'Meno' Summary

Socrates challenges Meno's argument, often called "Meno's Paradox" or the "Learner's Paradox," by introducing the theory of knowledge as recollection (anamnesis). As presented in the dialogue, the theory proposes that souls are immortal and know all things in a disembodied state; learning in the embodied is actually a process of recollecting that which the soul knew before it came into a body. Socrates demonstrates recollection in action by posing a mathematical puzzle to one of Meno's slaves. Subsequently, Socrates and Meno return to the question of whether virtue is teachable, employing the method of hypothesis. Near the end of the dialogue, Meno poses another famous puzzle, called "The Meno Problem" or "The Value Problem for Knowledge," which questions why knowledge is valued more highly than true belief. In response, Socrates provides a famous and somewhat enigmatic distinction between knowledge and true belief.