In the Protagoras, in Contrast, Plato Displays The

50 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 51 of the techne concept for attaining a clear concept of knowledge of the good and of the nature of arete. The Meno is particularly crucial in this regard, for the exposition here is advanced one Hans-Georg Gadamer's "Socratic Knowing and Not- step further. At first the dialogue deals with the same problem as Knowing" appeared in his book The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy from pages 33 to 62. It the Protagoras, namely, teachability. And in essence it reiterates was published by Yale University Press in 1982. the paradox in which the claim that arete can be given justification gets caught: if it can be given justification, then it can also be taught. Once again, the claim that arete is knowledge found- ers on the facts of our moral and political experience. The sons of great men, who have had the best education and upbringing thinkable, are often grave disappointments. Hence something In the Protagoras, in contrast, Plato displays the falsity of so- other than knowledge must play the decisive role here, some- phistic pseudo-knowledge and of the claim to teach it by con- thing that Plato calls theia moira-- divine dispensation. fronting this "knowledge" and claim with Socrates' claim to And now we have arrived at a truly crucial test for the tradi- know. And the conclusion with which the dialogue ends says tional interpretation of Plato. Socrates' own demand that justifi- a great deal: Socrates forces the sophist to agree that arete is cation be given, which he pursues relentlessly, seems weakened knowledge, but for his part he disputes that it can be taught. But when Plato substitutes "divine dispensation" —the latter ap- if Socrates really took arete to be knowledge similar in character pears to provide only half an answer to the problem. Subtle in- to the knowledge of techne, he would have to maintain that it terpreters of Plato see in this divine dispensation an indication can be taught. What sort of knowledge, then, is this knowledge that Socrates himself is the only true teacher of arete. It is cer- that he has in mind that is evidently unteachable? The reader is tainly correct to say that the end of the failed discussion with meant to put this question to himself. In any event, he has to see Meno points to Socrates as the actual and only teacher. But one clearly that the knowledge and justification for it that Socrates has already forfeited the truth of this insight if, at the same time, seeks has nothing to do with sophistic techne thinking. That it one misses the general point implied here. Plato's concern is not does not is obvious from the start. The doubt about the teacha- to sanctify this charismatic Socrates, even if in Plato's eyes he bility of arete dominates the discussion from beginning to end. certainly was charismatic. Rather, he is much more concerned Even in the opening scene it lurks in the background. Thus the with overcoming the false conception of learning and knowing logical point of the comedy-like ending that Plato invents for the that prevails in the young Meno, as it does in his teacher Gor- Protagoras dialogue is most of all this: knowledge in arete can gias. It is to this end that he adverts to divine dispensation." have the character of neither knowledge in techne nor the The whole discussion with Meno is devoted to this task. One knowledge of this new paideia, which boasts of being techne. The whole series of the Socratic discussions whose conclusions 17. The allusion to divine dispensation at Republic 492e is also aimed polem- are negative could be advanced to demonstrate the inadequacy ically against sophistic paideia. 52 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 53 need only ask oneself Plato's question: Who was this Socrates be forced to place himself in question. Thus he is just the right and what was his knowledge? After all, he had declared that pre- foil for allowing us to see what knowing and recognizing actu- cisely knowing that one does not know is the real human wis- ally are. The doctrine of anamnesis (recollection) brings out the dom. His teaching could never be different from what it always true sense of the Socratic question. As one who himself only "re- is, namely, demonstrating that his partner does not know, and minds," Socrates is a teacher. And in portraying Socrates' deeds, by doing that, making it urgent that one know and give justifica- Plato at the same time reminds us that knowledge is recollection, tion. For someone who has come to seek and question on his knowing again. own, the pretentious assumptions that Meno, for example, has The idea of recollection is introduced here as a myth, which is learned from the likes of Gorgias and advances himself are to say, apparently not as an argument per se but as a sort of reli- empty. And emptier still is a sophistry that would argue someone gious truth. But one has to view the myth of anamnesis in the out of seeking and questioning altogether—such a sophistry, light of the question we are raising. Is it a myth at all? Certainly that is, as Meno produces with blind acuity. The significance of this doctrine is introduced in the Meno like a myth—with refer- the Meno is that here Plato expressly thematizes the aporia (per- ences to verses from Pindar and the Pythagorean doctrine of the plexity) in which the other Socratic dialogues tend to end. transmigration of souls. But the authorities upon whom Socrates Like these other dialogues, the Meno begins with a series of relies already sound odd. For here we find priests and priestesses failed attempts to define arete that disclose sometimes more, who are able to give justification! In the context of Greek reli- sometimes less, clearly that the sole reality behind moral conven- gion there is something absurd about that. For Greek religion tions is the pursuit of power. The last answer that Meno ven- was not a religion of scripture and orthodoxy but of individual tures virtually says as much. He appropriates the poet's line: awe and piety and of regular public honoring of the divine. charein to kaloisi kai dynasthai (to delight in the beautiful and Moreover, the thesis that seeking and learning is recollection is have power) in such a way that arete would mean nothing else then demonstrated quite soberly with no reference at all to reli- but having the power to acquire the beautiful thing that one de- gion. The famous lesson that Socrates gives Meno's slave is far sires (77b). But Plato takes a new step here. He shows that reach- removed from a proof of the religious doctrine of the preexis- ing the aporia in which Meno's attempts to determine the nature tence of souls. Of course, in every step of this lesson Socrates of arete end is the precondition for raising the question of arete carefully adheres to the premise that the slave is not taught any- in the first place. But here, raising the question means question- thing but instead grasps each of the steps himself, the negative ing oneself. The knowledge in question can only be called forth. ones as well as the positive. In other words, the slave displays a All cognition is re-cognition. And in this sense it is remembrance kind of knowledge without ever having "learned" mathematics. of something familiar and known. But given the lengths to which Socrates goes it is all the more The conversation with Meno makes this fact clear e contrario. striking that the conclusion drawn at the end is not viewed as Meno appears on the scene as one who wants to acquire the new validly proved—the conclusion, namely, that there was a time wisdom as cheaply as possibly, and he bolts when he is about to before human beings existed at which the soul already knew 54 SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING SOCRATIC KNOWING AND NOT-KNOWING 55 things, and that the soul is consequently immortal. On the con- of nonsense, it would appear. And with that Simmias's objection trary, any such claim that it has been proved is explicitly re- seems to have been disposed of. Or, in the final analysis, is this a tracted (86b). The only thing accepted is the practical certainty hint that we should examine in earnest the concomitance of that we are better off holding firmly to the belief that one can in- knowing and not-knowing? For if we do, we might perceive in deed seek the truth, and that one should not allow oneself to be this concomitance an intrinsic interweaving of cognition and rec- misled in this search by sophistic objections. And it is accepted ognition that splits apart into a mythical prior life and a subse- logoi kai ergoi (in word and deed) (86c). Hence the mythical ho- quent recollection only in mythological thinking." Whatever the rizons within which Plato places this certainty—and not with- case may be, we must abstract from Plato's mythical mode of out ironic ceremoniousness—serve essentially only to display presentation if we want to understand what he is getting at. And and explicate the capacity of the human mind to place things in that requirement holds in regard to the Meno as well as the question. Phaedo. Let us, then, attempt to conceptualize some of the The Phaedo demonstrates fully and convincingly that we are things he has in mind.

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