In schools, the relationship between student and teacher is a strange one. How far should the teacher be willing to educate a student, and how far should the student be willing to try?
In Plato’s dialogue Meno, a young, baffled Meno challenges Socrate’s logic and stance on knowledge by posing his famous paradox which describes the impracticality of searching for something you have no knowledge of as well as the issue of recognizing that you have found it when you do not even know what “it” is. Socrates simply dismisses this paradox as a quibbler’s argument, instead, offering up his theory on learning as “remembering” and something to do with our immortal souls(81d). Whether or not this is the case, Meno’s Paradox doesn’t seem to cause anyone any grief in the real-world pursuit of knowledge. Further into Plato’s Meno and Protagoras we are provided hints as to why this is.
“How silly of us not to realize that it isn’t always knowledge that’s guiding people when they do things well and succeed in their affairs”(96c).
Knowledge isn’t the be-all and end-all of education or learning, it can’t be. Knowledge, whether it is known or unknown, is just useless fact if you lack the skills to apply it. “Isn’t it clear that what we desperately need is, for a start, some kind of measuring ability?”(357b). Throughout Meno and Protagoras Plato refers to this ability to operate knowledge as “knowledge of measurement”, “opinion”, and just plain old “good sense”. What Plato describes is a discerning ability, the ability to say yes or no, to accept or question, and to piece the different components of knowledge into something functional— something similar to judgement. By exercising our judgement or “good sense” we are easily able to overcome Meno’s Paradox and fearlessly navigate the unknown.
“Even with a blindfold on, Meno, anyone could tell just from talking to you that you are beautiful.”(76b)
Even if we are just stumbling around in the dark as long as our feet remain firmly planted in what is familiar we can feel around for edges and use our judgement to piece together an outline of what we are searching for. Scientists do it all the time. They define something by defining its surroundings, where it will fit, then study it by studying its surroundings and how it fits(eg. Higgs Boson Particle). Using “good sense” and the trusty “guess and check method”(very much the same concept behind a baby’s shape sorter toy, see image below) you will often find what you were searching for, or didn’t even know you were searching for and then recognize “it”as what you were searching for because it fits.
Posted in Ancient Philosophy, Education, Knowledge
Meno questioned whether knowledge (teaching) and experience (practice) are mutually exclusive at the beginning of the dialogue. This dichotomy has me ponder, “What is the way to obtain the best education?”
Before attempting to answer the question, I will differentiate knowledge (teaching) and experience (practice). First of all, knowledge might be superficial in one’s mind because it is often proved by someone else’s studies. Thus, teaching is the same as spreading one’s experience to other individuals. However, acquiring knowledge from teaching does not secure the meaning behind it because one’s experience is something that cannot be transferred. On the other hand, trials create experience that are realistic because of the consequences one receives. To sum up their differences, knowledge exists in a blurry vision while experience lives with vivid images.
In order to weigh teaching vs. practice, the issue of theoretical knowledge vs. practical knowledge is considered. The former is obtained from reading formal writings and listening to lectures, or so-called “book-smart.” Whereas, the latter is grasped by performing experiments and trial-and-errors, or so-called “street-smart.” According to the definitions above, they are completely distinct from one another, but share a common goal: personal improvement. Similarly, education is about acquiring and applying existing knowledge to increase overall human intelligence. Thus, teaching cannot bring the best results, nor can practice. They have to work together in order to yield the best results. For instance, a surgeon should not be allowed to perform a surgery if she has no ideas where the heart is. At the same time, she should not conduct the surgery for someone’s life if she has no prior experience.
In conclusion, knowledge and experience are two different perceptions. However, their differences are blessings because they are the final missing pieces of the puzzle called education.
Posted in Education, Experience, Knowledge
Tagged Dinh, Education, experience, knowledge, Week 2
Would you be able to learn how to ride a bicycle from being told? Or by practice alone? Being taught to ride isn’t the same as practicing riding, but the two supplement each other and are necessary to help the student eventually acquire the real sense and skills to actually maneuver the machine. Continue reading
Posted in Education, Experience, Knowledge
Tagged Caroline, experience, knowledge, Meno, teaching
The passage by Plato about the conversation between Meno and Socrates commences with a sentence that distinguishes teaching from practice and experience. Although these have different meanings, they are not contrary ideas as the passage seems to suggest. That’s not to say that these are the same or always used together. Both teaching and experience can serve the purpose of learning independently of one another. For example, a child’s mother may tell him that the skinny limbs on a tree will break easily. This is one way for the child to learn this fact. Another way, of course, would be to physically snap the thin branch of a tree and learn from experience. In this case, experience is different from practice and the two words are not interchangeable.
Sometimes, the two methods are used in congruence with one another, and often in these situations practice and experience are closely related. An example of this would be learning to shoot a soccer ball. The coach teaches the players to strike the ball with their laces, how to aim, and how to exert the proper amount of power. The players then practice applying these skills, and in this way, gain experience.
All of this is also assuming that teaching involves a third party. A person could teach themselves the notes and keys on a piano and practice reading music and playing songs to gain experience and through that teach, practice, experience, and learn to play piano all at once.
Overall Socrates offers a very narrow definition of the words teaching, practice, and experience and then treats them as true and factual and applies them to his arguments. Looking at wider or more flexible definitions for his words calls into question Socrates’ proceeding arguments.
Posted in Education, Experience, Knowledge
Tagged definitons, learning, Orli, Plato, Socrates
If true, “Meno’s paradox” is a frightening proposition. The paradox suggests that human inquiry is impossible: humans are incapable of finding truths. The paradox stems form a simple question, “how can you put before your mind a thing that you have no knowledge of, in order to try to find out about it?”(Page 100, 80e) Inquiring about something, as in trying to find a universal truth about it, requires imagination and thinking. However, if somebody is inquiring about a thing that he does not know then it is impossible for him to imagine and think about it. On the other hand, if the person knows about the subject of inquiry then the process of inquiry is futile.
After thorough inspection, “Meno’s paradox” seemed perfectly logical and valid. How then are humans able to make new discoveries every single day if the process of inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible? Socrates explains this through a bizarre idea. He asserts that discoveries of new knowledge are actually recollections of knowledge already possessed by the soul. To Socrates, humans are all born with the solutions to all of nature’s mysteries. To unleash these solutions, a person must undergo the process of “remembering”. Deep down, we all know how to compose music, write computer code, solve mathematical equations, and come up with scientific theories. Just like the slave that “remembers” what a diagonal is, we must go through the long and tedious process of “remembering” that involves hard work and making mistakes. The paradox should not be viewed as a sad limitation of human power but as motivation that everybody can “solve” the mysteries of the universe.
Posted in Ancient Philosophy, Education, Knowledge
From Meno, we encounter towards the middle of the piece a point in which Meno is angry at Socrates because they have come to an impasse as to what “being good” really is. Meno proceeds to feel baffled and makes the claim that it cannot be possible to find out what it is to “be good” because he has no idea what being good really is (80e). This is Meno’s paradox; he feels that he cannot find out “good” because he doesn’t even know what to look for.
Socrates puts things into perspective by making a claim that souls are immortal, and they cycle through life, therefore all the experiences of every person before you culminates in the soul, therefore it is possible that we have learned, in a past life, what being good is, and it is not so much a process of learning, but a process of remembering (81c).
In our own lives, this paradox is encountered. Whether it’s a student who tries to understand calculus, a musician trying to learn a song, or a sprinter who works to drop time in their events, there is a common feature among all these examples: the process of discovery. Just as Socrates put it with his example involving Meno’s slave (84a), it is not learning, because we already know what to do, in a sense. We just have to remember what to do, a process of trial-and-error, where the error makes us eager to discover how to get the task accomplished. Work problems in calculus until it sticks, find ways to move your fingers on the instrument smoothly so to make the music sound seamless, and focus on details in your races in order to grow.
We often are found in similar situations as Meno to which a solution is feasible, but it is something that requires some thought. Deep down, there’s a basic idea on how to accomplish the task, but it really requires a some failure in order to bring us to answers.
Write about the role of “perplexity” in learning or knowing (80a-d, 84a-c).
