Meno,

the

Slave

Boy

and

the

Elenchos

HUGH H. BENSON

There is a view in Platonic scholarship according to which Socrates is a sort of skeptic, whose skepticism is thought of as a first step toward ridding oneself of a false conceit of knowledge, so that genuine knowledge might, somehow, be put in its place. Plato ... went beyond Socrates in 1 developing a view about how such knowledge might be gained.' I believe that this view is essentially correct. It has, however, been attacked on at least two fronts. First, a number of scholars have denied the distinction in the dialogues between Socrates and Plato upon which this view depends.2 They argue that the dialogues present the same view throughout.3 The differences from one dialogue to another are a matter of empha-

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sis, not change. More recently, the view has come under attack from a new quarter. These new critics maintain the distinction between Socrates and Plato that the earlier critics had denied. They, however, deny that the 'Socrates' of this distinction is merely a destructive critic without a substantive view about how genuine knowledge might be put in the place of the eliminated false conceit. For, according to the new critics, Socrates' understood his elenchos not simply as a method of eliminating this conceit, but also as a method for acquiring genuine knowledge to replace it. Thus, Plato does not go beyond Socrates in the sense of providing a substantive view about how knowledge is to be acquired, which Socrates previously failed to have. Rather, he goes beyond Socrates only in the sense of substituting one substantive view about how knowledge is to be acquired with another.5 5 In the present essay I will argue that the Meno provides a rather strong prima facie case against the new critics.6 A careful examination of the structure of the Meno suggests that Plato takes himself to be going beyond the Socratic method, not replacing or revising it.' The theory of recollection (TR), first introduced in the Meno, is presented as a substantive view about how knowledge is to be acquired once the Socratic elenchos has achieved its aim8 i.e., once it has eliminated the interlocutor's false conceit. First, I will show that (a) the beginning of the slave-boy conversation, 82b-84a, does no more than eliminate the slave-boy's false conceit of

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knowledge, (b) this part of the slave-boy conversation precisely parallels with Meno leading up to his famous paradox, the main conversation the second part of the slave-boy conversation, and it is not until 71a-79e, (c) that the substantive view of knowledge acquisition, the TR, is 84c-85b, 9 illustrated.? Second, I will argue that there is a very close resemblance between the first part of the conversation with Meno and the conversations with the interlocutors of the earlier dialogues: both the earlier conversations and the first part of the conversation with Meno follow the same general steps in order to achieve the same result. The repetition of the pattern of the early dialogues found in this part of the Meno (71a-79e) provides excellent grounds for the view that Plato understands the substantive theory of knowledge acquisition which he introduces in the Meno as a progression beyond the conversations of the earlier dialogues, not as a substitute for or revision of those conversations. Finally, I will respond to the interpretations of two of the most influential new critics, Terence Irwin and Gregory Vlastos. For both Irwin and Vlastos, by the time of the Meno Plato's attitude toward the elenchos has undergone revision. In the case of Irwin, Plato no longer take the elenchos to be unable to yield moral knowledge. In the case of Vlastos, Plato no longer takes the elenchos to be 'the final arbiter of moral truth. "0 My will be necessarily sketchy. Complete responses to these interpretations would a detailed analysis of the early dialogues inapproresponses require an of this sort. 11 I intend only to raise enough questions for essay priate about these interpretations to enable the force of the Meno's innovation to be felt. Plato's attitude toward the elenchos in the Meno has not changed. Rather, the Meno suggests that Plato is simply advancing beyond it. He is advancing beyond the Socratic/elenctic goal of eliminating false conceit to provide for the first time a substantive view about how knowledge might then be acquired. The Conversation with the Slave-Boy and the Conversation with Meno.

Outline of the Slave-Boy Conversation. At 80d5 the conversation with Meno concerning the nature of virtue has temporarily12 come to an end. Meno has

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himself as numbed in both his mind and tongue as if by a sting-ray, yet, Socrates enjoins Meno to continue the search into the nature of virtue. This elicits Meno's paradox: 13 (Tl) M: In what way, Socrates, will you search for that thing which you do not know at all what it is? What sort of thing, of those things you do not know will you set up as the object of your search? Or even if you should happen upon it, how will you know that this is what you didn't know? S: I know what you mean, Meno. Do you know how contentious an argument you are introducing, that it is possible for a person to search for neither what he knows nor what he does not know? For, he could not search for what he knows - for he knows it and there is no need to search for it - nor could he search for what he does not know - for he does not know what to search for. . (80d5-e5)"

described

This brings the conversation with Meno concerning the nature of virtue to a grinding halt. To respond to Meno's paradox Socrates introduces for the first time in the dialogues the theory of recollection. And it is in order to illustrate this theory to Meno that Socrates engages in the slave-boy conversation. The conversation can be seen to fall into four main stages each followed by 'a commentary to explain what Socrates is doing.'15 In the first stage (82b4-e4), Socrates asks and explains the question which will occupy the rest of the conversation: (T2) Try to say to me what the length of each side of this figure will be. For the length of the side of this one is two feet; what is the length of the side of that double one? (82d8-e2) answers:

And the slave-boy confidently (T3)

It is clear, Socrates, that the length will be double. (82e2-3)

Socrates notes in the commentary which follows this stage that the slaveboy at this point thinks that he knows the answer:

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(T4) And now [the slave boy] thinks he knows what sort of line it is from which the eight-foot square will come to be. (82e5-6) In the second stage (82e14-84a2), Socrates refutes the slave-boy's initial answers that the line will be four feet long and that it will be three-feet long by eliciting from him propositions incompatible with those answers. 16 Upon being asked to try again, the slave-boy responds: (T5) But, by Zeus, Socrates, I do not know. (84al-2)

