PHI 1104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Socratic Questioning, Crass, A Priori And A Posteriori
1 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
We are reading only part of the dialogue. Socrates is conversing about virtue with meno, a crass young man who loves money and reputation. Meno has made many fine speeches about virtue in the past. The conversation turns to the question of how, in general, do we learn. Socrates launches into his usual relentless questioning. Meno"s pretensions to knowledge are exposed come near him. Meno says that socrates is like the torpedo fish who torpifies those who. He accuses socrates of questioning people only to tie them up in knots, to silence them, to make the worse appear the better case. He is accusing socrates of being a sophist. Meno wonders how one can inquire into that which one does not already know. The problem: you do not know something, you ask a question impossible. This is like looking for someone you do not know in an airport. According to meno, it seems impossible to learn anything, learning is.
