Platos Meno Essay -- essays research papers

The dialogue opens up with Meno asking what equity is and whether it could be taught. Socrates asks Meno for a general definition of sexual abstention, since as Socrates points out, we can non figure out if truth can be taught if we do not have a classify idea what it is. Socrates is looking for a general, or formal definition of sexual abstention, not just examples or instances of it. Socrates wants to cut what all the examples of meritoriousness have in common. He wants to know the essence of virtue. Meno initially offers a list of virtues, exactly Socrates rejects this as a sufficient account. Meno also states that there are unlike virtues for everyone. The virtue of a man is to order a state and the virtue of a woman is to order a household. I believe that virtue can be found in everything, smashing, bad, or ugly. Meno makes an interesting point. How volition one know when they find virtue if they do not know virtue? The Socratic paradox is Socrates visible claim that virtue is a kind of knowledge, and vice a kind of ignorance. It is a paradox because hoi polloi usually think a person can know the good and still fail to do it. That is, people usually think that virtue is more than a matter of knowing, it is also a matter of willing. Socrates says that if virtue were knowledge, then anybody who really knew the good would automatically be good. Indeed if Socrates is near that virtue is knowledge, it would be impossible to know the good and not to be good. For example, Christians know s...