What You Can Learn from a Pyrrhonist: How the Equipollence between Sophistry and Recollection in the Meno Assists Reader Understanding, rather than Transmitting Epistemic Stability or Preceding Psychological Tranquility Plato s Meno is so engaging that we tend forget ourselves. We recognize at least two of Socrates s pupils, Meno and his attendant. And each pupil represents to us a different conception of teaching and learning: Socrates uses a series of somewhat leading questions to get the attendant to recollect (though not describe in exact words) a true belief about the basis of a square with area 8. Here, the attendant learns how to show Socrates the correct diagonal line through a fairly direct and formal process, in which a series of candidate hypotheses are quickly eliminated as unreasonable. In the surrounding discussion with Meno, Socrates also uses a series of questions to enervate his student with the aim of resolving the kind of property virtue would have to be and whether it is teachable. Socrates concludes that virtue would be neither an inborn quality nor taught, but comes to those who possess it as a gift from the gods which is not accompanied by understanding, unless there is someone among our statesmen who can make another into a statesman (99e) 1 Here, Meno seems to acquire a true belief about virtue through the process of Socratic elenchus, in which one floats a series of propositions, abandoning the ones that generate contradictions and retaining the propositions that do not. The differences between Socrates s interactions with Meno and his attendant have led some scholars to read the Meno as a dialogue primarily about two different conceptions of teaching and learning. 1 Plato, Meno, trans. G.M. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976).
2 Daniel Devereux, for example, suggests that by reading the dialogue as a contrast between Meno s narrow, sophistical conception of teaching, in which information, in the form of a set of propositions, is transferred directly from one person to another, 2 and Socrates s broader, Socratic conception of teaching, in which [l]earning is a process of drawing knowledge from oneself, 3 we can explain why Socrates says he does not teach Meno s attendant, despite their fruitful question- and- answer session, and why Socrates makes the extreme claim that there is no such thing as teaching. When Socrates says that teaching is impossible and that he does not teach the attendant, he is referring to the sophistical, and not the Socratic, conception of teaching. Socrates says what he does about teaching, so he won t confuse the particular student with which he is engaged: If Socrates argued that virtue is teachable, Meno would probably come away with the false opinion that it is teachable in the sophistical sense. [T]he argument does not establish, and it not intended to establish, that virtue is not teachable simpliciter. 4 On the Socratic conception, according to Devereux, there are two kinds of virtue, one equivalent to true opinion and the other equivalent to knowledge, and the latter is teachable, despite the fact that it is possessed by nature. 5 The conclusion of the Meno is simply that virtue cannot be taught in the way that the sophists claim to teach it. 6 In comparing what Socrates says about knowledge and teaching to his remarks about the beauty of his ugly features in Xenophon s Symposium, Gregory Vlastos suggests 2 Daniel Devereaux, Nature and Teaching in Plato s Meno, Phronesis 23:2 (1978): 125, note 7. 3 Devereux, 119. 4 Devereux, 123. 5 Devereux, 121. 6 Devereux, 123.
3 that Socrates is responsible for a new, unprecedented form of complex, as opposed to simple, irony: In simple irony, what is said is not what is meant. In complex irony what is said both is and isn t what is meant. Socrates disavowal of teaching should be understood as a complex irony. In the conventional sense, where to teach is simply to transfer knowledge from the teacher s to the learner s mind, Socrates means what he says: that sort of teaching he does not want to do and cannot do. But in the sense which he would give to teaching engaging would- be learners in elenctic argument to make them aware of their own ignorance and give them opportunity to discover for themselves the truth the teacher had held back on that sense of teaching Socrates would want to say he is a teacher, the best of teachers in his time, the only true teacher. 7 In the traditional sense of knowledge, which implies certainty, Socrates does not think there is even one moral proposition he can know. But when knowledge refers to something else for Vlastos, true belief justified through Socratic elenchus Socrates can know many propositions. 8 At times, it might seem to Plato s readers that Socrates is not teaching, because there are instances in which his students make mistakes, and Socrates fails to correct them. But Vlastos argues that these instances should not be read as indications that Socrates does not care, that he is not teaching. Rather, these instances tell us that Socrates cares more for something else, namely, that if you are to come to [knowledge of the truth] at all, it must be by yourself for yourself. 9 In learning, the student must always bear the burden that is, must do the cognitive work of understanding. Vlastos explains, [I]n almost everything we say we put a burden of interpretation on the hearer. When we speak a sentence, we do not add a gloss on how it should be read. We could not thus relieve the hearer of that burden, for that would be an endless business: 7 Gregory Vlastos Socratic Irony, The Classical Quarterly, 37 (1987): 86-87. 8 Vlastos, 86. 9 Vlastos, 95.