The false conceit which had been displayed in the previous stage has now been eliminated. This is followed by a rather extensive commentary in which Socrates explains the achievement of this stage (84a2-d2). In the third stage (84d3-85b7), Socrates leads the slave-boy from his recognition of ignorance to the true belief that the length of the side of the double square is the length of the diagonal of the original square. The fourth stage is not, properly speaking, a part of the slave-boy conversation. Socrates describes this stage (85c10-d1), but does not illustrate it. It is the stage in which the slave-boy would be led from true belief to knowledge 'concerning these things'. The Achievement of the Second Stage. Let us now look more closely at what Plato takes the slave-boy conversation to illustrate. First, in the comPlato is clear about what he thinks has the second mentary following stage the elimination of the been achieved up to this point in the conversation false conceit of slave-boy's knowledge: (T6) Do you recognize, Meno, what stage he has reached in the process of recollection? At first he did not know what the length of the side of the eight-foot square was, just as he does not know now, but then he thought he knew what it was, and answered confidently as knowing and did not think he was at a loss. But now he thinks that he is at a loss and thinks that he does not know, just as in fact he does not. (84a3-bl)

There is no indication anywhere in the entire aside to Meno that Plato thinks that the slave-boy now has any more information concerning the answer to the question of (T2), whether in the form of true belief or

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knowledge, than he had when the conversation began. 17 In that sense, as far as Plato is concerned, this stage has been wholly negative. The slave-boy is no closer to the correct answer than he was at the beginning. Nevertheless, there is another sense in which the results of this stage have been far from wholly negative: (T7) For now [the slave-boy] will gladly search for [the length of the side], as one not knowing, whereas formerly he thought that he could speak well and easily before many people and often concerning the double square that it must have a side double in length... Do you think that formerly he would have tried to search for or learn this thing that he thought he knew though he didn't, until realizing that he didn't know, he was reduced to being at a loss, and felt the need to know. (84bl0-c6)

Thus, as Plato sees the achievement of this stage of the slave-boy conversation, it is purely destructive in eliminating the slave-boy's false conceit of knowledge, and yet is immensely important in the achievement of more positive results. This will strike most commentators as too strong. While most would agree that Plato sees the achievement of the second stage to be the elimination of the slave-boy's false conceit and that this is indeed not simply a negative result, but an important first step in more positive results, few would agree that the slave-boy is no closer to the correct answer than he was at the beginning. The slave-boy is closer to the correct answer by the end of the second stage, it will be thought, at least in the sense of now knowing some of the lengths the line is Thus, it is too strong to say that as far as Plato is concerned the slave-boy has no more knowledge concerning the answer to the question of (T2) at the end of the second stage than he had when the conversation began. He now knows, and didn't earlier, that the answers four-feet and three-feet are false. Such a view is eminently reasonable, but what is the evidence for it? Socrates nowhere says that the slave-boy now recognizes that his answers

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are false, nor even does he say that they are false. All that he says is that the slave-boy now no longer thinks that he knows. But if there is any dialogue in which we ought to recognize that showing that one does not know does not require showing falsehood it is the Meno, the dialogue in which the distinction between knowledge and true belief is most explicitly and forcefully drawn. As far as I can tell the evidence that Plato takes the result of the second stage to be the slave-boy's recognition that his answers are false is that (1) the answers are false, and (2) the answer that the slave-boy eventually comes up with at the end of the third stage is true and Socrates remarks that it is. But these two features of the conversation can and should be explained otherwise. Recall that the slave-boy conversation is offered as an illustration of the theory of recollection, which in turn is offered in response to Meno's paradox. Further, Plato makes clear that he takes the essential challenge of Meno's paradox to be to show that inquiry concerning what one fails to know is worthwhile: (T8) I would not confidently assert the other things said in defense of this account, but that we would be better and braver and less idle if we believe that one ought to inquire concerning those things he fails to know than if one believes it is not possible to discover nor necessary to inquire concerning those things one fails to know, I would fight for in both word and deed as far as I am able. (86b6-c2)

But this is not all there is to the challenge of the paradox. Plato does not merely need to show that inquiry concerning what one fails to know is possible, but that it is possible even when all the parties to the inquiry fail to know.19 Further, given the distinction between knowledge and true belief, Plato must show not merely that one can come to have true belief, when one fails to know, but that one can come to have knowledge. 20 Given these two

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features of the challenge there is a sense in which the best example to offer by way of meeting this challenge is one in which the interlocutor, initially ignorant, whether in the sense of having true or false belief, comes to have knowledge, when all of the parties to the inquiry are ignorant as well. But this is notoriously not the sort of example that Plato offers. The slave-boy is not displayed as coming to have knowledge of something he previously failed to know, but merely as coming to have true belief. It is simply asserted without argument that this true belief can be transformed into knowledge: additional (T9) If someone asked him these same questions again and in a variety of ways, you know that in the end he would know these things less accurately than no one. (85c10-dl)

Further, the example which Plato offers does not exhibit an inquiry in which all of the parties of the inquiry fail to have the relevant knowledge. Socrates and Meno know the answer to the question asked in (T2). It is only the slave-boy who does not. 21 That Plato does not offer an example which takes account of these two features of the challenge is I believe fairly easy to understand. To do so would require an interminably long digression. If Plato were to offer an example of someone coming to have knowledge of something he formerly failed to know, Plato would need to exhibit the slave-boy coming to have at least a true belief that was stable. But this would seem to require the exhibition of a number of unsuccessful attempts at persuading the slave-boy that the square on the diagonal is not double the area. Further, if Plato were to offer an example in which neither he nor Meno knew the correct answer, he would need to explain how Meno who does not know could recognize that the slave-boy does without begging the question of the paradox. Remember that at least part of the point of the slave-boy conversation is to convince Meno that inquiry concerning what one fails to know is worth-

