Fall Quarter, 2003
Seminar Workshop -
Meno
Workshop
on the Meno:
What is learning? What is teaching? Can anything be “taught”?
(A
revision by Thad Curtz and Sherry Walton of Don Finkel's Meno
Workshop)
Divide
into groups of five. Select one member of your group to be a scribe and
another member to be a timekeeper. Each question below should be discussed
as a group; the group should try to agree on an answer to each in
the time allotted, and the scribe should write it down for possible later
report. The timekeeper's job is to keep an eye on the time and keep the
group from getting behind in the sequence (please work through the steps
sequentially).Scribes and timekeepers
also participate fully in the discussion. In addition, everyone should
take notes for their own use.
1.
(10 min.) Here
is a reasonable account of Meno's motivation at the very start of the dialogue.Meno
is a stranger in town, a guest, and he is a great admirer, perhaps even
a student, of the sophist, Gorgias. (Check and see if everyone in the group
agrees on the definition of "sophist"). He seeks out the man he has heard
is one of the most famous sophists in Athens in order to see how he measures
up to Gorgias. In order to make the comparison, he poses a typical "debater's
question" of the day, expecting Socrates to respond to it with a fancy
speech, well crafted, persuasive, and eloquent. He will then be able to
compare Socrates with Gorgias, and report the results home to his friends
who have perhaps heard rumors of the Athenian, Socrates. The results will
either enhance Gorgias' reputation or Socrates'.
Take
turns and read the first page and half of the text out-loud, up to the
place (71e) where Meno defines virtue.Then
discuss each of the following questions.Remember,
your scribe will write down the conclusions the group arrives at.
a.
What has happened? How has Socrates responded to Meno's straightforward
request?
b.
Find and describe three specific "ploys" that Socrates uses in order to
turn the conversation in a direction (or toward a purpose) different from
the one Meno had in mind.
c.
What is the importance of the line, "Let us leave Gorgias out of it, since
he is not here"? Discuss the implications of this statement, and summarize
them in writing.
2
. (10 min.)
Once Meno agrees to try to define virtue, he gives Socrates a list of virtues
(71e). This list is basically a list of cultural values; it represents
the common sense of the culture.
a.
Why is Socrates not satisfied with a list (any list) for an answer?
b.
How does the image of the swarm of bees (72a) help Socrates get his objection
across to Meno?
c.
Aside from the logical point Socrates is making, what else is suggested
by a swarm of bees? What are the connotations (suggestive associations)
of this image and what might they suggest to an astute listener?
d.
How about the responses all of you wrote to, "Learning is . . . ." Share
your responses with each other.Would
Socrates be as equally dissatisfied with your collective responses as he
was with Meno's list?Do his logical
objection and whatever you think the other objections implied by the image
of the swarm of bees may be, apply to your collective lists as well as
to Meno's?
3.
(5 min.) After
Meno persists in not grasping the distinction between "a virtue" and "virtue,"
Socrates shifts to the example of shape to try to make the issue more concrete.
On p. 7 he asks Meno the same question about shape that he had previously
asked about virtue. Meno then employs a typical student strategy. He tries
to get the teacher to answer his own question ("No, Socrates, but you tell
me").
a.
How does Socrates respond to this request?
b.
Why do you think Socrates agrees to define shape and color, rather than
pressing Meno to do the hard work?
4.
(15 min.) Socrates
gets Meno to stick to his end of the deal and define virtue. Meno gives
a poet's answer (77b) and Socrates proceeds to show him in a step by step
fashion the illogical consequences of his definition. He ends this sequence
with
a typical Socratic request: "Answer me again then from the beginning:
What do you and your friend say that virtue is?"(p. 12) This work is getting
too hard for Meno and he wants to quit. First he compares Socrates to a
sting ray (a "torpedo fish") and then he presents as an objection to the
inquiry, or to any inquiry, a debater's paradox (80d): "How will you look
for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is?" This is a crucial
point in the dialogue, since Meno wants to quit, and, from Socrates' point
of view, they are still at the beginning.
Socrates
responds in two ways:
4a.
