Seminar, Week 2 - Meno
Workshop on the Meno: Can anything be taught? What is learning?
A revision by Thad Curtz
and Sherry Walton of Don Finkel's Meno Workshop
Divide up into groups of four. Select one member of your group to be a scribe and another member to be a timekeeper. Each question below should be discussed as a group; the group should try to agree on an answer to each in the time allotted, and the scribe should write it down for possible later report. The timekeeper's job is to keep an eye on the time and keep the group from getting behind in the sequence (please work through the steps sequentially). Scribes and timekeepers also participate fully in the discussion. In addition, everyone should take notes for their own use.
PLEASE DO NOT WRITE
ON THIS SHEET!!. You will be returning it to your seminar
leader to be used again. A copy of this workshop is linked on the
handouts page.
Take turns and read the
first page and half of the text out-loud, up to the place (71e) where Meno
defines virtue.Then discuss each of the following questions. Remember,
your scribe will write down the conclusions the group arrives at.
a. What has happened? How has Socrates responded to Meno's straightforward request?
b. Find and describe three specific "ploys" that Socrates uses in order to turn the conversation in a direction (or toward a purpose) different from the one Meno had in mind.
c. What is the importance
of the line, "Let us leave Gorgias out of it, since he is not here"? Discuss
the implications of this statement, and summarize them in writing.
2 . (10 min.)
Once Meno agrees to try to define virtue, he gives Socrates a list of virtues
(71e). This list is basically a list of cultural values; it represents
the common sense of the culture.
a. Why is Socrates not satisfied with a list (any list) for an answer?
b. How does the image of the swarm of bees (72b) help Socrates get his objection across to Meno?
c. Aside from the logical point Socrates is making, what else is suggested by a swarm of bees? What are the connotations (suggestive associations) of this image and what might they suggest to an astute listener?
d. How about the responses
all of you wrote and shared to, "Learning is . . . ." Would Socrates
be equally dissatisfied with your collective responses as he was with Meno's
list? Do his logical objection and whatever you think the other objections
implied by the image of the swarm of bees may be, apply to your collective
lists as well as to Meno's?
3. (5 min.)
After
Meno persists in not grasping the distinction between "a virtue" and "virtue,"
Socrates shifts to the example of shape to try to make the issue more concrete.
On p. 7 he asks Meno the same question about shape that he had previously
asked about virtue. Meno then employs a typical student strategy. He tries
to get the teacher to answer his own question ("No, Socrates, but you tell
me").
a. How does Socrates respond to this request?
b. Why do you think Socrates
agrees to define shape and color, rather than pressing Meno to do the hard
work?
4. (20 min.) Socrates gets Meno to stick to his end of the deal and define virtue. Meno gives a poet's answer (77b) and Socrates proceeds to show him in a step by step fashion the illogical consequences of his definition. He ends this sequence with a typical Socratic request: "Answer me again then from the beginning: What do you and your friend say that virtue is?"(p. 12) This work is getting too hard for Meno and he wants to quit. First he compares Socrates to a sting ray (a "torpedo fish") and then he presents as an objection to the inquiry, or to any inquiry, a debater's paradox (80d): "How will you look for it Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is?" This is a crucial point in the dialogue, since Meno wants to quit, and, from Socrates' point of view, they are still at the beginning.
Socrates responds in
two ways:
4a. The first is that
he tells Meno a myth ("I have heard wise men and women talk about divine
matters ..." p. 13)
i) What is the myth?
ii) What is the point
of the myth?
iii) Find and cite the
exact sentences of Socrates that explain the point of the myth and his
reason for "trusting" that it is true.
4b. The second response
Socrates gives is to arrange a dramatic enactment of the myth of recollection.
This is the famous episode where Socrates supposedly elicits mathematical
knowledge from the slave boy. Remembering where and why this incident occurs
in the conversation with Meno, what would you say is the point of this
demonstration? What does Socrates accomplish by going through this dramatic
enactment of the myth of recollection?
5. (5 min.)
On
p. 20 (86d) Meno agrees to go on, but employs another student tactic to
make his work easier: He suggests substituting a different question for
the one under consideration, one that is likely to be easier. He wishes
to pursue questions in the wrong order, trying to determine whether virtue
can be taught even before he knows what virtue is. What is Socrates response
to this request? Does this surprise you? Why do you suppose Socrates proceeds
as he does at this moment?
6. (10 min.)
Finally,
on p. 22, Meno and Socrates seem to have gotten somewhere. Reasoning "from
a hypothesis," they have arrived together at the conclusion which Meno
states: "Necessarily, as I now think, Socrates, and clearly, on your hypothesis,
if virtue is knowledge, it can be taught." (89c)
a. What is Socrates'
immediate response to this happy moment?
b. Why does he take the
hard-won conclusion that Meno states away from him?
c. Why do you think he
went through the difficult argument to establish the conclusion Meno states
above, when he could have, from the beginning, brought out the easy argument
that good men' s obvious inability to make their sons good shows that virtue
is not teachable, hence not knowledge?
2. What kind of a teacher
is Socrates? Write a brief summarizing description.
3.What is the difference
between “true opinion” and knowledge?Why does the distinction matter?
4. List 7 specific strategies
Socrates uses to try to get Meno to pursue a genuine intellectual inquiry.
(Do this by going back to the moments we have examined, and naming or describing
each specific " ploy," "move" or "strategy" Socrates employs.)
5. Get out your notes
from your small group conversations last Thursday about what learning is.
There seem to be a large number of characteristics on this list that Socrates
does not seem to acknowledge. Indeed, you might well say that he
dedicates himself to proceeding in direct opposition to a good many of
them. Yet not only Plato and the other students who encountered him personally,
but a steady stream of readers in the 2,500 years since his death have
believed him to be a powerful and remarkable teacher... How do you explain
this apparent difficulty? Are your collective statements about learning,
knowledge? True belief? A swarm of bees?
6. Compare Socrates'
way of acting with Meno (summarized in 2. and 3.) with the way he acts
with the slave boy. Do you think his inquiry with the slave boy makes a
good parallel with his inquiry with Meno?
7. Socrates' mode is
sometimes considered a kind of seduction. Do you think the term "seduction"
fits the process you have examined here or not? Explain.
8. What, if anything,
did Meno learn from his conversation with Socrates?
9. Did Meno learn anything
about virtue from the conversation?
10. Was there anything
about virtue to be learned from the conversation as we find it in the text?
11. Do you think one
can learn to be good? Do you think one can learn how to be a good learner
or a good teacher? Do you think someone can teach someone else to be a
good learner or teacher?
12. Could anyone who
behaved as Socrates does in this dialogue help you learn to be good, or
to be a good teacher? Are you “numb” after this discussion?
Are you perplexed? Do you think this will help you learn?