Socrates Vs Meno Essay

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In Plato’s dialogue Meno, according to Socrates knowledge is accepting the facts as they are, without opinion. Socrates believed that truth is absolute, not relative and that if one approached a subject from every angle then one could eliminate everything but the truth. This discussion resulted from a prior discussion between Socrates and Meno after Socrates questions Meno on ways in which virtue can be acquired. Three possibilities were confronted; first that virtue is innate within the human soul. The second suggests that virtue can be taught, and the third possibility is that virtue is a gift from the gods. Socrates and Meno debated these ways to a very broad conclusion. Socrates points out that it is impossible to answer this question without…show more content…
For example, our judgments can let us down, in which they can change, they can cease (or fail) to exist, and they can be completely false. All of these possibilities may come into play and each involves a different sense of “is” - a different sense in which the objects of belief or opinion can fail to “be.” True opinions may abide with a person, but they are not permanent within the human soul and do not remain long. This means that opinions are not of much value until they are connected to the truth through recollection. A person only has wisdom because of the bounding between the nature of knowledge and the abidance of true opinion. When a person bases their actions off of true opinion that means they prefer to be ignorant of why they are right than actually knowing why they are right. Being ignorant is easier since you hold nothing to attack and have therefore nothing to defend; but if you have reasons to believe something, then they need to be defended or justified to make them accurate. However, knowledge differs from mere opinion in that it can be defended by justification, which also means logos. Logos is a rational explanation of why that opinion is true. Thus emerges the formula that knowledge is true opinion accompanied by a logos, or as it came to be expressed in as a "justified true

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