Socrates states that people by nature are “too weak” (149c) to learn new skills that they are inexperienced with. I disagree with the claim, so much so that I will use this paper to refute it. I will begin this refutation by making sense of what was meant by his claim. I will then proceed to explain why the meaning of his claim is mistaken. Disambiguation: The word “weak” in his claim is open to multiple interpretations. Therefore, to best understand his claim’s intended meaning we must understand the word within the context of the Theaetetus. We first can take “weak” as “not having enough drive”. Take for example a protégée. A protégée is born with great talent. Being born with great talent allows them to skip fundamental concepts and never experience conceptual struggle. When a protégée attempts to learn other types of skills, they feel above …show more content…
Take Helen Keller for example. She lost her sight and hearing early in infancy and thus most concluded she would never speak. However, Keller was much more determined to learn to speak than the average person. She would feel the vibrations of other’s mouths, cheeks, and throats to learn. By adapting to her blindness/deafness, she eventually learned to speak thorough this non-traditional method. Socrates, with his views, would look at a baby Helen Keller and say she would not learn to speak. With the proper determination however, she defied Socratic logic by learning to speak. Therefore, Helen Keller proves Socrates and this ideal wrong. Conclusion: Socrates believed that human nature was “too weak” (149c) to allow for new skills to be learned. What we meant was that human nature was not adaptable enough to learn. I used Helen Keller’s ability to speak despite being blind and deaf to disprove this claim. While human nature often suffers from being “too weak” (149c) when it comes to personal drive, it is quite adaptable. Word Count: