Abstract
Meno is a young student of Socrates’ who is quite interested in whether virtue can be taught or whether we are born with it. Socrates asks Meno to first tell him what he means by virtue. Meno believes he cannot give a definition of something he does not know. He says he needs to “learn” the definition first from Socrates and then will be able to discuss it. Socrates rejects Meno’s claim—which has subsequently come to be known as Meno’s Paradox—and continues to prod Meno for a definition of his own. This view of “learning” as a series of reminders of what you already know but have forgotten is compared and contrasted with the view of human learning presented in the modern psychology text.
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References
Franklin, L. (2009). Meno’s paradox, the slave-boy interrogation, and the unity of Platonic recollection. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 47(4), 349–377.
Griggs, R. A. (2014). Psychology: A concise introduction (4th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
Pavlov, I. P. (1960). Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex (G. V. Anrep, Trans.). New York, NY: Dover. (Original work published 1927).
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
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Dillon, J.J. (2016). Teaching the Psychology of Learning with Meno . In: Teaching Psychology and the Socratic Method. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95050-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95050-8_7
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