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Psycholinguistics and Plato's Paradoxes of the Meno

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Psycholinguistics and Plato's Paradoxes of the Meno Psycholinguistics and Plato's Paradoxes of the Meno WALTER B. WEIMER Pennsylvania State University1 Two fundamental problems in both psychology and the best available. Thus, I shall defend Plato in- philosophy concern the nature of knowledge and directly (a) by showing that his doctrines are both the nature of our acquisition of knowledge. No intelligible and "scientific" today and (b) by indi- matter how "pure" it may be in research interest cating that opposing theories are quite incapable of and theoretical intent, psychology ought to be very providing adequate solutions. applied in the sense that it should seriously attempt to answer our fundamental questions concerning the Plato's Problems in the Meno nature of human knowledge and the process by which it is acquired. Yet, despite the spectacular It has long been a favorite philosophical pastime to successes experimental psychology has had in its propose the true problem or paradox that Plato in- attempt to understand the phenomena of its domain, tended the Meno to portray, and then to supply it remains to be seen whether the answers advanced the true resolution of that problem. It is not my to fundamental problems such as the two above are purpose to engage in this fruitless game of true adequate, or whether they are indeed answers at all. Plato exegesis and scholarship: there is a case to This article explores two problems of knowledge, be made for many legitimate problems in the Meno, which take the form of paradoxes, from their origins and undoubtedly some are more important, and in Plato's Meno to their reemergence in contempo- more difficult, than others. My concern is rather rary philosophy and psychology. I trace the with two epistemological problems that are funda- pendulum swing of intellectual fashion from Plato's mental in the sense that their proposed solutions attempt to solve the paradoxes with some ingenious have never been less paradoxical than the problems postulations concerning the nature and workings of themselves. the human mind, through to Aristotle's (and the Although they may or may not be the "true" majority of contemporary thinkers') attempts to paradoxes of the Meno, I wish to argue that the deny the Platonic machinery and the solution it ones examined are genuine problems for both con- envisages, and conclude with the resurrection of temporary philosophy and psychology, and that Platonic doctrine in psycholinguistics. Running their resolution, in one or another manner, must be throughout is the rather disheartening theme that a prime task of both disciplines. These problems we have not learned much about these problems in are, first, the nature and role of abstract entities somewhat over 2,000 years of reflective thought. in knowledge and the learning process, and second, That is, my task is to convince one that the Platonic the "productivity" or "creativity" of behavior. Let solutions, inadequate though they may be, are still us develop them by considering a stylized version of their presentation in the Meno. 1 A number of colleagues and students have greatly im- The dialogue begins with the questions, "Can proved this article by their constructive criticism. Those virtue be taught? Or is it acquired by practice? to whom the author is most indebted are C. N. Cofer, T. If neither, then how?" This is traditionally a Halwes, D. S. Palermo, and N. P. Young. Obviously, they cannot be held responsible for the final result. jumping-off point for inquiries into ethics and value Requests for reprints should be sent to Walter B. Weimer, theory, or into the problems of education. But it Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, should be noticed that virtue, or justice, etc., are 417 Psychology Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802. "abstract entities." And Plato, speaking through AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST January 1973 15 Socrates, protests that he does not know the mean- and we cannot know anything unless we have al- ing of such abstract terms. Yet, both Socrates ready learned (come to know) it. How, then, are and Meno feel that they can recognize instances of, human knowledge and learning possible? say, virtuous behavior. For any given behavior, they can tell whether it is or is not virtuous. Al- Plato's Solution: The Doctrine of Forms though they do not know what the abstract concept means, and cannot define it, they can identify and the Doctrine of Anamnesis particular instances of it. Plato considered these "paradoxes" spurious. He But now the perplexity arises: How can one know had a formulation of the nature of knowledge and a part of virtue (an instance of virtuous behavior) a theory of learning that rendered these paradoxical without previously knowing virtue in the whole results explainable. His theory of knowledge ac- (abstract)? How can people know a part of some- corded a fundamental role to abstract entities, the thing they do not know? Socrates and Meno admit "essences" of things (Platonic forms), and it held that such a result cannot obtain. And yet their that the mind is acquainted primarily with abstract analysis demands that such a result obtain, for concepts, and acquainted only derivatively with otherwise we could not know anything. The di- concrete particulars. His theory of learning pro- lemma takes this form: A man cannot inquire posed that all so-called learning is actually remem- either about what he knows, or about that which bering, that there is no real "learning" at all. This he does not know; for if he already knows, there is the doctrine of anamnesis (recollections). is no need for inquiry, and if he does not know, he The doctrine of jorms is presupposed in the Meno does not know the very subject about which he is rather than formulated or explicated. The Platonic to inquire. This is the paradox of knowing in the epistemology is essentialism (Popper, 1963): true Meno: We cannot learn (come to know) anything knowledge is a description of the ultimate nature unless we already know (have learned) it. or "essence" of things—the reality which lies be- The second problem arises from the famous pas- hind appearances. Behind every appearance (thing sage in which Socrates demonstrates seemingly in- in the material world) lies an ultimate reality (es- nate and unknown capacity or knowledge in Meno's sence) which is "known" by the intellect in pos- "uneducated" slave boy. This is the passage in session of its truth. Plato distinguished three which Socrates, the original master of the Socratic worlds or realms of being: the first world, the method, succeeds in getting the slave to prove a theorem in geometry (that the square twice as world of material objects; the second world, the large as a given square has a side equal to the world of psychological awareness; and the third diagonal of the given square), despite the boy's world, the world of forms, essences, or ultimate protestations that he does not know the answer. realities. True knowledge and primary being reside By reiterating simple facts that the slave admits in the third world; the material things of the first he does already know, Socrates has him prove the world have derivative or secondary existential theorem by himself, a feat the boy had thought was status. If we, as creatures of the second world, beyond his powers. But now the problem arises: happen to exercise our faculties correctly and hap- how can one be aware, or have knowledge, of things pen to be lucky, we will glimpse the essences in the of which one is not aware? How can one exhibit a third world. For a Platonist, the function of knowledge of things for which one's prior learning scientific theory (as true explanation) is to deny experience has given no preparation? This is the the status of reality to appearances, and to derive paradox of learning (or productivity or creativity): them (lawfully) from the underlying level of forms, the novel but appropriate behavior that constitutes which alone constitutes reality. "creativity" is not based on past experiences. Anamnesis dovetails nicely with the doctrine of Whenever we learn something new, that knowledge forms. The doctrine of recollections states that cannot be based on learning (prior experience). there is no learning (of essences), only remem- The two paradoxes dovetail in a distressing man- brance. It hinges on the immortality of the soul. ner, because of the obvious relation between learn- For if the soul, as a denizen of the third world, is ing and knowing. We cannot learn anything new immortal, then it already knows everything there is unless we already know it (by some other means), to know. This is the text of the Meno: 16 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGIST January 1973 The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born To combat nativism, Aristotle needed a mecha- again many times, and having seen all things that exist, nism of the mind that rendered memory, or recol- whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge lection, explainable without resorting to a trans- of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to rememberance all that she ever knew about virtue, cendent soul. This he found in associationism, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the which he "borrowed" from Plato. Aristotle claimed soul has learned all things, there is no difficulty in her that the sequence of cognitive events is not ran- eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection dom, but rather sequentially organized: habit and all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for necessity of connection are the organizational prin- all inquiry and all learning is but recollection [Sesonske & Fleming, 1965, p.
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