4 each gloss would raise the same problem and there would ne have to be gloss upon gloss ad infinitum. 10 Both Devereux and Vlastos distinguish a more rote sense of teaching, in which students blindly adopt their teachers true propositions, from a more mysterious one, in which students grow their own latent beliefs into knowledge, under the guidance of an expert teacher. So their work raises the question of what exactly happens in the latter case: Is understanding a state a student must achieve, or is it an activity? If a state, what kind of state? If an activity, what constraints regulate its performance? In order for a student to achieve the state or participate in the activity, what role must the teacher play? If the teacher must explain, in order to generate understanding, are her explanations a special kind of justification, or is explanation importantly different than justification? This paper agrees with M.F. Burnyeat 11 that the Meno is about explanation and understanding, rather than about justification and knowledge, but disagrees with Jonathan Barnes s 12 and Lee Frankin s 13 overly epistemic accounts of understanding. Understanding is not knowing the reason why, but participating in an interpretive, modeling activity. In understanding, we undergo a cognitive transformation that involves the recognition of local constraints. Before we understand, we can t even approach the question at hand, or begin an inquiry, because we have no sense of the options open to us. Once we have some sense of what the question is asking, more specifically, of the local alternatives available to 10 Vlastos, 95. 11 M.F. Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury: Paradoxes in Plato s Distinction between Knowledge and True Belief, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 54(1980): 173-191. 12 Jonathan Barnes, Socrates and the Jury: Paradoxes in Plato s Distinction between Knowledge and True Belief, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 54(1980): 193-206. 13 Lee Franklin, The Structure of Dialectic in the Meno, Phronesis 46:4 (2001): 413-439.
5 us, the contrast class of possibilities, we can start to pursue our investigations. Thus, understanding is not an endpoint, a finish line we cross when we finally possess a store of correct answers or true propositions. Understanding is what gets us into the race. Instead of reading the Meno as a dialogue in which the theory of Recollection offers some kind of solution to the Problem of the Criterion (79c), we should read the Meno against the background of Michael Williams s account of the role the Problem of the Criterion plays in Sextus Empiricus s Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Most theorists view the Problem of the Criterion out of context and in isolation. But Williams reads the Problem in its appropriate context, as one of two equipollent options, the other being the dogmatism of the epistemologist who attempts to propose theories of truth and knowledge. In the Meno, when Socrates worries about our ability to recognize the instances of virtue without knowing its definition or criterion, we should experience this devastating problem along with the dogmatic theory of Recollection, instead of viewing the latter anachronistically as a transcendental solution to the former, as a regulative myth that makes it possible for us to be better, braver and less idle (86c). 14 Once we see Plato s early version of the Problem of the Criterion and the theory of Recollection side by side, as equipollent, we can see how the Meno transforms its third student the reader by helping her to understand a very deep question. Through the contrast between the intractable skepticism generated by high standards of scrutiny, on the one hand, and the divine accident that makes possible Recollection, on the other, Plato helps his readers grasp the question: Should we languish, in epistemic safety, or attempt to develop, under epistemic risk? A correct answer to this question would be a product (in particular, a proposition with special qualities). And we 14 As Dennis Rohatyn does in his Reflections on Meno s Paradox, Apeiron 14:2 (1980): 71.
