Plato's Response to the Epistemic Crisis in the Meno

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Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Literature and Foreign Languages, University of Tabriz, Iran

10.22080/jepr.2025.29482.1284

Abstract

The present essay studies an epistemic crisis and Plato’s encountering with it in the Meno. At this dialogue Plato deals with a problem which generally named as the paradox of Meno. The paradox claims that learning and knowledge is impossible because either completely we know a something or we don't know. Plato, in response, maintaines theory of recollection and in practice verifies the existent sciences as a real case of the learning. Therefore the paradox is untenable and the learning as the recollection is possible. Plato's answer to the epistemic crisis represents the establishing of his positive and primary theory of epistemology that is based on the metaphysical foundations and religious views (soul and reincarnation in Phythagoreanism). Then the philosophical duty of Plato is to explain the possibility of the learning or knowledge by the theory of recollection and its prerequisites.
Actually the paradox of Meno and its solution not only presents Plato's criticism of the Socratic method of elenchus as a nonsufficent in attaining knowledge, but also reflects Plato's critic of some presocratic thinkers who either explicitly maintain the cognitive relativism or their thoughts, implicitly undermine the validity of the sciences.

Keywords: Plato, the Meno, soul, recollection, knowledge (episteme) and opinion

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