Meno's Paradox

So what is Meno’s Paradox? This little idea from the philosophies of epistemology* asks the question:

How is it possible to seek knowledge? The second part of this paradox also asks ‘how do you recognize the truth when you see it?’

Meno brings up this idea to Socrates, who thinks it is not a very relevant or important question.

This seems like an easy question that one could answer with “Well, you just google it.” (Well, perhaps not back then…) However, this question goes deeper than that. What it is really asking is ‘how do you try to learn about something if you don’t know what it is, or how do you realize you are ignorant of that certain subject in the first place.?’ Meno asks this question specifically about virtue; a thing that Socrates whats to now more about. Let’s think about it this way; Suppose you what to know more about aesthetics. You read about it in a book. How do you know it’s the truth, or that you have really learned aesthetics? Or take this as another example: How was mathematics thought up? Certainly we needed basic math, such as counting or subtracting, but what about calculus? How did mathematicians know that there was more to math, what use it would have, or if they were right or wrong?

After having this conversation, Meno and Socrates walk in the garden, when they see an uneducated slave boy working. Socrates asks the boy to solve a relatively complicated geometric problem. He asks him how to double a square.

Socrates asks him a series of guiding questions, like ‘should they solve the problem by using arcs or straight lines’, and ‘should they put the straight lines on the inside or on the outside of the square.’ After completing this long series of yes/no questions, the boy eventually gets the correct answer.

How did the slave boy know to use straight lines and not arcs? How did he eventually get the correct answer? Socrates believes that are souls are made with complete knowledge and that ll learning is just remembering. His ‘answer’ to the paradox is this:

‘We do know what we think we don’t know’ or ‘ we don’t really know what we know’

So that’s pretty confusing. Simply put, this means that recognition is really just recollection. Have your own ideas or answer to this paradox? Please feel free to leave comments below!

*Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge and what we know, and how we learn