Essay Plan

Q: What is the significance of the slave boy experiment?

 Intro
 Significance of the experiment’s place in the dialogue.
o Shortly after ‘Meno’s paradox’
 Significance of it involving a slave boy and not a well educated person.
o Anyone can recollect
o Everyone’s souls are the same
 Significance of the experiment involving a mathematical fact.
o Less arguable than an empirical fact
o Does it limit the conclusion?
 It shows how knowledge is obtained: through a rational process and recollection.
o Slave answers questions. Told very little
 Is Socrates being too leading?
o Is the slave just following a train of thought?
 Is the practical element of Socrates drawing in the sand significant?
o Imperfect representation
o Relates to the Forms?
 The significance Plato puts on it in a later dialogue. Does this make Plato’s view circular?
o Phaedo – immortality of the soul
o Circular argument?
 What does the experiment not tell us about the nature of the soul?
o Relies on assumptions
 Possibilities of the soul learning everything before our physical birth.
o Is it feasible?
 Can you recollect facts about the future?
o How would this work?
 The experiment offers a good definition of knowledge.
o Justified true belief.
 Conclusion

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What is the significance of the slave boy experiment?

Many commentators believe that Meno is one of the first dialogues to have a focus on the
beliefs of Plato, rather than of the historical Socrates. It is mainly concerned with whether virtue
can be taught, an issue with which the character Meno begins the dialogue. At an important
moment in the dialogue, Socrates is said to perform an experiment on a slave boy to show that
what we call acquiring knowledge is actually an act of recollection. By guiding him through a
relatively simple geometrical method, one is supposed to think that Socrates is helping the boy to
remember what the soul has already learnt. Some have held that this incident is of great
importance. The experiment relates to many different Platonic themes and it can be argued that
some of Plato’s ideas are based on experiments of this sort. On the other hand, some
commentators have questioned the assumptions it relies upon and question the unsupported
claims made by Plato through the voice of Socrates. Others have questioned whether Socrates’
guiding is too detailed for it to show the slave actually remembering something. However, it may
be the case that the significance of the experiment is not attached to any major Platonic idea, it
may be defining what knowledge really is. It is worth examining this experiment to see what
significance it really holds.
Some significance for the slave boy experiment can be understood simply by its place in
the dialogue. In the preceding lines, Meno reaches a state of aporia while trying to find out what
virtue is. This struggle for knowledge causes Meno to describe a paradox which questions the
very nature of learning, knowing and teaching. We cannot learn something we already know, so
we when we learn, we must learn something we do not already know. However, when trying to
learn something you previous did not know, ‘even if you come right up against it, how will you
know that what you have found is the thing you didn’t know?’ (80d1-4). In reply, Socrates
questions whether we actually acquire knowledge from total ignorance as the paradox implies.
Instead, he describes knowledge as an act of your soul recollecting something it already knows.
The experiment with the slave boy should be seen as an example of such recollection. The fact
that it occurs so swiftly after the eristic paradox iterated by Meno suggests some of its
significance lies in its ability to persuade others that knowledge is possible.
In order to show that knowledge is recollection, Socrates attempts to teach a slave boy a
relatively simple mathematical truth. From this brief description alone, one can highlight a
couple more characteristics of the passage that give it some added importance. Firstly, Plato
describes Socrates using a slave boy to show his point and not someone who may be more
educated or competent at mathematics. One may think Socrates could quite easily have made his
point by helping Meno himself recall something he previously did not know. This would not
have shown that anyone or any soul has the ability to remember something it already knew. It
could have restricted the conclusion to say that only people who are learned have the ability to
recollect. As it stands, the experiment tries to show that even uneducated people learn things in
this way.
Secondly, the experiment does not involve teaching a standard fact about a given
experience; the slave is shown a mathematical proof. Whether Plato thought mathematical truths
were Forms themselves is an issue of debate but commentators tend to agree that mathematical
truths are recollected. A mathematical example, as opposed to an empirical one, may have been
chosen because it is not refutable. It would seem ludicrous to claim that a simple rule such as the
one in the experiment is incorrect, whereas many empirical statements could be denied. If
Socrates had the slave recollect an empirical fact, Meno or any other critic may have denied that

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as a fact and thus denied the whole experiment. As it stands, one may be able to question the
scope of the experiment to only mathematical truths. If the experiment does indeed show that we
come to know things through recollection, the act of recollection may be confined to only the
mathematical or perhaps to facts which we may now call a priori. To say that recollection applies
to beliefs about the state of the world may be to take a dangerous step of inference.
Plato’s intention is to show that learning is recollecting something which the soul has
already learnt. This implies that teaching is prompting somebody to remember. This is shown in
the slave boy experiment. In order to show that learning is akin to remembering, Socratic
questioning is undertaken. By constantly asking the boy questions, one may get the impression
that the boy is remembering. Socrates may have not asked the boy any questions and told him the
answer straight away. However, this would suggest the boy needed some new information to
understand the mathematical problem. As it is, the boy manages to answer Socrates’ questions, if
not immediately then via some extra questions, and because he can answer them, it suggests he
has already attained the sufficient amount of knowledge to understand the final answer.
Knowledge of the Forms and mathematical truths is supposed to come from the intellect and this
is evident in Socrates’ guiding of the slave. He directs the boy step-by-step through the proof and
helps him come to an answer. This is an example of how someone can come to recollect
something their soul already knows.
One possible criticism of the experiment is that Socrates is being too leading in his
guidance. This may follow to the conclusion that the slave is not recollecting something he
already knows, but he is coming across something he is completely unfamiliar with. A critic of
Plato could claim that Socrates’ questions do not show the slave already has sufficient
knowledge to understand the solution. Instead, they may point out that the slave is constantly
answering with a simple, “Yes,” or, “Certainly.” These are the types of words one says when
they wish to show they are following a particular train of thought. At no stage does the slave
claim he remembers the procedure. After the solution is found, Socrates says that the boy does
not possess knowledge just yet, but the process needs to be repeated in order for his true belief to
become knowledge. It seems awfully inconsistent to say the slave needs more justification for his
belief if he is said to have remembered a truth which his soul already knows. It is difficult to
determine whether Socrates is being too leading. If the slave is learning something without the
act of recollection, the experiment loses a large amount of its significance. It may be asked
whether this does contradict the issues put forward by Meno’s paradox (if it is indeed a paradox)
if this is the case.
The experiment may reflect an important aspect of Plato’s Theory of Forms simply in
virtue of its practical element. When describing the mathematical problem to the slave boy,
Socrates is drawing in the sand. It is highly unlikely that Socrates managed to draw a perfect
square with exactly straight lines and precise right angles, so the images should be seen as
representations of the perfect geometrical images. In a similar respect, objects in the physical
world represent the Forms. Plato may have preferred to separate mathematical truths and Forms
of physical objects however they are both represented in the physical world imperfectly. Though
only of a symbolic importance, its significance lies in the fact that it is an example that highlights
how the world of Forms relates to the physical world.
The experiment, or at least experiments of its kind, seems to be referred back to in one of
the slightly later Platonic dialogues, Phaedo. When Simmias asks Cebes for a proof that the soul
is immortal, Cebes recalls an ‘excellent argument… namely when men are interrogated in the
right manner, they always give the right answer of their own accord and they could not do this if

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they did not possess the knowledge and the right explanation inside them (Plato, Phaedo, 73a).’
He shortly after says good cases of this phenomenon are ones which involve diagrams. As Plato
seems to record the experiment as a good proof for the theory of the immortality of the soul at
this later stage, it may be said that it was important to his ideas for some period of time. If Plato
did indeed see this type of experiment as proof for the immortality of the soul, he could be
accused of holding a circular argument. From the Phaedo, it is supposed to support the belief that
the soul is immortal but in the Meno, the recollection is explained by the fact that the soul is
immortal and has already learnt about the Forms. The ideas do not contradict each other but it
seems belief in one is supported by the other and vice versa. Plato would need proof from
elsewhere if he is to convince people that both statements are true.
The incident with the slave boy may be part of the proof that recollection is taking place
when we learn something but Plato still tends to rely on other unsupported beliefs in order to
hold this view. For example, the soul may be said to know everything after our birth but in no
way does the experiment show that the soul is eternal or immortal. It is not necessary for
recollection to take place but immortality of the soul seems to be assumed.
In a similar respect, Plato assumes the soul has learnt everything before it was incarnate
in us. Exactly how the soul comes to know things is described in 81c in terms of seeing things.
This could be metaphorical, in which case the explanation is still vague and the claim
unsupported. However, if this statement is not metaphorical and the soul actually does have to
see things to learn them for the first time, this implies the soul has to be embodied at the time it
first sees something. If it is the case that the soul learns things for the first time as it is incarnate,
could it be the case that the soul of the slave boy is learning this geometrical proof for the first
time, in which case he is not recollecting anything, but learning it for the first time. The whole
use of the proof would be put into question if this belief was held. The experiment gives no
explanation as to how the soul has come to learn things.
One may also want to question how much the soul can know. If it has learnt things about
the physical world which will happen in the future, surely I could in theory recollect facts about
the future, before my body experiences that time for itself. This relies in the soul being eternal.
For example, Socrates could, in theory, have had knowledge of a light bulb because there would
be an eternal Form of a light bulb and his soul would have had knowledge of all the Forms. A
Platonist may reply that you need to experience something within the physical world in order to
remember the Form. A particular experience of a light bulb will jog your memory of the Form
however, as Socrates could never have experienced a light bulb, this explains why he would
never have knowledge or an understanding of one. This response puts into the question of
possibility of invention and original ideas. In addition, if this position is held, it would have to
battle against the idea that we are a ‘blank slate’ when we are born and experiences we have
form our ideas about the world. This conflict can spill into an argument between idealism and
realism. Overall, innate knowledge is a controversial position to hold and an argument assuming
it will come across a lot of attack.
Even if the experiment does not support the idea of the Forms and the immortality of the
soul, it may be significant in that it leads the way to a popular definition of knowledge. After
Socrates explains the mathematical problem to the slave boy, he claims he has not acquired
epistēmē (knowledge), he has acquired alethe doxa (true belief). The boy can be said to truly
know the mathematical truth once it has been repeated and sees it works for different sized
squares etc. This action of repetition is needed so the boy’s beliefs can be sufficiently justified.
Combining the two ideas, knowledge can be expressed as justified true belief. This is a widely

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accepted definition of the term and an explanation of the definition can be seen from this
incident.
Spurred from a question about the teachability of virtue, the Meno covers how knowledge
in general is obtained. Socrates tries to show, using the slave boy experiment, that learning is
simply recollecting truths the immortal soul already knows. There are questions over whether the
incident shows what Socrates intends it to show and some of the Platonic ideas which come up
during the experiment are unsupported. However, the experiment does highlight key Platonic
ideas and though it is far from proving those beliefs, it does offer a widely accepted definition of
knowledge.

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Bibliography

Plato, Meno, (Penguin Classics)

Plato, Phaedo (Penguin Classics)