Meno's puzzle has generally, and, as I believe,
erroneously been taken to represent merely a
bit of typical sophistic logic-chopping. Shorey,
for example, refers to it as 'this eristic and lazy
argument. '3 Taylor's comment on the passage
is that, 'At this point Meno again tries to run
off on an irrelevant issue. He brings up the
sophistic puzzle. . . . etc. '4 And Ritter asserts
in similar vein that Meno 'encumbers the inves-
tigation with the proposition advanced by the
eristies, that there is no sense in looking for
something which one does not already know.
As over against all such interpretations of
Meno's paradox as irrelevant eristic, I wish to
submit the thesis that the objection is perfectly
germane in the context of the problem being
discussed-namely the nature of ethical knowl-
edge-and that, moreover, the entire passage is
one of real philosophical import and is basic for
understanding the Theory of Ideas and the re-
lated notion of Reminiscence. Far from being
solely an instance of sophistic eristic, it contains
in embryo one of the essential contentions of
sophistic nominalism as a philosophical position,
and it raises a problem which the Theory of
Ideas is designed to meet, and which it must
meet if it is to have any plausibility whatso-
ever.
The seriousness with which Plato re-
garded the puzzle is shown by his invoking of
the Myth of Reminiscence in order to reply to it.
It is inconceivable that he should have gone to
this length to meet an argument which he viewed
as a mere sophism.