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while and that part of the challenge of the paradox is to explain how one who does not know something can recognize it should he happen upon it. On the other hand, if Plato provides an example in which the slave-boy goes from beliefs concerning the answer to the question in (T2) that Meno can recognize are false to a belief that Meno can recognize is true, he would be able to satisfy some of the challenge of the paradox much more briefly. He would be able to satisfy Meno that some progress at least is possible. Thus, the facts that the slave-boy's initial answers are false and his last answer is true are readily explained by the fact that in offering such an example Plato can meet what he takes to be the essence of Meno's challenge in a relatively short space. Further, if it is primarily a consideration of expediency that leads Plato to offer an example that has these two features, we should expect Plato to do two things. First, he should downplay the fact that Meno, and especially Socrates, know the answer to the question at (T2). For, if Plato's example is to succeed in meeting the full-fledged challenge of the paradox, Meno's and Socrates' knowledge must be only an expedient. It must not play an essential role in the slave-boy's progress. Second, Plato should disassociate the achievement of the second stage from the progress of the third. For the slave-boy's initial answer could have been true and yet he might still have failed to have the knowledge that he thinks he has. Once again, that these answers are false is only an expedient. It should not play an essential role in the slave-boy's progress in the third stage. Both of these expectations, however, are fulfilled. First, it has been universally noted and frequently disparaged that Socrates repeatedly denies having taught the slave-boy anything: (T10) Do you see, Meno, that I am teaching him nothing, but am asking everything. (82e4-5 ; see also 82b6-7, 84c11-d2, and 85d3-4) These denials are necessary only because Socrates knows the answer to the question under consideration in the particular example. Plato, however, is concerned to make clear that the fact that Socrates does is playing no essential role in the slave-boy's progress. Second, that Plato is also concerned to disassociate the achievement of the second stage from the progress of the subsequent stages is testified to in two ways. First, all the commentators are agreed that Plato's language at the beginning of the third stage indicates that he has drawn a new diagram to which the questions of this stage are directed. This, however, indicates the independence of this part of the conversation from what has preceded.23 Socrates and the slave-

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boy begin again from scratch. Second, it has reasonably been asked why Plato should have chosen such a difficult problem to illustrate the TR, a problem which is arithmetically insoluble . 4 There are I believe a number of reasons why Plato might have chosen such an example, but if Plato were concerned to disassociate the fact that the slave-boy's initial answers were false from the progress of the third stage, he could have hardly chosen a better example. Clearly the information that the answers four feet and three feet are false will be of little help in arriving at the correct answer. Thus, I see little reason to attribute to Plato the view that the second stage of the slave-boy conversation achieves anything more than the elimination of the slave-boy's false conceit of knowledge. This is all that Socrates says that it achieves in the commentary in which he is explicitly discussing its achievement and the facts that the initial answers are false and the answer of the third stage is true is readily explicable by the context of the conversation. If Plato does believe that the interlocutor has more information concerning the answer to the governing question than he had at the beginning, the evidence for this must come from elsewhere. The Parallel with the First Part of the Conversation with Meno. The second thing that should be noticed about the slave-boy conversation is that Plato understands the first two stages of this conversation to be a precise parallel to the main conversation with Meno leading up to the introduction of the paradox. First, just as the slave-boy conversation begins by asking and explaining the question which will govern the rest of the conversation, so does the conversation with Meno. At 71d5 Socrates asks Meno (T11) What do you say virtue is? which receives rather extensive explanation at 72a6-73c5 and again at 74a7-76e9.25 Second, just as the slave-boy begins by confidently answering this question, so Meno's first answer is confident in the extreme:

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(T12) But, Socrates, it is not difficult to say ... so that one need not be at a loss to say what virtue is. (71e1-72a2)zb That Meno thinks that he knows the answer to the question in (Tll), just as the slave-boy thinks that he knows the answer to the question in (T2), is further suggested by the fact that Socrates encourages Meno to say what virtue is so that he might be proved wrong in claiming never to have met anyone who knows what virtue is Again, just as the slave-boy's initial answers to the question under consideration are all refuted by eliciting from him propositions incompatible with those answers, so Meno's initial answers to the 'What is virtue?' question are refuted in the same way. Finally, just as upon being encouraged to try again the slave-boy responds by admitting his ignorance, so Meno, upon being asked to try again at 79e5-6 responds by admitting that he has been numbed in both his mind and tongue (79e8-8Ob7). Meno's false conceit, like the slave-boy's, has been eliminated. 21 It would seem, then, that we have found a rather close parallel between the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the first part of the main conversation with Meno. Lest we miss this parallel, however, Plato makes it explicit in the commentary following the second stage. Socrates describes the slave-boy as having been numbed by a sting-ray at 84b6-7 and as having previously thought that he could 'speak well and easily and often before many people concerning the double square' at 84bll-c2, both clearly referring back to Meno's description of himself at 79e8-8Ob7. Again, at

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84a6-7 Socrates describes the slave-boy as having 'answered confidently and not having thought that he was at a loss' (tharraleos apekrinet... kai ouch' hegeito aporein), alluding to Meno's first answer to the 'What is virtue?' question at (T12). Thus, as Plato sees it, by the end of the second stage the slave-boy has reached the precise point Meno had reached prior to the introduction of his paradox. The Third Stage and the Theory of Recollection. Finally, we should notice that it is not until the third stage of the slave-boy conversation that the substantive theory of knowledge acquisition, the TR, gets illustrated. I take this to follow immediately from the parallel between the first two stages of this conversation and the first part of the main conversation with Meno that we have just examined. As we have seen, Meno's false conceit of knowledge has been eliminated at 79e-80b. Socrates, thereupon, invites him to join him in an inquiry into the nature of virtue. Meno questions the possiblity of such an inquiry given his and Socrates' ignorance, and Socrates responds with the TR. Meno asks Socrates to teach him this theory and Socrates does so by means of an example, the conversation with the slave-boy. If the entire TR were illustrated in the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation, there would be no need for Socrates to appeal to this example. He could simply point to the preceding conversation with Meno. Since, then, it is clear that at least part of the TR is illustrated in the third stage, it is equally clear that if any part of this conversation illustrates a substantive theory of knowledge acquisition, it is the third and fourth stages. For by the end of the second stage the slave-boy has progressed no further than Meno had when he raised the question of the possibility of further inquiry. Thus, if the slave-boy conversation is to represent the possibility of such further inquiry it will have to be in the part of that conversation not found in the preceding conversation with Meno. But, this, we have seen, is the third and fourth stages. Further, that Plato takes the substantive theory of knowledge acquisition that the TR represents to be illustrated in the third and fourth stages is also suggested by Socrates' pronouncements concerning it: (T13) If someone asked him these same questions again and in a variety of ways, you know that in the end he would know these things less accurately than no one ... Without anyone teaching him, but only asking him questions he will come to know, recovering himself this knowledge from himself ... And recovering oneself knowledge in oneself is recollection, isn't it? (85c10-d7) (T14) True beliefs, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and produce a lot of good things; but they do not want to remain long, but run away from the soul 139

of a person, so that they are not worth much, until someone ties them down by working out the reason. And this, my dear Meno, we agreed before was recollection (97e6-98a5) In both these passages the suggestion is that recollection occurs in the fourth stage, the stage in which the slave-boy goes from true belief to knowledge. But this stage is not exhibited by the slave-boy conversation; it is merely described. This leads Vlastos 1965 to write concerning these passages that [i]n neither of these passages does Socrates say that 'recollection' occurs only at the second stage [our fourth stage] of the inquiry. This would have been quite absurd in view of the fact that the first stage [our stages two and three] - the one the boy traverses in our text - had been laid on specially so Meno could see the boy recollecting. (p. 154) Vlastos fails to distinguish between our second and third Unfortunately, stages. It is not the second stage that 'has been laid on specially so Meno could see the boy recollecting,' but the third. The second stage has been 'laid on' to assure Meno that the slave-boy is precisely at the point that the possibility of further inquiry first became doubtful. Nor is this contradicted by the fact that in at least two places Plato suggests that it is the entire slave-boy conversation which constitutes recollection. Immediately following his commentary on the first stage Socrates says (T15) Now watch him recollecting in order, as he ought to recollect (82el2-13) and again, at the beginning of his commentary on the second stage stage,

(T16) Do you see, Meno, what point he has achieved on the road of recollection? (84a3-4) Plato does indeed take the entire process that the slave-boy goes through to be the recollective process, and yet as (T13) and (T14) make clear he is also inclined to vacillate. Sometimes he is willing to call the entire process recollection. Sometimes he reserves this title to the part of the process that the theory was introduced to explain. But that we have seen is the third and fourth stages of the process, the stages in which one progresses from the recognition of one's ignorance to knowledge.

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The First Part of the Meno Conversation Interlocutors of the Early Dialogues.

and the Conversations

with the

Thus far we have found that Plato understands the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the corresponding part of the main conversation with Meno to achieve no more than the elimination of the interlocutor's false conceit. In this sense, the first part of the recollective process as understood in the Meno is purely negative. Nevertheless, we have also found that in eliminating the interlocutor's false conceit, these two stages have had a positive consequence. They have prepared the interlocutor for the inquiry which the TR was introduced to make possible. The interlocutor is now willing, in a way he was not earlier, to join Socrates in the search for the knowledge he failed to have. In the present section I will argue that this primarily, although not wholly, negative part of the recollective process bears a very close resemblence to the conversations between Socrates and his interlocutors in the earlier dialogues. The following four characteristics have been found to be displayed in both the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the first part of the conversation with Meno: a. the establishment of the question which will govern the subsequent conversation ; b. the expression of the interlocutor's false conceit that he knows the answer; . c. the refutation of the interlocutor's answers by eliciting from him propositions incompatible with those answers; d. the aporetic conclusion culminating in the elimination of the interlocutor's false conceit. All four of these characteristics will also be found in the conversations with the interlocutors of the early dialogues. The Governing Question. In six (Chm., Euthp., H. Ma., La., Lys., and Rep. I) of the thirteen dialogues which precede the Meno, the question which governs the subsequent conversation is Socrates' well-known 'What is F-ness?' question.29 Thus, for example, in the Euthyprho, it is 'What is and in the Lysis, 'What is piety?', in the Charmides, 'What is temperance?', In in two of these we find fact, six, friendship?' explanations of these questions analogous to the explanation in the first part of the conversation with Meno. At Laches 192a-b, Socrates appeals to the question: What is quickness?' in order to explain his 'What is courage?' question; and at

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Hippias Major 287d Socrates distinguishes between the questions 'What is fine?' and 'What is the fine?' before Hippias offers his first answer that the fine is a fine maiden. Among those dialogues which do not explicitly raise the 'What is F-ness?' question, the establishment of a question to govern the subsequent conversation is either explicit or implicit in every case but one. In the Crito, Socrates spends considerable time establishing that the question that they need to ask is (T17) whether or not it is just for me to try to escape from here without the Athenians' discharging me? (48bll-cl) In the Hippias Minor, the question is 'Whether Achilles or Odysseus is better and in what way?' (364b4-5), which leads to the philosophically more interesting question 'Whether the one who voluntarily does evil is better than the one who involuntarily does evil?' (cf. 376b). The Gorgias, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and Ion form a quartet in which the governing question is 'What is the techne which the interlocutors of these dialogues possess?'30 The only one of these thirteen dialogues which does not establish a question to govern the subsequent conversation is the Apology. But the Apology, properly speaking, is not a dialogue. It is a speech, not a conversation, and so we should not be surprised if it is disanalogous to the other twelve early dialogues and the Meno. 31 The Interlocutor's false conceit that he False Conceit. The interlocutor's knows the answer to the governing question is explicit or implicit in every case but one. Consider, for example, Euthyphro's claim that he would be of no use and no different from the many if he did not know accurately piety and impiety at 4el-5a2 and Hippias' claim that his knowledge of the fine is a small thing and not very important at 286d7-e6. One can hardly miss in Meno's first answer at (T12) the verbal echo of Laches' first answer to the 'What is courage?' question:

