Meno Re-Examined

Dominic Scott has written an exemplary commentary on Plato's Meno. The scholarship is meticulous and thorough. Each argument and section of the dialogue is discussed in detail and with great care; different interpretations are treated fairly and sympathetically; interesting connections are drawn between parts of Meno and other dialogues, e.g., between the recollection passage and related sections of Phaedo and Phaedrus, and between the argument for ‘virtue is knowledge’ and the parallel argument in Euthydemus. The commentary is also exemplary in its sustained focus on unifying themes of the dialogue and the dramatic interaction between Socrates and Meno. Scott shows how Meno's character‐flaws get in the way of a fruitful philosophical enquiry, and how Socrates attempts, with limited success, to put his young interlocutor on a better path. He also makes clear how the dramatic interplay between the two characters explains many of the twists and turns in the philosophical discussion. The careful and judicious treatment of the dramatic aspects of the dialogue is one of the chief virtues of the commentary

Argument (complex analysis) · Character (mathematics) · Epistemology · Focus (optics) · Scholarship · SOCRATES · Virtue · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Law · Medicine · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy