ABSTRACT
The Meno is commonly believed to be a transitional dialogue which means that the ideas presented in the Meno move beyond what can reasonably be supposed to represent Socratic, as opposed to Platonic philosophy. The most immediately compelling aspect of the early Socratic dialogue is the non-constructivist and provocative force of its aporetic end. The Meno Paradox hinges on a misplaced understanding of what thinking involves, so that the ability to think of something or the ability to identify something for thought presumes complete or exhaustive knowledge of that thing. The arguments in the elenchus proceed by deductive reasoning, and the premises employed belong to the belief-set of Socrates’ interlocutor. The chapter shows that the chief project of the theory of recollection was to guarantee the availability of true beliefs in the absence of knowledge; and that it was surmised that the accessibility of latent truths counters the possibility of getting false beliefs in mind.
