Meno And The Clouds Analysis

1. Who are the authors and what is their historical context? How does their context influence their writing?

A: The authors for Meno and The Clouds are Plato and Aristophanes respectively, Plato being a student of Socrates and Aristophanes one of Plato’s contemporaries and humorist. Plato conveys his usual steadfast logical in Socratic arguments that present questions that lead his audience to where he wants, used as a teaching tool. The Clouds a Greek comedy that satirized Socrates in his “Thinkery”. Being that it is a comedy, the context of the Clouds is aimed more at the absurd nature of Socrates “Logic Factory” and sophists in general.

2. What are the authors trying to accomplish in these works? How do their approaches to their subjects, their style of expression, and their claims differ from each other? In what ways are they similar?

A: In Meno Plato was attempting to convey the idea of true virtue, and did it in a style of long form verbal examples, in the excerpt we read he walks a young student though the fallacies of logic, proving Plato’s point about truly understanding something (Or lack of understanding). Whereas Aristophanes is writing for an audience that should be taken as a commentary and critics of Socrates, but as more humorous than anything.

3. Who are the intended

The Clouds was a comedy meant to poke fun at the methods and arisen status of the philosophers, especially Socrates who is portrayed as a shyster and thief, teaching “The Wrong Logic.” In Meno’s case I see the arguments to be more persuasive than surface information, a grander point about our perceptions is being made about virtue, and true understanding. The Clouds serves more as an exaggeration of the philosopher state and Socratic Method, and warped caricature meant to be more entertaining than hard fact, too bad the court didn’t see it that