To summarize the two selected sections of Plato’s Meno, Meno begins by saying that Socrates has “baffled” him about what being good really means, and that he has “got no idea how to answer the question. And yet, damn it, [he’s] talked about ‘being a good man’ thousands of times” (80b). Then, in the next section, Socrates explains to Meno that baffling his slave by proposing a difficult geometry question was not intended to mistreat or mislead him, but rather guide him to the true answer.
The combination of these two passages leads to the “perplexity” in learning or knowing. In the geometry question, Meno’s slave thought he knew the answer, but with a few simple questions posed by Socrates, he was thrown into confusion and doubted what he previously thought he had known. So by baffling the slave, Socrates helped him realize, what he did not know, thus what he needed to learn. This is also echoed in Meno’s Paradox, “that it’s impossible to try to find out about anything – either what you know or what you don’t know” (80e). Exemplifying the first part of the paradox, the slave thought he knew the answer so there was no point in trying to find out anything more about the problem at hand. And for the second part of the paradox, before Socrates’ perplexed him with probing questions, he had no idea that there was anything wrong with his answer or there was a different method of obtaining the correct answer. Through perplexity he was able to dismiss what he thought he knew and get out of the paradox to learn the true answer.
I find that most students have a similar experience with the confusion of knowing and learning in science classes, specifically chemistry. In every chemistry class I have taken, the professor teaches students some property or rule that the students are expected to master. Then students fall under the assumption that they know the property and are content with the explanation given of why that property is true. But as students move on to later semesters and more advanced material, they get confused very quickly. I have had professors directly tell the class that a rule we have learned is actually untrue, or that the explanation is not as simple as we thought. This is often perplexing and, more recently, I thought I knew everything there was to know about significant figures, which are essentially rounding rules for numbers. But on my first day of analytical chemistry class, the professor told me the rules I had known from previous classes were false and I was confused so I had to learn how to arrive at the correct answer. In conclusion, chemistry students are constantly thrown into the perplexity of believing they know something, then entering a state of confusion in order to reveal what they do not know, so they learn something new, like Meno’s slave and Socrates.
Works Cited
Plato, Protagoras and Meno, Penguin, 2006. Trans. Beresford.
Posted in Ancient Philosophy, Education, Knowledge
Tagged knowledge, learning, Meno, perplexity, Plato, Socrates
In Meno, Meno starts a conversation with Socrates about what it means to be “good,” which morphs into a discussion of larger themes pertaining to wisdom and the acquisition of knowledge. At one point Meno gets fed up with Socrates always refuting his points and turns to what Socrates refers to as the “quibbler’s argument,” “that it’s impossible to try to find out about anything – either what you know or what you don’t know. ‘You can’t try to find out about something you know about, because you know about it, in which case there’s no point trying to find out about it; and you can’t try to find out about something you don’t know about, either, because then you don’t even know what it is you’re trying to find out about” (pg. 100-101, 80e). This argument is more commonly known as “Meno’s Paradox,” and essentially states that you can’t acquire new knowledge either because you already know said information, or you don’t know enough information to know how to get more.
Socrates found this argument to simply be a way for lazy individuals to avoid working on their own and found that “as long as you’re adventurous and don’t get tired of trying to find out about things,” you will always be able to acquire new knowledge because he believes that the acquisition of new knowledge is actually just a form of “remembering” (102, 82d).
We encounter and overcome this paradox in our everyday life by doing exactly what Socrates says, we continue to be “adventurous,” and rather than assuming that we aren’t able to garner more information due to a lack of a place to start, we find a starting point and build from there.
For example, if we wanted to learn about the Transatlantic Slave Trade, we could begin by finding an introductory book on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and build or research from there. Although it might be difficult to start finding information, there are always ways around the blockage.
A better example may be solving for a derivative or integral in calculus. Someone may hear the terms derivative or integral and really want to know what they are but neglect to try to find out because they have no idea where to start looking, however, if you took the time to learn algebra and geometry prior to learning calculus you would have a solid base and initial set of information that then allows you to learn about the derivative and the integral.
To overcome the challenge of not being able to acquire new knowledge we simply acquire general knowledge through reading, school, experience, or even just speaking with others, and from their we build our research around a targeted topic.
Posted in Ancient Philosophy, Education, Experience, Identity, Knowledge
Tagged Harry, knowledge, learning, Philosophy, teaching