6 find no such correct answer to this question in the Meno. But we do gain something very important by entering in to the dialogue and inhabiting its particular space of equipollent options. And it is not the tranquility (ataraxia) that follows upon suspense (epochê). Rather, in recognizing the two options Plato offers, we come to understand a question that was previously invisible. We undergo a cognitive transformation after which we can start to see some of the relevant activities we might perform in this context. By experiencing the opposing positions raised by an expert dialectician by coming to understand the possibility space we re in we come to some understanding about what we can do. In short, Socrates does not teach us in the Meno by transmitting stable/justified propositions, by giving us correct answers (i.e. accurate recipes to cook). Rather, Plato generates understanding in his readers by having Socrates, Meno and his attendant model a long habituated skill, the chef- like skill of generating, recognizing, and operating within previously unlisted/inexplicit constraints. In Socrates and the Jury, Burnyeat considers the question of whether true opinions about the right thing to do, that is, true beliefs without justifications, are enough to ensure that our actions use the potential goods of our minds and bodies in the best ways. 15 Although this paper focuses on the Theaetetus, Burnyeat s arguments suggest that what we hope for, as theoretical and practical decision- makers, is not that we locate good grounds for our true beliefs, but that we are given enough time to produce adequate explanations for our beliefs, instead of simply retaining those beliefs we find to be effective means to various ends. We do not want our beliefs merely to serve as good tools in certain unique 15 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 175.
7 situations, for these tools might fly away (98a) when the situation changes. We want our beliefs to be tied down, to contribute to our understanding. Burnyeat writes, [I]t has been a matter for surprise to some modern commentators that [w]hat Part III [of the Theaetetus] adds to true judgment or belief is logos in the sense of an explanatory account which answers the question what something is not an account that answers the epistemological question Why, on what grounds do you believe that p? 16 But this is not at all surprising to those who recognize that Plato does not think true belief becomes knowledge with the addition of some one set of good grounds i.e. the grounds but with the addition of a set of reasons appropriate to the subject matter of the true belief. 17 Burnyeat argues we can come to know what scientists know, even when we come know what scientists know in different ways than they do, and even when we come to know what scientists know in ways that do not involve their testimony. Justification is important to us when we want to get to the truth, but once we have a true belief, our primary interest is in understanding that true belief, in locating an explanation, [a]nd here conditions of appropriateness are in order. 18 The paradoxes of the Theaetetus are easily resolved once we grasp the pragmatic aspect of explanation and understanding, as opposed to the universal notion justification: Much of what Plato says about knowledge and it relation to true opinion falls into place if we read him, not as misdescribing the concept which philosophers now analyze in terms of justified true belief, but as elaborating a richer concept of knowledge tantamount to understanding. 19 He recalls that Meno s central condition on knowledge, aitas logismos (98a), means working out the explanation of 16 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 180. 17 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 183. 18 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 186. 19 Emphasis added. Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 186.
8 something, rather than assembling a justification for believing it. 20 And, later in Plato s Republic, he notes that the epistemic aim is clarity, rather than certainty. Devereux and Vlastos address Socrates s claims not to teach Meno or his attendant (80d, 82a, 84d, 85c) by suggesting there are two conceptions of teaching at play in the dialogue. In Devereux s Socratic sense, according to Vlastos, learners have a lot of their own cognitive work to do. Burnyeat agrees: [U]nderstanding is not transmissable in the same sense as knowledge is. It is not the case that in normal contexts of communication the expression of understanding imparts understanding to one s hearer as the expression of knowledge can and often does impart knowledge. 21 A student does not understand by being told, by having something explained to her. In order to understand, I need to see it for myself, not as a perceiver would gaze upon a blackboard, but in whatever manner is appropriate to the thing I have to understand. 22 Franklin picks up on Burnyeat s insight that Plato s ultimate interest is in understanding, rather than justification. Franklin is concerned to oppose a group of critics, including Gregory Vlastos, Terence Irwin, Gail Fine, and Alexander Nehamas, who describe the philosophical method of the Meno as an elenchus, in which a series of contradictory propositions are elicited in order to show that Meno does not know what virtue is. 23 In contrast, Franklin views the Meno as a dialectic in which the object is to understand a property, rather than to leave the conversation with a consistent collection of propositions. He writes, The goal of dialectic is understanding, not victory. The dialectician must work around the things her partner does not know instead of taking competitive advantage of 20 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 187. 21 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 186. 22 Burnyeat, Socrates and the Jury, 186. 23 Lee Franklin, The Structure of Dialectic in the Meno, Phronesis 46:4 (2001): 414.
9 that ignorance. This ensures that the partner is learning, and enables him to contribute as well. 24 He also revisits Burnyeat s insight that getting a student to understand requires, on the part of the teacher, special attention to the student s particular epistemic situation. According to Socrates, when discussing a worthwhile issue with a friend, the answers must not only be true, but in terms admittedly known to the questioner (75d). For example, in the early discussion of shape, Socrates checks with Meno to ensure that he is familiar with limits and solids (75e). Dialectic requires that participants first are familiar with the property named by that word. Once Meno is familiar with the subject, he can think and speak generally about the property, discuss its relations to other properties, become familiar with other properties through it, and, most importantly, ask meaningfully and productively what the property is. 25 In other words, at the start of the dialogue, Socrates isn t testing for justification or certainty in Meno s views. Although he uses the word know, he isn t really testing for knowledge of any kind. He just wants to be sure that Meno has heard planes, solids, and eyes so that he ll comprehend when Socrates refers to these things in his account. 26 The first definition of shape that which alone of existing things always follows color (75b) does not identify the essence of shape, but rather fixes participants attention on a single topic, narrowing one s dialectical focus to 24 Franklin, 417. Thus, when critics object that the slave is not recollecting, because his frequent yes indicates that Socrates is feeding the slave information, Franklin would likely respond that, in these cases, Socrates is giving the slave the opportunity to show Socrates what the slave does and does not understand, so Socrates is assured that dialectic is possible. 25 Frankin, 420. 26 Frankin, 418-19.
10 Shape and Shape alone. 27 Franklin allows that, later in the dialogue, the participants may decide to abandon their initial account: Philosophy begins in our everyday experience with the world, and our ordinary ability to speak and think about it. Our inquiry must begin from what we know and have experienced, even if that perspective is unique, and limited, and in some ways incorrect. 28 As we approach the end of the dialogue, Socrates s dialectical requirement develops. Instead of familiarity, he requires what Franklin suggests is full- fledged understanding. Meno must be able to give a non- circular account of virtue, an account of the reason why (98a), one in terms of other properties, arranged in a certain, objective epistemological order. 29 When giving such an account, in contrast to the earlier sections of the dialogue, Franklin claims it does not matter who is listening, for there is only one correct account. This elevated form of understanding is the same from person to person. 30 He explains: To be something is to have a stable and determinate essence. To know something, therefore, is to know this essence. Plato s view of philosophical knowledge as stable, explanatory, and discursive reflects his view of essences that are determinate, fixed, and inter- related. 31 Plato recognizes at least two forms of this more objective kind of understanding, according to Franklin. When it comes to virtue, we can understand what virtue is and how virtue behaves. The first kind of understanding involves knowing the essence of virtue. With this knowledge, one can explain why seemingly various particulars all count as 27 Frankin, 427-28. 28 Frankin, 429. 29 Frankin, 422-23. 30 Frankin, 422. 31 Frankin, 426.
11 virtuous. The second, derivative kind of understanding involves the features characteristic of virtue. When one has this kind of understanding, one can see how the essence of virtue guarantees that the property of virtue will itself have certain properties. Virtue might have the property of being teachable, for example. Franklin believes that the Meno moves from the first dialectical requirement, learner familiarity, original level of grasp, or ordinary linguistic competence, 32 to the second, learner understanding or full grasp of the truth. Dialectic is a process in which we undergo a cognitive transformation. We progress from a lesser kind of comprehension to a better one. 33 Thus, for Franklin, Recollection becomes the process by which we recall our ordinary linguistic habits, i.e. the things we tend to say. These habits then operate as data to constrain our searches for essences that adequately explain these habits. 34 If our philosophical account of the essence of virtue is not consistent with the things we tend to say about the property of virtue, we are forced to modify our account. 35 Burnyeat says something similar and reminds that, in any particular dialectical discussion, we need not develop our theory to cover or account for all things said about the property, but only for those that the proponent of a definition himself acknowledges. 36 He writes that, in general, Socratic discussions typically examine the internal coherence of an interlocutor s views: His definition, proposing a general criterion for the concept under discussion, is tested against his examples and any other relevant beliefs of his that Socrates may extract; 32 Frankin, 430. 33 Frankin, 429. 34 This is why Franklin s two stages of dialectic, though different, are nevertheless continuous. Both at the first stage of familiarity and at the second stage of understanding, the learner has the resources within herself to improve her understanding (Franklin, 439). 35 Frankin, 430-35. 36 M. F. Burnyeat, Examples in Epistemology: Socrates, Theatetus and G.E Moore, Philosophy 52:202 (1977): 385.
