Meno’s Paradox, Socrates Response AND Its Implication Essay Sample

The paradox of Meno, also known as the paradox of inquiry, is an argument, which implies that an individual cannot come to know something that is unknown to them. Hence, the inquiry does not produce new knowledge but only serves to repeat things that are already known; hence, leading to the famous Doctrine of Recollection. The argument can be reformulated as follows; if you know, what you are in search of, an inquest will be pointless if you do not discern or have no idea of what you are after. In addition, analysis is impossible; therefore, implying that an inquiry is either unmanageable or needless. Thus, the paradox presents an implicit argument that either you do or you do not know what it is you are searching. The interesting side of the paradox, which is, if one knows what he or she is looking for, is often used ambiguously; as a result, committing the delusion of vagueness.
It is understood that this paradox questions the very means of Socrates arrival at the knowledge of unknown things via inquiry. Socrates then responds by stating that what Meno really wanted to do by this is state a debater’s argument presented as, if Socrates does not really know what he is doing, there is no need to do it. In addition, if he knows what he is doing, there is still no need to do it. The response by Socrates is that he knows what Meno wants to say. The implication of the response is a giveaway that the claims by Socrates that he does not know are out rightly fallacious, as he has just responded to knowing what Meno is thinking. It also gives rise to the Theory of Recollection by Socrates. Thus, he engages one slave of Meno in dialogue showing that he, the slave, could display knowledge of things he possibly could never have learned in order to show that nature is interconnected. With the recollection theory being unsatisfactory, the paradox of inquiry remains in science, investing, inventing, and risk analysis.