Meno Essay -- essays research papers

There is not a abundant deal of context that is crucial to understanding the demand themes of the Meno, largely because the dialogue sits nearly at the beginning of western philosophy. Socrates and Plato atomic number 18 working not so much in the context of former philosophies as in the context of the lack of them. Further, this is very probably wiz of Platos earliest surviving dialogues, set in about 402 BCE (by extension, we might take over that it represents Socrates at a relatively early stage in his induce thought). Nonetheless, in order to understand the aims and achievements of the dialogue, it helps to keep in mind al about details about this lack of previous philosophies.Since neither virtue nor some(prenominal) other concept has yet been defined in the way to which we are now accustomed, Socrates has to show that defining these things at all is a beloved idea. In this task, his primary foe is Greek cultural custom and the policy-making aristocracy that most st rongly embodies that custom. Meno, a prominent Thessalian who is visiting Athens, is a member of this class. Menos semi-foreign status aids Socrates (and Plato) in the dialogue, allowing for eyewitness accounts that Socrates himself could not give. Thus, Meno is subject to say with authority that the Thessalians do not select anyone who can understandably teach virtue, while Socrates (and Anytus, a prominent Athenian statesman) can vouch for the sorry state of affairs in Athens.Meno is also a accessible interlocutor for this dialogue because he is a follower of Gorgias, one of the most reputable of the Sophist teachers, and knows the Thessalian Sophist community to some extent. He therefrom serves as a Sophist foil for Socrates logical points. This is not sort of a fair fight, of course, since Plato can put whatever words he wants in Menos mouth, and because Meno is not himself an accomplished Sophist (like Gorgias, who is the central figure in a much lengthier Platonic dialog ue).Nonetheless, Socrates sets Meno up early on as a naive believer in the kind of pompous, elaborately rhetorical, nevertheless largely vacuous Sophist method of philosophy that had come to protrusion some forty or fifty years earlier. Meno readily admits to beingness an enthusiastic follower of Gorgias and implicitly agrees to Socrates characterization of Sophist arguments as bold, grand, and presumptuous. In this sense, Meno is something of a straw man set up by Plato to highl... ...ue as straight knowledge or as a kind of sibylline wisdom revealed to us by the gods "without understanding." It is seen as likely that most pious men are so by holding "right flavors" rather than true knowledge. Right opinions lead us to the same ends as knowledge, provided do not stay with us because they are not " fastened down" by an account of why they are right. Thus, we can alone depend on semi-divine inspiration to keep us focused on right opinions rather than maltreat ones.This dilemma brings us back to Socrates (and Platos) maestro purpose--the mode of dialogic analysis Socrates pursues with Meno is meant first of all to show up wrong opinions. Secondly, it is meant to clear the ground for an inversion of the whole sequence of right opinion and truth. If the requirements for a definition of virtue can be filled, we would no thirster need to test out opinions blindly (as is done throughout the Meno). Rather, we would have an account of virtue first--an idea of virtue that is "tied down"--and could pose the details from there. The Meno only pursues the first part of this project, but it lays a great deal of groundwork for the second.