4. Meno's Paradox

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, Nakul turns to Plato's Meno and explores 'Meno's paradox', a problem that arises when Meno attempts to answer the question: 'Can virtue be taught?' What follows is one of the most fantastical arguments in the history of philosophy, Socrates' doctrine of recollection, in which he claims that we never really learn anything, we simply 'remember' it from a past life.

Course

This course examines the life of Socrates, before looking at his famous philosophical method and asking, why was Socrates so interested in defining what things mean? After this, we look more closely at two early dialogues of Plato which feature Socrates as a character: Euthyphro and Meno. After introducing this dialogues, we explore an important episode in each dialogue, each of which is now considered one of the most important moments in the history of Western philosophy: Euthyphro's Dilemma and Meno's Paradox.

Lecturer

Nakul is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. In addition to Plato's Euthyphro and Meno, he also teaches Plato's Republic as well as Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.