Lecture Slides
https://huskyct.uconn.edu/ultra/courses/_168239_1/outline/file/_11831637_1
Plato’s Meno
Plato writes what would nowadays be considered a fan-fiction. His paper Meno documents a fictitious dialogue between Socrates and Meno.
Judgements
Our perception of things are judgements. Judgements can be correct or incorrect depending on if the thing actually falls under the concept or idea that we subsumed in our judgement.
Meno’s Paradox
Inquiry is not possible/useful. If one inquires about that which they know then one needn’t inquire about it, but if one doesn’t know that which they wish to inquire, it is impossible to inquire about it.
Socrates’ Argument about Learning
I am saying that there is no teaching, but only recollection.
Chomsky’s Agreement
Chomsky argued that Plato is correct. He cited examples of grammar and language. He argues that as language speakers, we can identify sentences as grammatically-incorrect despite not seeing them before.
However, English, for example, can have many odd rules that break/override other rules. Consider the use of ‘don’t’ versus ‘do not’. The general rule is that ‘don’t’ and ‘do not’ can be used interchangeably, and while this does hold most of the time, consider a statement like ‘don’t you dare’, in which ‘don’t’ can not be replaced with ‘do not’ while maintaining the grammatical correctness of the sentence.
Chomsky asks how we could know that a set of grammar rules could be correct.
Knowledge vs True Belief
What is the difference in actual usefulness between knowledge and true belief or opinion.
True opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge.
But Socrates argues that knowledge is substantially more valuable because opinion (true or not) is too easily shaken, so it is far less useful than knowledge.
Small Group Discussion
Giancarlo Stabler, Alexandra Taylor, Cyanna Diedrick, Jibran Ahmed
- If you look for truth, how do you know you have found it?
- We can only find truth through other people. Particularly we use those that we deem as ‘reliable’, or ‘more knowledgeable’.
- For example we receive much of our knowledge from our parents
- Plato claims here that knowledge is obtained by remembering. What does he mean by that?
- This feels almost like it could be an attempt to justify/explain instinct.
- Plato’s argument seems to be founded in the assumption that there exists some ‘platonic heaven’, and that our souls are eternal and precede our physical bodies.
- What distinguishes knowledge from true belief?
- The biggest difference is that knowledge is true belief plus known affirmation that our belief is true.
- Knowledge is more unshakeable because we know that it is true, whereas even if a belief is true, if it lacks affirmation that it’s true then we may throw it to the side when another seemingly more accurate or trustworthy belief comes about.
- Is knowledge valuable?
- Absolutely. It is valuable and further it seems to be more valuable than true belief.
- However, these ideas bring up some arguments to be made relating to what we discussed about the inherent value of science. Are beliefs supported by science actually knowledge? Or are the true beliefs based on our trust/agreement in the methods of science.
Returning to the Value of Science
This discussion has seen me reaffirm my understanding of the inherent value/validity of science and the ‘facts’ that have followed from the scientific methods. Furthermore it has caused me to question my previous viewpoint on the question of whether or not we can every know anything. I am still uncertain to the answer but this has shifted me slightly closer towards believing that we may not be able to know anything. I would argue that nothing…