COLLOQUIUM 4
THE METHOD OF HYPOTHESIS IN THE MENO
HUGH H. BENSON
The Meno has long been considered a transitional Platonic dialogue. In• deed, Gregory Vlastos once maintained that he could identify the precise point in the dialogues where the historical Socrates (interpreted by Plato) gave off and Plato (on his own) began-Meno SOd-e. I am less sanguine than I once was about this historical and developmental claim. But that the Meno marks a break with the so-called elenctic dialogues appears secure.' At Meno SOd-e, Plato has first Meno and then Socrates pose a challenge that the readers of the elenctic dialogues have been wanting to pose for some time. For Socrates' immediate goal in those dialogues is eliminating the interlocutor's false conceit of knowledge.2 And yet, it is clear that Soc• rates' purpose in eliminating the interlocutor's false conceit is to encour• age the interlocutor to seek the knowledge he has been shown to lack. 3 But how is such a search to take place given Socrates' repeated claims to be ignorant as well? Socrates' only explicit recommendation is that one should seek out someone who knows and learn from him. But if no one with the requisite knowledge is to be found, how is one to proceed? In• deed, is progress even possible? This is the problem Meno raises in re-
1 The historical and developmental claims have been the subject of substantial debate, especially since Y1astos' bold and extreme expressions of them in Vlastos ( 1991 ). Accord• ing to Vlastos, the philosophical views found in the elenctic dialogues and those found in the middle dialogues could not have simultaneously inhabited the brain of anyone other than a schizophrenic. Indeed, bold and extreme expressions, for which Vlastos is justly famous, while perhaps less likely to be true are productive of lively, healthy, and productive debates. I confess here to a more moderate version of these claims of the sort expressed by the likes of Brickhouse and Smith (1994), Irwin (1995), and Nehamas (1999), to name a few. (Cf. Benson 2000:7-10). For the purposes of this essay, however, it makes no difference whether Plato's introduction of Meno's paradox, the theory of recollection, and the method of hy• pothesis in the Meno is a consequence of his philosophical development, his desire to dis• tance himself from the philosophical views of the historical Socrates, or his piecemeal dis• play of a fully worked-out philosophical theory. What is important is that these three fea• tures occur in the Meno together, and one wants to know how-if at all-they are related. By the elcnctic dialogues I mean those dialogues which have also been described as "early" or "aporetic": Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Ewhyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Ma• jor, Hippias Minor, !on, Laches, Lyvis, and Protagoras. 2 For a defense of this way of reading th'e elenctic dialogues see, for example, Benson (2000). 3 See Meno 84a-c. 96 HUGH BENSON
sponse to Socrates' encouragement to join him in the search for knowl• edge of the nature of virtue tliat both he and Meno have professed to lack.4 The problem has come to be known as Meno's paradox. (Tl)MENO: In what way, Socrates, will you search for that thing which you do not know at all what it is? What sort of thing, of those things you do not know will you set up as the object of your search? Or even if you should hap• pen upon it, how will you know that this is what you didn't know? (Kat Tiva Tp6rcov sTJTTJGEl~, ro LWKpaT£~, TOUTO 0 llll otcr8a 10 rcaparcav on EG