequate to the subject
+Gregory B. Sadler in the Penguin Classics version, with the exception of one footnote, "good" is used instead of virtue. I have read about Arete, and that Arete is the concept required to become an Agathos person. Are Arete, good, and virtue interchangeable, and would I be making a mistake if I substituted virtue for good in the notes I am taking on this writing?
So, three things.
1) Arete, standardly translated as "virtue" is not really a "concept required to become an Agathos person"
2) "Are Arete, good, and virtue interchangeable"? No
3) "would I be making a mistake if I substituted virtue for good in the notes I am taking on this writing?" Depends on which instance of "good"
+Gregory B. Sadler I should be more specific. I understand Arete to mean the qualities that are required to do, whatever something's appointed task is, well. So an agathos person, would perform his or her erga, well. I understand Arete to be the good qualities that allow a person to perform his or her erga well. So I think about it as Arete is required to perform human Erga well, and thus to be an Agathos person?
If this is correct, does virtue equate to Arete? Would Virtuous be Agathos?
I am sorry to pepper you with these questions, I just finished law school and have a few months before the bar. I decided to take this time to get as far as I could in Greek philosophy with a reasonable understanding of what they meant. I am sure you have a more detailed knowledge of these specific words in context, and that my cursory understanding is probably maddening.
Yeah. . . we addressed that in the class videos somewhere. Clearly Plato doesn't think that all learning is recollection of precisely that information.
He does think that we learn, think, reason, etc. by some reference to the Forms, which we haven't seen in this present life.
that's quite true
As a philosophy major, you’re an excellent philosophy teacher. You seem to know a lot more about philosophy (at least more in detail) than many Dominican and Jesuit priests (young and old), as well as many contemporary philosophers / senior lecturers in philosophy.
Would you ever relocate to another country, say Australia, if given a teaching position? That University would benefit immensely from your refined ability to engage with students as well as thoroughly, yet considerately, explain their many held assumptions and perspectives.
The University of Notre Dame Australia (Sydney campus) has only one excellent philosophy teacher (Angus Brook, a Thomist, who actually teaches metaphysics from a history of philosophy point of view!), and I could definitely see you being loved and appreciated there by the students (both lay and religious), the faculty, other staff, the chaplain (a recently ordained Dominican priest with a love for philosophy - he’d love you), visiting Dominicans, and the Dean of Arts and Sciences himself.
Unsurprisingly, as a large public university, the University of Sydney had-and still has-many junk philosophy teachers (who both largely ignore Ancient Greek philosophy and absolutely believe that their perspectives are correct, admirable and ought to be adopted - pretty pathetic really).
We’re pretty happy here in our home town
@@GregoryBSadler Haha yeah I’d be to but had to test out my curiosity ;)
I find that the student sometimes has the ability to reason concepts a teacher shows to the student but the student does not know how to begin or how to approach and then this is where the teacher comes in.
Yo, thanks a bunch for these fam!🙏🏾 Really helping a brother out.
Glad it's useful for you!
Yet another great lecture, Dr. Sadler. You're very engaging with the students.
I am curious. What do you think virtue is?
Well, I tend to be much more of an Aristotelian than a Platonist when it comes to the nature of the virtues
Cool, thanks for sharing.
It's interesting, you talked in an earlier video about how only a very small amount of text has been translated, and I can only assume that lots of literature have been lost. How do we know educators are teaching the correct perspective?
Not sure what you're referring to about "only a very small amount of text has been translated". All of Plato has been translated at one time or another
Since I saw the videos and read the dialogue I've kept thinking about virtue, and so many other "things" such as hate, love, happiness, etc. that cannot be actually defined. Those "things" cannot be taught. Since I refuse to think that human conduct or qualities have been pre-determined by past lives or gods, we must have developed some qualities characteristic of these "things" while living and growing, how? by means of acquired experiences, perception, knowledge and good judgement. We will never acquire any of these pure "things". Another thing that kept me thinking is that "virtuous" seems synonym of "balanced conduct". A virtuous governor love his people, but hates his enemy. So virtue is not having only good, it seems to imply that you must have good and bad, but you really need to know when to apply either and to what degree. The same thing goes for love, hate, happiness, and many others. Anyway, I want to thank you for posting these great classes!
You're welcome! So. . . the nature of virtue. . . that you'll find explored a bit more in some of Plato's other dialogues
Major props to you for not saying kar-A-tayyyy :)
Are you on reddit? I’d like to discuss more things with you there if possible, or email you occasionally (an address is in other comments). I’m so glad you piqued my interest in this as it leads to so many different lines of discussion.
You didn’t dive deeply into the subtext of Socrates attempting to undercut Gorgias and the whole system of
Sophists.
Do you think that part of the larger battle here was Socrates making critical points against the system and this was key in his eventual trial?
Anytus appeared to be a trust fund kid whereas his father was a self made man.
To what extent was Socrates, or perhaps more properly Plato, conducting a sort of class war against this theme in Athenian life?
+Tom A I look at Reddit every once in a while. I can't say I really "get" that format.
Yep, it's an intro class, focused on this text, so I didn't go into other dialogues, like the Gorgias.
I don't think Socrates was conducting "class war" of any sort. Concerns of virtue and knowledge, when those are one's key criteria, are going to cut across class lines, and not be reliably found in any of the classes
thanks for the response. That is good feedback. I've been investigating too much a percentage of politics lately and its bleeding into everything :)
If you don't get the format of reddit it's one of those things that really takes time. It *is* a strange interface, and it has tons of flaws but an active dynamic community. You and I are contemporaries and if I figured it out you can too ! :)
Thanks for posting your content, it was enough to give me some additional momentum to pick up my interest where I left it off over 20 years ago. You inspired me to actually read the full text of 'Meno' instead of just going for the Cliff Notes version.
You're quite welcome.
With the Reddit, it's mainly a function of time -- between the content production, teaching classes, research and writing, blogging, philosophical counseling, etc. I've got time for the social media I do use (FB, G+ Twitter, LI), not so much for other types
We learn, think, reason by reference to forms that have not been seen presently would essentially mean me referencing something I have not seen or heard of to my knowledge...wait what?
So if someone learns something new then it is recollection of the souls past experiences?
So someone barely reading Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and learning from it would have been known of the idea before the idea had been actually put together?
Before Neils Bohr started discovering Quantum Mechanics, he somehow knew this in a past life?
good, thanks
You're welcome!
Not this dialogue -- you're thinking of the Crito and the Phaedo
Thank you so much for posting this! I do feel bad for you though, no matter how interesting you were, your students in this class were just so disinterested! How many of them said they would just quit going to school after winning the lottery!? That's crazy! And they didn't understand why anyone would want to continue to go. *shaking my head*
Te need to want to know(just because!), and the value of being an intelligent person must be going way down!
I wouldn't generalize too much from a few students
Gregory B. Sadler
You're absolutely right! Although I was being mostly sarcastic with that part of the comment:) I've got to remind myself that text on a screen doesn't convey sarcasm very well, if at all.
I know there are many smart, interested college students who would continue school or some form of education, just for the sake of knowing. And who knows if interest in having knowledge for non monetary reasons has gone down, up , or stayed stagnant. That would be an interesting topic to look into! I think I may do that:)
Wasnt his friend. In the cell with him and hemlock was the poison