Menos Paradox :: essays research papers

What is Menos Paradox? First, who is Meno? The Meno is one of the earlier Platonic writings, which include Socrates and which look to try to define an ethic, in this case sexual morality. Meno himself is on the face of it a valet de chambre who is greedy for wealth, greedy for power, ambitious, and a back-stabber who tries to play everything to his accept advantage. Meno starts by questioning Socrates. Can virtue be taught? Socrates says to Meno, well, what makes a virtue a virtue. Meno comes to the borrowed point that virtue is to find joy in pleasing things and have power. Socrates retorts by saying do you think custody desire just good things? While apologiseing themselves they came upon what becomes Menos Paradox. Is virtue something larn and can we learn things without already knowing them?Socrates defends the philosophy that if a man can recall one fact only, as long as he does not get tired of probing for it, indeed searching and learning are as a whole, a recollect ion. Meno does not get word this argument. Socrates uses a discussion with a Greek boy you explain this to Meno. Do you know that I square examine is like this, Socrates asks. I do the boy replies. He past asks, Is a square is a quartet sided figure with equal sides? Yes, he replies. Socrates questions the size, the lines and comes to asking that if the figure is two feet this port and one foot that way whence the line would really be two feet. The boy agrees. Now if its also two feet the other way, then it would be four feet total. The boy agrees. Then he adds a figure the same size, this would make it eight feet. Boy agrees. He asks the boy to explain how long each side of the wall is. He responds with twice the length. Socrates then tells Meno that he didnt give instruction anything just questioned until the boy reached the answer he wanted. This brought them back to virtue. It is a type of knowledge clearly able to be taught says Menos. They both question virtue. Does is make us good? Yes. Beneficial? Yes. It comes from the soul, Socrates states. He doubts that virtue is knowledge, therefore unteachable and coming from within. To really say who is virtuous, and if it cannot be taught, then there cant be teachers because who is virtuous enough to teach it?