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Meno full text

the key passage:

Men. And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?

Soc. I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome dispute you are introducing. You argue that man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the, very subject about which he is to enquire.

Men. Well, Socrates, and is not the argument sound?

Soc. I think so.

Men. Why?

Soc. I will tell you why: I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of things divine.

Men. What did they say?

Soc. They spoke of a glorious truth.

Men. What was it? and who were they?

Soc. Some of them were priests and priestesses, who had studied how they might be able to give a reason of their profession: there have been poets also, who spoke of these things by inspiration, like Pindar, and many others who were inspired. And they say-mark, now, and see whether their words are true-they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness. ...The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things; there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection -all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle; and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the nature of virtue.

Men. Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me how this is?

Soc. I told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that there is no teaching, but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in a contradiction.

Men. Indeed, Socrates, I protest that I had no such intention.

Flannery O'Connor on the world and fiction:

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

The basic experience of everyone is the experience of human limitation.

The main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life.

Wordsworth: Intimations Ode

• How is Wordsworth's poem similar to Meno?
• How is poetry a kind of "knowing"? What's the difference between knowing the truths of science and knowing the truths of poetry?

"Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines" by Dylan Thomas

The cow in the field

Farmer Field is concerned about his prize cow, Daisy. In fact, he is so concerned that when his dairyman tells him that Daisy is in the field happily grazing, he says he needs to know for certain. He doesn’t want just to have a 99 per cent idea that Daisy is safe, he wants to be able to say that he knows Daisy is okay.

Farmer Field goes out to the field and standing by the gate sees in the distance, behind some trees, a white and black shape that he recognizes as his favorite cow. He goes back to the dairy and tells his friend that he knows Daisy is in the field.

At this point, does Farmer Field really know it?

The dairyman says he will check too, and goes to the field. There he finds Daisy, having a nap in a hollow, behind a bush, well out of sight of the gate. He also spots a large piece of black and white paper that has got caught in a tree.

Daisy is in the field, as Farmer Field thought. But was he right to say that heknewshe was?

Deep Thought speaks for itself

Mr Megasoft had always loved computers, so it should have come as no surprise to his live-in girlfriend and children to find, after he disappeared into space, apparently on a space yacht, that he intended, after his death, to leave all his considerable monies to his most powerful computer, known as Deep Thought. It shouldn’t have done, but it did. When, in his absence, the children came across this fact in a carelessly left unencrypted computer file, they were furious, and vowed to protect their inheritance by legal means.

The Megasoft children, and ‘de facto’, all end up in court, where their lawyers argue that Mr Megasoft was unable to leave any money to a computer because it is not really alive. It is, they say, incapable of benefiting, being only a lump of metal, plastic and glass. The jury think this a very fair point, but Mr Megasoft’s own lawyers demand that Deep Thought be given the same rights as organic thinkers, adding that any discrimination on the grounds of the materials one is made of may be contrary to the Constitution. (The lawyers even ask the Judge, to angry mutterings around the courtroom, to allow them to cross-examine the Megasoft family to find out whether they are really thinking beings, or just a collection of genetically and socially programmed responses.) They say that Deep Thought is capable of thinking and having views for itself.

But can they prove it?