BOOK REVIEWS

Plato’s Meno. By Dominic Scott. Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato.Pp. x, 238, Cambridge University Press, 2006, d50.00/$90.00.

Plato’s Meno contains a number of important and interesting theses in a short span.Ostensibly a discussion of virtue, it also covers the famous theory of recollection andequally famous ‘method of hypothesis’, Meno’s paradox, definition, the immortalityof the human soul, and the distinction between knowledge and belief. Readers mightwell wonder whether the brief arguments that support these theses are any good, andwhether there is a single unifying theme to the dialogue. Scott aims to address boththese puzzles: he discusses the main arguments one by one, invariably in a spirit ofcharity, and argues that the dialogue is ‘dominated’ (p. 214), if not exactly unified, bya concern with moral education. Scott covers the stages of the dialogue sequentially,chapter by chapter. Rather than summarizing the book’s contents, what follows aresome highlights.Scott is not only an astute philosopher; he is also sensitive to the dramatic aspects of

the dialogue (such as the reasons for the abrupt introduction of Anytus) and thecharacterization of Meno. In fact, this is one of the chief factors that lead him toconclude that the dialogue is concerned with moral education (others being moreobvious, such as the lesson in definition that Socrates delivers in 73c–77b). At thebeginning, Meno is portrayed as a true follower of Gorgias, in the sense that he has alow tolerance for philosophical discussion, and wants superficial sophistic definitionsthat will allow him to make impressive assertions. This ‘intellectual laziness’ (p. 60)leads him constantly to obstruct Socrates’ search for a definition of virtue. Scottcleverly highlights Socrates’ tactics in dealing with Meno, above all his use of mini-dialogues within the main work: as Socrates interviews the slave and Anytus, Meno issupposed to see himself reflected in each interlocutor. By the end of the dialogue,Meno is beginning to think for himself, and even to do some recollection: he is on theway to true belief, the first stage towards knowledge.Many commentators on Meno have seen the dialogue as ‘transitional’ – that is, as

representing a period in Plato’s thinking when he was beginning to reflect on hisSocratic inheritance and even begin to criticize it. Scott finds four occasions in thisdialogue when Socrates is ‘on trial’, as he puts it. First, the Socrates of Plato’s earliestdialogues seems to believe, for a wide range of significant attributes, that the existenceof the single term in the language meaningfully reflects the existence of a singleessence. The Socrates of Meno still holds this univocalist view, but has to argue for itrather than merely take it for granted, as in other dialogues. Second, and extremelyfundamentally, Plato seems to be having doubts about the value of the Socraticelenchus. We may distrust Meno’s image of Socrates as a ‘stingray’, who numbs hisinterlocutors (79e–80b), but Plato does prolong the dialogue past the usual stopping-point of aporia, as if he were no longer sure that aporia is a sufficient end in itself.Third, then, the hypothetical method is precisely a method of addressing issues theSocratic elenchus leaves untouched.The fourth point requires a little more elaboration, since it has to do with the

complexities surrounding Meno’s famous and much-interpreted ‘paradox’. Scott’smain contribution here is to argue that the doctrine of recollection is not introduced

r The author 2007. Journal compilation r Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered 2007. Published byBlackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600GarsingtonRoad, Oxford OX4 2DQ,UKand 350Main Street,Malden,MA 02148, USA.

HeyJ XLVIII (2007), pp. 614–683

as an attempt to resolve the paradox, but that there is a genuine problem lurkingwithin the paradox (at any rate, in its Socratic reformulation), which Socratesaddresses chiefly by means of the theory of recollection. This genuine problem arisesbecause Socrates holds two principles: that the acquisition of knowledge alwaysdepends on the prior possession of some other knowledge, and that in order to be ableto identify even instances of some moral quality, one has to know what that quality isand be able to define it. These two principles obviously conflict: in order to reach thekind of knowledge that is encapsulated in a definition, one should rely on priorknowledge, but there can be no such prior knowledge, because that would mean onecould already formulate the definition. This is a controversial area of Meno studies:many people, myself included, do not believe that Plato held such a strong version ofthe principle of the priority of definition. Be that as it may, Scott is surely right to seehere another case of Plato exploring, with a critical eye, earlier Socratic assumptions,here the possibility of moral inquiry.The three chapters devoted to the theory of recollection are outstanding. Chapter 8

(one of the shorter chapters Scott throws in from time to time) is an originaldiscussion of the background, and especially the religious dimension, of the theory ofrecollection, while Chapter 9 discusses the theory in itself, as demonstrated in thedialogue by means of the conversation with the slave (not necessarily a ‘boy’, as Scottand so many others assume, any more than in the bad old days in the southern statesof America a slave addressed as ‘boy’ was necessarily young). Scott’s charity hereleads him to deny that Socrates is asking leading questions, or rather to argue that thisis less important than the fact that Socrates is trying to get the slave to see not justitems of information, but the connections that obtain between them, and so to thinkfor himself to this extent. However, even Scott’s charity cannot quite extend to allaspects of the argument for immortality, which Scott reads as a first attempt,improved in subsequent dialogues. Chapter 10, another short one, rounds off thediscussion of recollection by arguing that it is not intended to be a myth or ametaphor, and that Plato fully believed in the moral benefits of believing the theory.Scott combines rigour with a pleasing spirit of charity and sensitivity in interpreting

Plato; he is often prepared to fill gaps in his arguments with plausible premises, or toargue for interpretations that leave Plato without too much egg on his face. He alsowrites extremely well and clearly, and students will find this book more of a boon thanany other English-language commentary on the dialogue. In this spirit, Scott focusesmainly on developing his own views (even when they coincide with those of others)through a close reading of the text, and rarely spends much time combatingalternative views – only a few of the most important. Some such discussion ofalternative views is held over for three appendixes.

Lakonia, Greece Robin Waterfield

The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies. By Roslyn Weiss. Pp. xii, 235, University ofChicago Press, 2006, $35.00/d22.50.

Roslyn Weiss loves to be iconoclastic (see reviews in HJ 39 (1998), pp. 480–2 and 44(2003), pp. 260–1), but she does at least have a clear vision: the Socrates that emergesfrom her recent books and articles is more or less devoid of philosophical doctrine,and has only a method of argumentation (or, Weiss would insist, of refutation).Weiss’s Socrates is not someone one would want to spend an evening with: he wouldhave nothing interesting to contribute to the discussion, except the ability to pickholes in what everyone else was saying.Weiss believes passionately that one should not take statements attributed by Plato

to Socrates out of context; this is a guiding principle in all her work. Stated thus

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