12 and it is standardly refuted either by Socrates showing that it leads to indisputable absurdity or by counter- example 37 Franklin emphasizes, however, that [t]he dialectical process is not dictated by our pre- philosophical claims. Although we build and test our account on these claims, it is vital in the end that our intuitive understanding of the property directs and revised these statements, rather than the other way around. 38 We are to locate an account that not only best accords with our judgments about what bears the property in question, what features accompany the property, what is involved in having the property, and how the property is related to other properties, 39 but one which explains these judgments. To accomplish this, we move back and forth between general speculation and specific cases, from making changes at the level of the account to making revisions in the phenomena the account is supposed to explain. And we continue until we reach equilibrium, the state in which the definition is consistent with all the cases one admits to be instances, general features, and species of the property, the state in which one feels no pressure to make revisions. 40 Franklin has done much to develop an account of student understanding in the Meno. Where Burnyeat argues that Plato s characters seeks understanding, rather than good grounds, Frankin actually gives us an account of what such understanding might require. And I agree with the way he casts Plato s ontology and epistemology: to know something, for Plato, surely is to know its essence. But I do not think Plato has ontological or epistemological concerns in the Meno. Franklin was right to read the Meno as a dialogue in pursuit of understanding. But he is wrong to conceive of understanding as a kind of 37 Burnyeat, Examples in Epistemology, 384. 38 Emphasis added. Frankin, 435. 39 Emphasis added. Frankin, 436. 40 Frankin, 436.
13 knowledge, that is, the knowledge achieved by dialectic. 41 When understanding is conceived a species of knowledge, we have not gone far enough to distinguish explanation from justification. Successful explanation involves some kind of cognitive transformation, as Franklin argues, but not the transformation from mere familiarity to grasp of the truth, the transformation from ordinary linguistic competence to accurate covering theory. Barnes makes the same error in reacting to Burnyeat. According to Barnes, Burnyeat connects understanding with explanation, and he implies a semitechnical sense for x understands that p : I take the phrase to mean x knows why p. If that account of understanding is correct, then knowledge should not be contrasted with understanding; rather, understanding is a species of knowledge it is causal knowledge, knowledge why. 42 Just a bit later, he writes: Explaining is a way of transmitting causal knowledge; and if knowledge in general can be transmitted, I do not see why causal knowledge in particular should be non- transferrable. 43 Consider the following situation. Meno might know that Socrates understands that being able to rule well and having the appropriate amount of courage and moderation are all virtuous, because Socrates understands what virtue is essentially. In this case, Barnes argues that Meno can infer that everything that Socrates understands is the case, on the basis that Socrates understands it. And if Meno can infer all of this, then Meno understands all of it. Barnes claims: If y [in my example, Meno] understands that x [Socrates] understands that p, then if y infers that p from the fact that x understands that p, then y understands that p 44 Burnyeat replies that Meno might know that p, but he may not be in a position to understand that p: knowing that x understands 41 Frankin, 424. 42 Barnes, Socrates and the Jury, 202. 43 Barnes, Socrates and the Jury, 203. 44 Barnes, Socrates and the Jury, 202.
14 that p, y can by inference acquire knowledge that p; but he may not be in a position so to acquire understanding that p. 45 I believe that Burnyeat has the more reasonable position here, for Barnes is importing a causal notion of understanding in order to undergird his claim that understanding is causal. He claims that it is possible for Meno to infer that everything that Socrates understands is the case, on the basis of the fact that Socrates understands it. But Meno can only make this inference from what Socrates understands to be the case, to what is the case legitimately, if someone s understanding p requires that p is the case. But why should p have to be the case, in order for Socrates to count as understanding p? Certainly, we understand all kinds of false statements, and, in certain contexts, we can use many such statements to explain. There is no way for Barnes to promote his realist theory of explanation and understanding without begging the question. It is not the case that Meno s knowledge of Socrates s understanding can guarantee that Meno understands as well. Meno needs to see what Socrates understands, p, for himself in his way. When Plato suggests that we need the Forms to explain p, that we need the Form of Virtue to explain why some particular action is virtuous, he does not mean that we can only understand that particular action as participating in the Form of Virtue if we know the Form of Virtue is the real cause of that particular action s counting as virtuous. We can come to understand that action as virtuous, even when we lack divine ontological insight, simply by spending a lot of time talking to expert interlocutors, Philosopher Kings highly trained and, thus, habituated, 45 Emphasis added. Barnes, Socrates and the Jury, 202.