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(T18) By Zeus, Socrates, it is not difficult to say; for if someone remaining in the ranks is willing to face the enemy and not flee, know well that he is courageous (190e4-6; emphasis added) Lysis, in the dialogue named for him, is the only clear exception. In his case, however, Socrates explains that the point of their conversation is to preclude his acquiring such conceit (206a and 210d). The Refutations of the Interlocutor's Answers. The method of refuting an interlocutor's answers by eliciting from him propositions incompatible with those answers is also evident in the early dialogues. As Vlastos has noted32 the elenchos of these dialogues is governed by the 'say what you believe' constraint. Each interlocutor must reply to Socrates' questions by saying only what he believes. Thus, for example, in the Gorgias (47le2-472c4), Socrates distinguishes between his elenchos and Polus' precisely on the grounds that Polus' elenchos requires no such constraint. Polus thinks that he has refuted Socrates' view that the just are better and the unjust worse by even if not Socrates - believes that establishing that nearly everyone Archelaus was happy but unjust. Unlike Polus, however, Socrates thinks that he has not refuted anyone unless the interlocutor himself believes the proposition which refutes the original answer. The Socratic elenchos has not succeeded, unless, as Socrates might put it, the interlocutor bears witness against himself. Indeed, even the new critics admit that Socrates' aim as he proceeds to elicit beliefs from his interlocutor is to display an incompatibility between these beliefs and the interlocutor's original answer. These critics claim, however, that Socrates takes and is justified in taking the demonstrated incompatibility as a constructive achievement. Explaining how this is possible is just 'the problem of the elenchos' which Vlastos is so concerned to solve.34 Thus, for example, at Laches 195a-199e Socrates refutes Nicias' answer that courage is knowledge of what is to be feared and not feared by eliciting from him beliefs incompatible with his answer, i.e. that if courage is knowledge of what is to be feared and not feared, then courage is the whole of virtue and that courage is a part of virtue. It is, however, not immediately clear how the revealed incompatibility in Nicias' views can be construed as a positive contribution to answering the 'What is courage?' question."

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The Aporetic Conclusion. Finally, that the conversations of these early dialogues conclude aporetically, at least on the surface, is doubted by no one.36 Consider, for example, the following passages from the conclusions of the Protagoras and Laches: (T19) 'How absurd you both are. You, Socrates, on the one hand, saying earlier that virtue can't be taught, are insisting on the opposite, ... Protagoras, on the other hand, having initially hypothesized that virtue could be taught, now seems to be insisting upon the opposite view...' Protagoras, when I see all these things so utterly confused, I have an overwhelming desire that they become clear and I should like that, having come to this point, we would consider what virtue is, and then again examine whether or not it is teachable... (361a5-c6) (T20) Lysimachus, it would be terrible not to want to help someone to become better. And if I had proven in the previous conversation to have knowledge and these two not to have had it, it would be right to call upon me to perform this task, but we are all now similarly at a loss... Since this is the case, let me offer you some advice... I say that it is necessary that all of us together search for the best possible teacher, for ourselves - for we need one - and also for the youths ... I do not advise that we remain as we are. (200el201a7) Notice that in the former passage, insofar as Socrates has any substantive advice concerning how to go on once one's false conceit has been eliminated, it is to take up the question 'What is virtue?', the very question which generates the paradox in the Meno. In the Laches passage, on the other hand, Socrates' sole suggestion is to seek someone who knows.3'

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Irwin and Vlastos Thus far we have seen that there is a very close parallel between the conversations in the earlier dialogues and the conversations with Meno up to 79e and wth the slave-boy up to 84a. Further, we have seen that Plato to be primarily, takes the achievement of these last two conversations although not wholly negative. They eliminate the interlocutors' false conceit of knowledge and thereby prepare the way for the acquisition of the knowledge they previously failed to have. Finally, we have seen that it is in the third and fourth stages of the slave-boy conversation, the stages following 84a, that Plato illustrates that part of the TR, first introduced in the Meno, which responds directly to Meno's paradox. That is, it is in the third and fourth stages that Plato illustrates that part of the TR which explains the possibility of acquiring knowledge, once one's false conceit has been eliminated. All of this provides a rather strong prima facie case for the view that Plato takes his introduction of the TR as providing for the first time a substantive view concerning how knowledge can be acquired once the Socratic/elenctic goal of eliminating false conceit has been achieved. Neverof these Meno theless, both Irwin and Vlastos have offered interpretations conversations which have much in common with the present interpretation, and yet they deny, although in different ways, that the TR is introduced as providing for the first time such a substantive view. It will be useful then to conclude the prima facie case with a brief examination of these alternative interpretations. Irwin. According to Terence Irwin, the substantive view of knowledge acquisition displayed in the slave-boy conversation, the TR, is merely the fairly explicit explication of the method already practiced in the earlier dialogues, the elenchos.38 Nevertheless, Irwin agrees that the TR is new to the Meno. What is new about the TR, however, is not the method of acquiring knowledge it recommends, but the claim that this method can yield all knowledge. According to Irwin, in the earlier dialogues Plato took the elenchos to be capable of yielding moral truths, but not moral knowledge. Moral knowledge was taken to be analogous to craft knowledge and

