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A review by missai
Meno by Plato
4.0
In Meno, Plato tackles the question of virtue. Specifically, whether or not virtue can be taught. In this exploration, Meno runs into his Eristic Paradox and Socrates conducts his famous Slave Boy Experiment. The idea of "true opinions" versus knowledge arises, and it is determined that in order for virtue to be taught there must be teachers. But if nobody is taught in the first place, how do men come to become virtuous? And if we do not know what virtue is, how can we know that we are truly being taught?
In regards to this specific translation, there were no great faults. The small introduction was informative, and the footnotes (especially the squares diagram) were quite helpful.
Favourite Quotes:
S: "We always arrive at the many...but since you call all these many by one name, and say that no one of them is not a shape even though they are opposites, tell me what this is which applies as much to the round as to the straight and which you call shape, as you say the round is as much a shape as a straight."
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S: Even someone who was blindfolded would know from your conversation that you are handsome and still have lovers.
M: Why so?
S: Because you are forever giving orders in a discussion, as spoiled people do, who behave like tyrants as long as they are young.
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M: Socrates, before I even met you I used to hear that you are always in a state of perplexity and that you bring others to the same state, and now I think you are bewitching and beguiling me, simply putting me under a spell, so that I am quite perplexed. Indeed, if a joke is in order, you seem, in appearance and in every other way, to be like the broad torpedo fish, for it too makes anyone who comes close and touches it feel numb, and now you seem to have had that kind of effect on me, for both my mind and my tongue are numb, and I have no answers to give you.
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M: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?
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S: How then, my good sir, can you know whether there is any good in their instruction or not, if you are altogether without experience of it?
In regards to this specific translation, there were no great faults. The small introduction was informative, and the footnotes (especially the squares diagram) were quite helpful.
Favourite Quotes:
S: "We always arrive at the many...but since you call all these many by one name, and say that no one of them is not a shape even though they are opposites, tell me what this is which applies as much to the round as to the straight and which you call shape, as you say the round is as much a shape as a straight."
---
S: Even someone who was blindfolded would know from your conversation that you are handsome and still have lovers.
M: Why so?
S: Because you are forever giving orders in a discussion, as spoiled people do, who behave like tyrants as long as they are young.
---
M: Socrates, before I even met you I used to hear that you are always in a state of perplexity and that you bring others to the same state, and now I think you are bewitching and beguiling me, simply putting me under a spell, so that I am quite perplexed. Indeed, if a joke is in order, you seem, in appearance and in every other way, to be like the broad torpedo fish, for it too makes anyone who comes close and touches it feel numb, and now you seem to have had that kind of effect on me, for both my mind and my tongue are numb, and I have no answers to give you.
---
M: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?
---
S: How then, my good sir, can you know whether there is any good in their instruction or not, if you are altogether without experience of it?