The first is that he tells Meno a myth ("I have heard wise men and women
talk about divine matters ..." p. 13)
i)
What is the myth?
ii)
What is the point of the myth?
iii)
Find and cite the exact sentences of Socrates that explain the point of
the myth and his reason for "trusting" that it is true.
4b.
The second response Socrates gives is to arrange a dramatic enactment of
the myth of recollection. This is the famous episode where Socrates supposedly
elicits mathematical knowledge from the slave boy. Remembering where and
why this
incident
occurs in the conversation with Meno, what would you say is the point of
this demonstration? What does Socrates accomplish by going through this
dramatic enactment of the myth of recollection?
5.
(10 min.) On
p. 20 (86d) Meno agrees to go on, but employs another student tactic to
make his work easier: He suggests substituting a different question for
the one under consideration, one that is likely to be easier. He wishes
to pursue questions in the wrong order, trying to determine whether virtue
can be taught even before he knows what virtue is. What is Socrates response
to this request? Does this surprise you? Why do you suppose Socrates proceeds
as he does at this moment?
6.
(10 min.) Finally,
on p. 22, Meno and Socrates seem to have gotten somewhere. Reasoning "from
a hypothesis," they have arrived together at the conclusion which Meno
states: "Necessarily, as I now think, Socrates, and clearly, on your
hypothesis,
if virtue is knowledge, it can be taught." (89c)
a.
What is Socrates' immediate response to this happy moment?
b.
Why does he take the hard-won conclusion that Meno states away from him?
c.
Why do you think he went through the difficult argument to establish the
conclusion Meno states above, when he could have, from the beginning, brought
out the easy argument that good men' s obvious inability to make their
sons good shows
that
virtue is not teachable, hence not knowledge?
Take
a 10 minute break!
1.
What kind of a learner is Meno? Write a brief summarizing description.
What “theory” or personal beliefs are you using to characterize Meno?
2.
What kind of a teacher is Socrates? Write a brief summarizing description.
. What “theory” or personal beliefs are you using to characterize Socrates?
3.
List 7 specific strategies Socrates uses to try to get Meno to pursue a
genuine intellectual inquiry. (Do this by going back to the moments we
have examined, and naming or describing each specific " ploy," "move" or
"strategy" Socrates employs.)
4.
Get out any notes you have accumulated so far about what learning is,
how it occurs, and the conditions that support it (from seminar
Weeks 1 & 2, from your texts, from computer workshops, from the Learning
Styles Workshop, from the Brain Theory Workshop, from Meeting of the Minds,
from your own notes about learning). Compile a 3 column group list.
b.What
characteristics on your joint list does Socrates not
seem to acknowledge?
c.Could
you say that he dedicates himself to proceeding in direct opposition to
a good many of them?
d.Would
Jensen’s discussion of brain function and learning support or refute Socrates’
approach?
Yet
not only Plato and the other students who encountered him personally, but
a steady stream of readers in the 2,500 years since his death have believed
him to be a powerful and remarkable teacher... How do you explain this
apparent difficulty?What do Lippman
and Matthews have to say that might explain why Socrates is considered
to be such a powerful teacher?
e.Are
your collective statements about learning, knowledge? True belief? A swarm
of bees?
5.
What, if anything, did Meno learn from his conversation with Socrates?
6.
Did Meno learn anything about virtue from the conversation?
7.
Was learning about virtue the point of the exchange or did Socrates have
something else in mind that he hoped Meno would learn?
8.
Do you think one can learn to be good? Do you think one can learn how to
be a good learner or a good teacher? Do you think someone can teach someone
else to be a good learner or teacher?Relate
your answer to Socrates’ and Meno’s experience with teaching and learning?
9.
You have just been involved in a facilitated discussion.In
this case, the “teacher” is the workshop itself.It
was written and revised by faculty members who have listened many times
to students discussing the Menoand
who have developed a pretty good idea of the kinds of questions that puzzle
participants. Thus, the questions in the workshop have evolved over time
and are intended to help guide participants in their explorations.According
to Lippman, was your discussion a philosophical discussion or a scientific
discussion?Both? Neither?Explain.
Take
a 10 minute break!
Come
back to the whole seminar.Be prepared
to tell us the most illuminating moment for you (as an individual) from
your group's discussion this morning.