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the elenchos 'looks altogether unsuitable for education in a craft.'39 What is new about the TR introduced in the Meno is the claim that the true moral beliefs that the elenchos has always been capable of yielding Could be converted into moral knowledge by 'asking the same questions frequently and in a variety of ways' (85c10-11). That is, what is new about the view expressed in the Meno is not the third and fourth stages of the slave-boy conversation, but the claim that the fourth stage is applicable in the moral domain. Thus, according to Irwin, the elenchos as practiced in the early dialogues consists not only in the interlocutor's profession of knowledge (the first stage of the slave-boy conversation) and the elimination of this false conceit (the second stage of the slave-boy conversation), but also the acquisition of true belief (the third stage of the slave-boy conversation). Irwin's view has been sharply criticised from a number of quarters,40 and it is not my purpose here to examine the merits and demerits of these criticisms.41 Rather, I want to focus on a difficulty for his view which is directly relevant to the prima facie case being presented in this essay. The difficulty I want to focus on is the difficulty of finding the corresponding third stages in the conversations with the interlocutors of the earlier dialogues. As Paul Woodruff has pointed out, many of Socrates' interlocutors, far from having their false conceit eliminated, respond to the Socratic elenchos 'by attacking him or his way of questioning' (e.g. Laches, Callicles, and Hippias), while others are merely evasive (e.g. Euthyphro, Protagoras, and Cephalus).42 Thus, we should not expect to find the third stage of the the stage leading from the interlocutor's slave-boy conversation, recognition of ignorance to true belief, in the conversations with these interlocutors.43 Their conversations have failed to achieve the goal of the second stage.

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Furthermore, insofar as an interlocutor can plausibly be thought to have his false conceit eliminated in the early dialogues, the elimination of this conceit invariably occurs at the end of the conversation with the interlocutor. Thus, for example, if Laches can be plausibly thought to recognize his ignorance anywhere in the Laches, it will be at 193d-194b. But it is precisely at this point in the dialogue that the conversation with Laches comes to an end and the conversation with Nicias begins. Again, if Nicias is thought to recognize his ignorance in the Laches, it will be at 200a-d, immediately preceeding the conclusion of that dialogue. In fact, the best two candidates for interlocutors who do have their false conceit eliminated are Charmides and Ion in the dialogues which bear their names, but again in both cases the admission, if not genuine recognition, of ignorance occurs just as their respective dialogues are coming to an end. In the case of Ion it occurs at 541el-542b2, while in the case of Charmides it explicitly occurs at 176a6bl. 44 Thus, contrary to Irwin's claim that the slave-boy conversation constitutes a 'demonstration-example' of the Socratic elenchos, the elenchos comes to an end either always prior to or precisely at the conclusion of the second stage. As a result, any view about how to go on once this stage is completed is prima facie found for the first time in the Meno.45 Vlastos. Finally, Gregory these Meno conversations.' Vlastos has suggested yet another reading of Vlastos, like Irwin, agrees that the TR is new

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to the Meno,4' and, unlike Irwin, agrees that only the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation are to be found in the earlier dialogues.48 Nevertheless, Vlastos would deny that in introducing the TR in the Meno Plato is for the first time providing a substantive theory of knowledge acquisition. According to Vlastos, the dialogues which precede the Meno contain at least implicitly a substantive theory of knowledge acquisition of their own .4 What is new about the TR is not the fact that it provides such a substantive theory, but the fact that it provides a different substantive theory. A different substantive theory is necessary, according to Vlastos, because, while the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the corresponding part of the conversation with Meno are similar to the conversations in the earlier dialogues, there is an important disanalogy.50 In the Meno conversations, there is the commitment to the Priority of Definition Principle,51 according to which if a person fails to know what virtue is, for example, then he or she fails to know anything about virtue: (T21) I am so far from knowing whether virtue is teachable or not that I do not know at all what virtue itself is ... not knowing what a thing is, how would I know what sort a thing it is? Or do you think that it is possible for someone who does not know at all who Meno is to know whether he is beautiful or wealthy or well-bom or the opposite of these? (71a5-b7) In the conversations of the earlier dialogues, there is no such commitment. This is an essential difference because it is the commitment to the Priority of Definition Principle that generates Meno's paradox. 12 A commitment to

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this principle generates a problem so severe concerning knowledge-acquisition that a theory as radical as recollection is needed to resolve it. According to Vlastos, prior to the adoption of this principle, Socrates and his interlocutors could appeal to their knowledge of instances and properties of virtue, for example, in order to acquire the knowledge of what virtue is that they had lacked. Thus, for example, Socrates and Laches can appeal to their knowledge that the Spartans were courageous at Plataea in order to come to know what courage is. With the introduction of the Priority of Definition Principle in the Meno, however, this epistemological foundation is destroyed.53 Any knowledge concerning courage is unavailable to one who does not yet know, but is attempting to come to know what courage is. Thus, on Vlastos' view, Plato does not go beyond Socrates in the sense of providing for the first time a substantive view about how knowledge is to be acquired once one's conceit has been eliminated. Rather, he goes beyond

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Socrates in the sense of adopting a principle which leads to a problem which calls for a new view about how such knowledge is be acquired. The question which obviously needs to be raised at this point is 'Why is it that Plato comes to adopt the Priority of Definition Principle at just this point in his philosophical career, especially in light of the severe epistemological problems he immediately sees that it raises?' He obviously cannot have always thought that it was unavoidable. For, on Vlastos' view, he had spent the first part of his career writing dialogues depicting Socrates doing quite well without it. Vlastos, to his credit, has an answer. In a recent essay, he has usefully drawn our attention to a number of passages in what he calls 'the transitional dialogues' which display familiarity with a mathematics of a higher order than can be found in the dialogues which precede them. These passages Vlastos takes as strong indirect evidence for his hypothesis that prior to writing these dialogues Plato himself has taken that deep, long plunge into mathematical studies he will be requiring of all philosophers when he comes to write Book VII of the Republic (1988, p. 374). It is this immersion in mathematical studies which can explain the change in the dialogues which generates the paradox. It is Plato's new-found interest in mathematics which leads him to adopt the Priority of Definition Principle. For, it is not unreasonable to suppose that this principle is a presupposition of some sort of axiomatic Greek mathematics. One cannot know that the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides unless one can prove it. But, one cannot prove it unless one knows the definition of hypotenuse, triangle, etc. - unless, that is one knows what a hypotenuse is, what a triangle is, etc. 54 The difficulty with this sort of answer is that it does not square very well with the way in which the Priority of Definition Principle is introduced in the Meno. Consider Meno's response to Socrates' introduction of the at (T21): principle (T22) No, I do not. But do you really not know what virtue is, Socrates? Am I to report this about you back at home? (71b9-c2) Meno does not hesitate in the least to agree that it is impossible to know what sort of thing a thing is without knowing what it is. He simply can't believe that Socrates does not know what virtue is. Meno agrees to the

