Plato's MenoGiven its brevity, Plato's Meno covers an astonishingly wide array of topics: politics, education, virtue, definition, philosophical method, mathematics, the nature and acquisition of knowledge and immortality. Its treatment of these, though profound, is tantalisingly short, leaving the reader with many unresolved questions. This book confronts the dialogue's many enigmas and attempts to solve them in a way that is both lucid and sympathetic to Plato's philosophy. Reading the dialogue as a whole, it explains how different arguments are related to one another and how the interplay between characters is connected to the philosophical content of the work. In a new departure, this book's exploration focuses primarily on the content and coherence of the dialogue in its own right and not merely in the context of other dialogues, making it required reading for all students of Plato, be they from the world of classics or philosophy. |
Contents
| 6 | |
part ii | 61 |
86b6c2 | 121 |
86c87c | 129 |
87c89c | 145 |
89e96d | 161 |
96d100b | 176 |
the evidence of the Gorgias | 194 |
Menos progress | 209 |
Appendices | 219 |
| 227 | |
| 235 | |
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Common terms and phrases
acquisition answer Anytus argue argument Aristotle asks Athenians beneficial benefit bi-conditional Bluck boy’s Callicles challenge claim concerned conclusion context contrast Cratylus desire dialectical requirement dialogue discussion distinction between knowledge divine dispensation elenchus episode epistemological eristic dilemma Euthydemus Euthyphro explain explicit knowledge explicitly foreknowledge principle form of knowledge geometry give Gorgias historical Socrates important inquiry interlocutor interpretation justice knowledge and true latent knowledge learning maieutic mathematics mean Meno Meno’s merely method of hypothesis moral moral psychology Myles Burnyeat nature of virtue object ofthe ofvirtue one’s passage Pericles Phaedo Phaedrus philosophical Plato position possibility priority of definition proposition Protagoras qualities question reference Republic sc¦ma schema sense slave boy slave-boy demonstration Socrates talks someone sophists soul stingray suggests surface teachers teaching Teiresias Themistocles theory of recollection thesis things true belief understanding unitarian assumption virtue is knowledge virtue is teachable virtuous Vlastos