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Arguments In Meno And The Phaedo By Plato

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Plato

Plato makes many arguments in the Meno and the Phaedo. Some of his arguments are for the preexistence of a soul and that knowledge is gained as a result from recollection. Using the Cyclical argument, he says essentially that everything comes from their opposite state so the soul of a living must be a soul from someone who has died. The second argument is for Recollection and it claims that since we are able to see a lack of a given “thing”, then we must have a prior knowledge of what that “thing” should be. Closing with the Affinity Argument, it is reasoned that since there are two worlds; the changing world of our perception and the static world of the Forms; and the soul is more like that latter, than the soul must return to the world of Forms upon death.

In the Meno, we are introduced to Socrates’ “paradox of inquiry.” It states that “if you know what you’re looking for, inquiry is unnecessary” and “if you don’t know what you’re looking for, inquiry is impossible.” He questions Meno on what Virtue is and after repeated inquiry he is unable to come up with a definition. He then calls upon …show more content…

In the cave are prisoners that are bound in a cave and can only see shadows on the wall. Eventually one of the prisoners breaks free and begins his ascension. When he escapes, he is marveled by the outside world, world of forms, that he did not even know existed. As he remains outside he goes on a journey of learning to acquire as much knowledge of the new reality as he can. He eventually returns to the cave and tries to inform the other and they threaten to kill him. So it can be claimed that knowledge gained through the sense is not as “real” as the knowledge gained through thinking. Without being enlightened by the Form of Good, sun outside the cave, the prisoner would still be someone who thinks true knowledge comes from our

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Another question that is left unanswered is where or how the souls obtained the knowledge if inquiry is not a factor. We also do not have proof that the souls actually exist- and we are basing that off of the assumption that Socrates’ is correct. His response loops us back around to the initial issue, and in term it may even create it’s own paradox. He believes that the soul is immortal, and has lived many lives and learned things and has true beliefs, but does not answer the question of how we know if those beliefs are absolutely true or not.

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If we look at this logically anything that goes below has the opposition of coming up. The same must be possible for the souls below to return to the world above and to revived into the world of the living. Therefore, I agree with and understand why this is true with the concept Socrates provided. With all the theoretical concepts that Socrates has provided with oppositions, to say that there isn’t life after death would seem farfetched with the conclusions Socrates

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The world we live in is filled with crime, evil, and injustice, but do people have the desire to do bad things knowing that they are bad, or do they do them thinking that they are good? In this essay, I examine Socrates argument, found in Plato’s Meno, that no one knowingly desires bad things. If Socrates were right, it would mean that it is impossible for someone to perform a bad action based on their desire for that bad thing. Instead, all bad desires result from the ignorance of the person performing the action in falsely believing that the action is good. Though Socrates presents a compelling argument, I argue that it is possible for someone to act badly, all the while knowing that what they desire is bad.

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