15 in dialectic. As Plato writes in the Republic, education isn t the craft of putting sight into the soul (Book VII, 518d) 46 I turn now to Williams s thoughts on the Problem of the Criterion, as preparation for my own account of how Plato s Meno generates understanding among his readers. Roderick Chisholm identifies two related problems in epistemology: (1) Demarcation, the problem of determining the extent of our knowledge, of distinguishing what we know from what we don t, that is, the problem of picking out examples of knowledge, which asks questions such as: Is it that we know what we see, what we think, or what we divine? And, (2), The Problem of the Criterion, the problem of how we are to decide, in any particular case, whether we know? What are the criteria of knowing? 47 This second problem wonders, in any particular case, what methods we should use to figure out whether or not we know the proposition at hand. If we could solve just one of these two problems, we would be able to finesse the other: If we can specify the criteria of knowledge, we may have a way of deciding how far our knowledge extends. [If we] are able to say what the things are that we know, then we may be able to formulate criteria enabling us to mark off the things we do know from those that we do not. But if we do not have the answer to the first question, then, it would seem, we have no way of answering the second. And if we do not have the answer to the second, then, it would seem, we have no way of answering the first. 48 Chisholm s particularists identify instances of knowing without applying any general criteria, while his methodists formulate criteria without appealing to any actual instances. 46 Plato, Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube, rev. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992). 47 Roderick Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1989), 6. 48 Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, 6.
16 For many philosophers, the Problem of the Criterion is very serious problem. Indeed, it seems to demonstrate that a certain popular conception of philosophy is impossible. We are unlikely to locate good grounds for any set of necessary and sufficient conditions for x, under ever- increasing standards of scrutiny. But Williams suggests those who are concerned about the Problem s lasting message are overly anxious. Sextus represents skepticism as a cure for the anxiety of uncertainty rather than an extreme form of it. 49 To worry too much about the Problem of the Criterion is to receive it as a negative dogma, which is not how it appears to a Pyrrhonian skeptic. Pyrrhonian skepticism cannot be systematized, formalized or reduced to a rule. 50 Williams argues that the conception of Pyrrhonism for which Burnyeat argues in Skeptical Tradition that is, Pyrrhonism as a system of inquiry, involving several formal, patterns of argumentation is mistaken. Pyrrhonism cannot be systematized, for there is simply no way to anticipate the specific theses future dogmatists will defend. Rather than a doctrine or a cautionary tale, Pyrrhonian skepticism is a way of life or a habit. Becoming a skeptic depends on acquiring an ability, not on proving or even assenting to a thesis, 51 in particular, the ability to bring into opposition, in any way whatever, appearances and thoughts so that, because of the equal strength of the opposed facts and reasons, we are brought first to suspension of judgment and then to tranquility (1.8). 52 Without making any judgments about the evidential support for either of the opposed theses, a particular skeptic simply finds that, in a particular situation, she does not assent to either of the theses. They are equally 49 Williams, 565. 50 Williams, 556. 51 Williams, 554. 52 As quoted in Williams, 554, from Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, trans. R.G. Bury, Sextus Empiricus, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 1933).
17 appealing and, thus, neutralize each other. 53 Pyrrhonians famously live by appearances, making no clams about the underlying nature of things; they live reactively, assenting to nothing that is non- evident (1.13). 54 According to Williams s account of Pyrrhonism, it should be puzzling that Sextus presents a series of Modes of Suspension, which are clearly meant to have some kind of generality. 55 Rather than simply displaying oppositions, Sextus frequently argues for them. Instead of conflicting appearances simply neutralizing one another, the Modes seem to argue for the general claim that knowledge of a thing s real nature is beyond us. 56 The problem, Williams explains, is as follows: Sextus seems to offer two radically different approaches to skepticism a non- theoretical, non- prescriptive approach based on the method of opposition, and a form in which suspension of judgment is mediated by epistemological arguments to the effect that no dispute can ever be resolved, that knowledge of the real natures of things is impossible, or that everything is relative. 57 Sextus seems especially taken with the Problem of the Criterion, despite the fact that the problem seems more like a general, philosophical argument than a habituated reaction to some specific dogma in some specific context. 58 It is Williams s response to this problem that I would like to use as resource to explain how Plato generates understanding in the Meno. Pyrrhonian skeptics habitually confound dogmatists by locating equipollent theses to oppose their claims. For example, Zeno s paradoxes are raised to confound physicists. So, 53 Williams, 555. 54 As quoted in Williams, 562, from Outlines of Pyrrhonism. 55 Williams, 566. 56 Williams, 567. 57 Williams, 573. 58 Williams, 578.
18 Williams, asks, what might a Pyrrhonian raise to confound an epistemologist? His answer: the Problem of the Criterion. 59 [T]he Pyrrhonian sceptic needs arguments for theoretical skepticism: not to underwrite his own outlook but to counter the epistemological ideas of dognatists. 60 In Sextus s own words, [S]ince the Dogmatists appear to have established plausibly that there really is a criterion of truth, we have set up counter- arguments which appear to be plausible (2.79). 61 It would be odd for a Pyrrhonian to use the Problem of the Criterion as a general argument for skepticism, for that would be dogmatic. But it is natural for a Pyrrhonian to raise the Problem in opposition to some particular philosopher s theory of truth, in the name locating an equipollent foil. In focusing on the Problem of the Criterion, Sextus extends the method of opposition to epistemological questions. 62 At the start of the Meno, Socrates introduces an early version of the Problem of the Criterion. Meno is trying to figure out what virtue is, by offering a series of instances of virtue. But Socrates asks Meno why he is licensed to use these examples in defense of some definition of virtue, if he was surreptitiously using that very definition in order select the examples (79c). This precipitates to the famous paradox in which Meno asks Socrates: How will you look for it Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know? (80d). The first part of this paradox leads to what Socrates calls a debater s argument, which he believes is unsound, because any serious investment in such an argument would make us idle, overly cautious, and 59 Williams, 578-79. 60 Williams, 579. 61 As quoted in Williams, 579, from Outlines of Pyrrhonism. 62 Williams, 581.
19 overall lesser men (86c). Many commentators believe the Theory of Recollection is introduced in order to explain how someone might be able to select examples of virtue, in the spirit of Chisholm s particularism. We are born with a true belief of the definition of virtue, one that enables us to recognize earthly instantiations. Others see the Theory of Recollection as a regulative ideal, a pragmatic presupposition that makes inquiry into definitional matters possible by hypothesizing that essences are real; the presupposition that there are essences is supposedly enough to constrain our inquiries into them, for, if we hold this transcendent presupposition, when we encounter a definitional dispute, we will not be able to agree to disagree. 63 On the model of Williams s account of the role the Problem of the Criterion plays in Pyrrhonian skepticism, I think we should think of the debater s argument and the subsequent Theory of Recollection as equipollent possibilities, raised by Plato in a pedagogical spirit, to get his readers to understand a very deep question, but not answer it. The two theses constitute a conceptual space. And in grasping this possibility space, in understanding the two available, limiting options, Plato s readers can begin to think about how they might go about constructing relevant answers to the question, how they might parse that contrast class. The Meno is not a dialogue that aims to justify or settle anything, such as what virtue might be or whether it is knowledge and, thus, teachable. The dialogue does aim, as Burnyeat recognizes, to produce some kind of understanding. But the understanding produced is not the kind of understanding Barnes or Franklin would like to see: We do not leave the dialogue with true beliefs about the essence of virtue, with any knowledge of the transcendent Form of Virtue causally responsible for our ability to select 63 Rohatyn, 70-71.