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principle as if it were a commonplace, not as if it were a specialized doctrine Are we to confined, at least until Plato got hold of it, to mathematics. suppose that Meno accepts it so easily because he too has recently been immersed in mathematical studies ?56 Since the principle is going to play a critical role in the subsequent argument, leading it to Meno's paradox, if Vlastos is right in thinking that the principle is a specialized doctrine, then we should expect some sort of defense of it in the dialogue. But it gets none. It is simply introduced as a commonplace. Second, on Vlastos' approach, those passages in the earlier dialogues which can be read as instances of the Priority of Definition Principle must simply be a matter of coincidence. Thus, for example, consider the following passage from the Laches: (T23) Then isn't this necessary for us to begin, to know what virtue is? For if we do not know at all what virtue happens to be, how would we know how it might best be obtained? (190b7-c2) Vlastos is correct that this passage alone is not sufficiently general to take the Laches to be committed to the Priority of Definition Principle.5' It only requires something like the following principle: If A fails to know what virtue is, than A fails to know how to obtain it. of the Priority of Definition Although this principle is a consequence Principle, Vlastos apparently sees the relationship as merely coincidental. As he might correctly point out, from the fact that there are a number of passages in the early dialogues which display principles that are consequences of principles which Plato clearly holds in later dialogues it does not follow that Plato must have been committed to the earlier principles because of his commitment to the more general ones. They may simply have

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sprung from distinct sources. But, we may ask, is it really plausible to think that there is no relation between the earlier and later passages? Must we not at the very least take the earlier passages as crude approximations of a that does not until fleshed out later? principle get completely Finally, let me respond to Vlastos' interpretation of the following passage from the Hippias Major which he cites as evidence for his view: (T24) He will ask me if I am not ashamed to dare speak of the fine when elenctic refutation makes it so evident that I do not even know what on earth the fine itself is. "How will you know," he will say, "if someone has produced a fine speech or any other fine action whatever, when you don't know the fine? And if this be your condition, do you think that you are better off alive than dead? (304d5-e3; Vlastos trans. See Vlastos 1985b, pp. 24-25.) According to Vlastos we here see the chilling consequences of the Priority of Definition Principle, before it is supplemented by the TR in the Meno: once one recognizes one's ignorance, one would be better off dead. Given the Priority of Definition Principle (unsupplemented by the TR), there is no way to rectify one's situation. Once ignorant, always ignorant. And yet for Socrates, as well as for Plato, according to Vlastos, a life in which one fails to know whether or not performing a particular action is virtuous, or fine, or good is not worth living. To read the Hippias Major passage as Vlastos does, as being a message of the futility of the quest for knowledge is, I think, to seriously misread it. (T24) is of a piece with those passages in which Socrates testifies to the value of eliminating one's conceit. It is just another passage in which Socrates exhorts others toward philosophy. Once one recognizes one' ignorance, one must recognize that a life in such a state is not worth living. One must make it one's chief concern to seek out 'truth and knowledge and the best possible state of one's soul.' When faced with the choice between a life in perpetual ignorance or a life in the pursuit of knowledge, the life of philosophy (see Lysis 218), Socrates' answer in the Apology was clear: a life of the former kind is not worth living. The difficulty, of course, if there is one, is that in the early dialogues Socrates puts forth no substantive view about how such knowledge is to be acquired. His contribution is limited to seeking out those who profess to care about these things, questioning them, examining them, and testing them, learning from them if they know (unfortunately no one he meets does), and persuading them of their ignorance if and when they do not. Socrates had the support of the Delphic oracle (and perhaps even of his daimon) to sustain his faith that this was enough. Plato did not. In fact Vlastos' important discovery of a familiarity with higher mathematics in the Euthydemus, Hippias Major, and Meno that had been 152

absent earlier suggests that Plato may have found a different support. It was not until Plato had become deeply immersed in mathematical studies that Plato could confidently assert the Priority of Definition Principle which he had inherited from Socrates in full generality. For it was not until he had experienced the success of Greek axiomatic mathematics that he became assured that epistemological progress in light of such a principle was possible. Conclusion We have seen then that, as Plato sees it, the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the first part of the conversation with Meno achieve no more than the elimination of false conceit. But we have also seen that these initial portions of the conversations precisely parallel the conversations in the earlier dialogues. We found no difference between the earlier conversations and the Meno conversations which could explain why Plato might have thought that the former could, while the latter coult not, achieve more than the elimination of false conceit. It would seem, then, that in the Meno Plato puts forth his theory of recollection not to displace some earlier theory, but to supplement such a theory. He takes himself to be providing in the Meno for the first time in the dialogues a substantive view about how once false conceit has been genuine knowledge is to be acquired eliminated. University of Oklahoma

Appendix The prima facie case that I am presenting here can be considerably strengthened when combined with an examination of the second part of the slave-boy conversation and the conversation with Meno renewed at 86c. I believe that such an examination will yield the following two theses. First, the second part of the slave-boy conversation at least partially parallels the conversation with Meno renewed at 86c. They both illustrate methods of acquiring knowledge once one's false conceit has been eliminated, although not necessarily the same method in both cases. Second, the method or methods illustrated in these passages are importantly different from the elenchos.

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The first thesis has been denied by a number of commentators on the grounds that in the conversation with Meno following the slave-boy interlude the search for the nature of virtue has been abandoned. Frequently, this abandonment has been blamed on Meno's unwillingness to consider first things first. He insists upon attempting to answer whether virtue can be taught before answering what virtue is, contrary to Socrates' advice. (See 86d8-el and 100b4-6.) Brown 1967 has argued that rather than destroying the parallel with the slave-boy conversation, this reinforces the parallel. For, according to Brown, the third stage of the conversation with the slave-boy also abandons what Brown calls 'the ti-question' and takes up what he calls 'the poion-question'. Brown's view has not been generally accepted, despite its obvious and deserved influence, 59 and is, I believe, subject to a number of difficulties.' Most importantly for our purposes it is far from clear that the question being asked in the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation is a ti-question and the question being asked in the third stage of the same conversation is a poion-question. The question of the first two stages is first put at (T2). Let me repeat it with the Greek: (T2) Try to say to me what the length of each side of this figure will be (pelike tis estai ekeinou he gramme hekaste). For the length of the side of this one is two feet; what is the length of the side of the double one (ti de he ekeinou tou diplasiou)? (82d8-e2) The question is repeated near the end of the second stage: (T25) Try to say what length you say this is (peliken tina ... auten einai). (83el)

According to Brown this question corresponds to the ti-half of the tilpoion distinction required by Socrates' commitment to the Priority of Definition Principle." But it is not at all obvious that the ti-question presupposed by the Priority of Definition Principle is anything like the question 'What is the length of this side?' It would seem that the appropriate ti-question in the context of the slave-boy conversation would be more like 'What is this?', or probably better,

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'What is length?' or 'What is a triangle?', not 'What is the length of this line?' Further, it is far from clear that Socrates regards the question being asked in (T2) as the ti-question, as opposed to the poion-question, given his comment following the slave-boy's initial answer: (T4) And now [the slave boy] thinks he knows what sort of line (hopoia estin) it is from which the eight-foot square will come to be. (82e5-6)62

Finally, Brown cites the following passage as evidence that the question under consideration in the third stage of the slave-boy conversation is the poion-question: (T27) From what sort of line (apo poias) [does the eight-foot square come to be]? Try to tell us clearly; if you don't want to count, show us from what sort of line (apo poias) it comes to be. (83el l-84al ) But if the argument of the present essay has been successful citing (T27) as evidence for the question under consideration in the third stage of the slave-boy conversation will not do. (T27) clearly precedes the Socrates' commentary on the second stage, and what is more important for us it even precedes the slave-boy's confession of ignorance, (T5). I have argued, however, that the second stage of the recollective process and hence the third stage of the slave-boy conversation cannot take place until the interlocutor's recognition of ignorance is secured. Thus, rather than testifying to the question under consideration in the third stage, (T27) reinforces the evidence of (T4) and my comments concerning the Priority of Definition Principle that the question under consideration in the first two stages is the poion-question.63 More recently, Bedu-Addo 1983 has offered what seems to me to be a promising line of argument against those who take the 'What is virtue?' question to be abandoned in the main conversation with Meno following the slave-boy interlude. In general the argument depends upon noticing that given the close parallel between the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the main conversation with Meno leading up to it, as well as the fact that the TR and the slave-boy conversation are introduced precisely in order to avoid the necessity of abandoning the search for the nature of virtue, it is prima facie implausible to think that immediately following the introduction of this remedy, Socrates should go ahead and abandon the search anyway. (To explain the abandonment by appealing to Meno's stubbornness will not do. It only pushes the question further back: Why should Plato have chosen such a stubborn

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character?) Unfortunately, Bedu-Addo takes the method of hypothesis (MH) found in the second half of the main conversation with Meno to be essentially a subterfuge (1983, p. 237). It is introduced only as a ruse to get Meno to consider the 'What is virtue?' question in spite of his desire to consider first the 'Is virtue teachable?' question. It results for Bedu-Addo, then, that the method employed in the third stage and the second half of the main conversation with Meno is essentially the same as the method employed in the first two stages of the slave-boy conversation and the first half of the main conversation. This is to deny the second thesis mentioned above. Vlastos 1988 has even more recently pointed out that the MH, which he correctly takes to be seriously introduced for the first time here in the Meno, abandons one of the constitutive features of the Socratic elenchos: [A ]dherence to the [MH] would entail systematic violation of the "say what you believe" rule, which forbids debating an unasserted premise, while "investigating from a hypothesis," requires it. (p. 380) He has also suggested that in the third stage of the slave-boy conversation another of the constitutive features of the Socratic elenchos has been abandoned : Socrates has shed his adversative role (p. 375). Thus, according to Vlastos, the methods employed in the third stage of the slave-boy conversation and in the conversation with Meno following that conversation are importantly different from the Socratic elenchos. If, then, we combine Vlastos' claims concerning the methods of these conversations with Bedu-Addo's general argument sketched above once again the suggestion is that according to Plato the Socratic elenchos can do no more than eliminate false conceit. In order to proceed from such an elimination of conceit Plato feels compelled to introduce new methods. What is needed, of course, is a careful examination of the second part of the conversation with Meno as well as of the MH. To attempt such an examination here would divert us, however, from the primary thesis of this essay. It should be recognized, however, that the thesis of this essay can be sustained even if the method of the third stage of the slave-boy conversation and of the second part of the main conversation with Meno is not importantly different from the method employed in the earlier sections. My argument has been that, as Plato sees it, the Socratic elenchos, unsupplemented with the TR, does and can do no more than eliminate the false conceit of the interlocutors. If Plato thinks that essentially the same method when supplemented by the TR can do more than this, that is of little consequence. The Meno will continue to provide rather strong evidence that, as Plato sees it, Socrates, who does not subscribe to the TR, can do, and appropriately does, no more than eliminate the false conceit of his interlocutors. 64

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