20 out and distinguish instances of virtuous action in our earthly lives. Rather, we leave the dialogue with a question, one we couldn t imagine before encountering the options that bring the question into relief. In other words, readers of the Meno do undergo a cognitive transformation from confusion to understanding. But the understanding achieved does not consist in Meno recollecting the true essence of virtue through a process of reflective equilibrium, as Franklin argues. The cognitive transformation we make in achieving understanding is a transformation from confusion to clarity. But this shift does not require that we find the correct answer to a question. We understand, we have clarity, when we understand what is being asked. As Aristotle writes in the Metaphysics, Instead of speaking without qualification, we must articulate our question before we search, since otherwise we will have not distinguished a genuine search from a search for nothing (Book VII, chapter 17). 64 Where Franklin argues [d]ialectic is a model of theory construction, 65 I would say that Plato s implied equipollence between the problem of the criterion and the more dogmatic theory of Recollection serves as a contrast class through which his readers come to understand a much deeper question than What is virtue?, namely, Should we languish or progress? Pragmatic approaches to explanation and understanding, such as those developed by Bas van Fraassen 66 and Peter Achinstein, 67 hold that explaining is a social process, the ordinary activity of asking and answering why- questions. Understanding is a psychological 64 Aristotle, Metaphysics, in Aristotle: Introductory Readings, trans. Terrence Irwin and Gail Fine (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996): 173. 65 Franklin, 438. 66 Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). 67 Peter Achinstein, The Nature of Explanation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983).
21 state involving something like satisfaction, rather than a state of knowledge in which you have uncovered some aspect of the real world. And different styles of explanation are appropriate in different contexts. It would be confusing if we were asked to explain an event, period. But once we are asked to explain why one event occurred rather than another from within some counterfactual space of alternative possibilities from within a contrast class we can understand the question and start to look for a range of relevant answers. With a different contrast class, a different range of answers might be relevant. Pragmatic approaches are distinguished from what I would call essentialist theories of explanation, which aim to identity the (real) essence of explanation what an explanation is, what counts as an explanation, or why various historical cases fall under the same ideal type. The pragmatic approach can accommodate the pluralist intuition that there are many styles of explanation, causal, unificationist, functional, deductive- nomological, among others. Rather than a competing theory, the pragmatic approach to explanation offers a way of understanding what any theory of explanation attempts to do. Both Franklin and Barnes adopt essentialist theories of explanation. Barnes s theory of explanation is certainly a realist, causal theory, while Franklin s theory of explanation is less articulated. He claims it is not deductive, but yet theories explain when they cover data. The underlying argument of this paper is that, when thinking about Plato s dialogues, particularly the Meno, in light of Burnyeat s insight that Plato aims to generate understanding, rather than knowledge, it would be best to adopt a pragmatic approach to explanation. When students read Socrates s defense of his (somewhat wild) Theory of Recollection, they re not impressed. Socrates admits that he cannot claim his argument is
22 right in all respects. Yet, we will be better men, braver, and less idle, if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look for it (86c). If this is an argument for Recollection, it is not a very good one: Are we really better men if we re searching for something that, as it turns out, never existed in the first place? We re certainly less idle, and perhaps braver, but better? This important selection from the text should not be read as an argument for the Theory of Recollection, but as a hint as to how Plato himself reacts to the equipollence he sets in front of his readers. On the one hand, there is negative dogmatism, the debater s argument or Problem of the Criterion, according to which we should abandon theoretical, reflective inquiry on pain of question- begging, hypothesis, or regress. On the other hand, there is the dogmatism of the Theory of Recollection, a similar flight from reason, according to which we should simply imagine ethereal solutions to our earthly problems. Which one should we choose? There are no resources in the Meno to answer this question, to defend one of the two options over the other. But, in the face of this choice, Plato does not suspend and find tranquility. He embraces Recollection and its accompanying epistemic anxiety. He is a brave spinner of tales, rather than a reactive Pyrrhonian with idle hands. He acts. In reacting to the opposition between the Problem of the Criterion and the Theory of Recollection in this way, Plato s contributes to his readers understanding in a second way (that is, beyond helping them to understand a question): he serves as a model we might imitate and from which we might come to acquire some measure of judgment not the kind of knowing- that which delivers a tidy set of propositions, or correct answers, but the kind of know- how that comes from doing things, from not being idle. This recalls R.M.
23 Hare s claim that the definition of the good might not be a descriptive definition, but an intrinsically prescriptive one. Rather than disseminating a certain content of morality, a certain set of propositions or recipe, the philosopher kings would be teaching something formal, a universal, prescriptive language: They would be teaching [their successors] to speak, and thus to think, in certain ways. 68 As role models, and not squawking boxes, they would be calling us to a life of social engagement, a risky life, larger and less tranquil than our own private reflections. 68 R.M. Hare, Platonism in Moral Education, Monist 58:4 (1974): 577.