The Possibility of Inquiry The Possibility of Inquiry ’ Meno s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus Gail Fine 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries #GailFine2014 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2014 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2014932178 ISBN 978–0–19–957739–2 Asprintedandboundby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. To my mother and To the memory of my father Preface IthinkIfirstencounteredtheMenoinaGreekclasswhenIwasanundergradu- ate at the University of Michigan. I was immediately enchanted. I continued to thinkaboutitoffandon,anddiscussedpartofitbrieflyinmyPhDdissertation. But it wasn’t until I began teaching at Cornell in 1975 that I became seriously interested in the dialogue. It seems to me to be one of the best introductions to epistemology there is. (Another is the Theaetetus.) It raises a number of funda- mental questions—about, for example, what knowledge is and how it differs from,andismorevaluablethan,meretruebelief;abouthow,ifatall,knowledge can be acquired; and about what can be known. And it does so in an elegant, compact,subtle,andoftenhumorousway.Butitlaysvarioustraps;andstudents and the secondary literature often—or so it seems to me—misunderstand Soc- rates’ views in just the ways in which Meno does. It became something of a mission for me to insist on how important the distinction between knowledge andmeretruebeliefisforPlato,andhowitholdsthekeytomanyofhisviews, includinghissolutiontoMeno’sParadoxandhisviewthatoneneedsknowledge ofwhatFis,notforinquiryintoF,butforknowledgeofotherfeaturesofF. Though the Meno as a whole fascinates me, I have long been particularly interested in Meno’s Paradox (though understanding it, as well as Plato’s reply, requiresconsideringmanypartsofthedialogue).Meno’sParadoxchallengesthe very possibility of inquiry. Yet we tend to take the possibility—indeed the actuality—of inquiry for granted. Meno’s Paradox forces us to wonder whether we are right to do so. In deciding about that, we need to consider such funda- mentalquestionsas:Whatexactlyisinquiry?Whatconditionsmustbesatisfiedif oneisto beabletoinquireinto somethingandtofindanswerstothequestions oneisconsidering?Whatisknowledge,andisknowledgeneededforinquiry?If knowledgeisn’tneeded,whatalternativecognitiveconditionwilldo?Inaddition to these general questions, considering Meno’s Paradox in the context of the Menoalsorequiresonetoask:WhydoesMenothinkSocratesisvulnerabletothe paradox?HowexactlydoMenoandSocratesunderstandtheparadox?How,and howwell,doesSocratesreplytoit? I am not the only one to have worried about Meno’s Paradox. Aristotle also reflectedonit,andsotoodidtheStoics,Epicureans,andSextus.Itwasfunand illuminatingtodiscoverdifferencesandsimilarities;andIfeltthatIunderstood some of their general epistemological views better by seeing them through this viii preface lens.AtsomepointIlearnedofthePlutarchfragment(preservedinDamascius’ commentary on the Phaedo) in which he considers various replies to Meno’s Paradox(alltheonesIconsiderexceptforSextus’).Ididn’twanttoleaveMeno’s Paradoxbehind;butherewasawayofextendingmyinterestinittophilosophers otherthanPlato—andsothisprojectwasborn.AtfirstIworkedinapiecemeal wayonvariousformulationsofandrepliestoMeno’sParadox,asItaughtoneor another of the philosophers who engaged with it, or as I wrote one or another article.ButthenItriedtotiethemalltogether;andthisbookistheresult. Iwaspartlymovedtowritethisbook,notonlybecauseofmydeepinterestin the questions arising from Meno’s Paradox, but also because there was no full- length,unifiedtreatmentofthevariousrepliesconsideredhere.Yetconsidering the various formulations of and replies to the paradox provides insight into ancient epistemology in particular, and into epistemology in general. This book is by no means a general account of ancient epistemology; its focus is more limited. But I hope it will be helpful to, among others, anyone interested in ancientepistemology. In the spring of 2013, I went to the Pompeii–Herculaneum exhibition at the BritishMuseum,andsawthedelightfulandbeautifulmosaicofseacreaturesthat isreproducedonthedustjacket.Thelargeflatfishinthecenterofthetopofthe mosaicisatorpedofish.AtMeno80a,justbeforechallengingSocrates’abilityto inquire about virtue, given that he’s said that he doesn’t know anything at all about virtue, Meno compares Socrates (not to a sting ray, as some translations suggest,but)toatorpedofish.IdiscussthisimageinChapter3,section1. Inworkingonthisproject,IhaveacquiredanumberofdebtsthatIampleasedto acknowledge. I am grateful to the faculty and administrative staff at the Sage SchoolofPhilosophyatCornellUniversityforalltheirsupport,ofvariouskinds, duringthemanyyearsinwhichI’vebeenprivilegedtobethere.Manyofmyideas were first formulated—and subjected to criticism and revised—in classes at Cornell, ranging from introductory survey courses to graduate seminars; I am pleasedtoacknowledgemydebttothemanystudentswhohelpedmeclarifyand improve my views. Since January 2007, I have been a Visiting Professor of Ancient Philosophy in Oxford University; and, since January 2008, I have also beenaSeniorResearchFellowatMertonCollege,Oxford.IthanktheFacultyof Philosophy and the members of Merton College for providing a stimulating, friendly,andcollegialatmosphere,inabeautifulsetting. For over 20 years, I have benefitted from numerous insightful, constructive, and stimulating discussions with Lesley Brown. Many of the ideas developed in this book were first formulated in, and have been clarified as a result of, these preface ix conversations. Lesley also provided helpful written comments on some of the chapters on Plato. For many years I have also benefitted from collegial and insightful discussions with Dominic Scott. More recently, David Charles and DavidBronsteinhavebeenhelpfulinterlocutors;DavidBronsteinalsoprovided helpful written comments on Chapter 6. Jessica Moss provided helpful written commentsonanearlierversionofChapter1.Iamalsogratefultotwoanonym- ousrefereesforthePress,whoprovideddetailedandconstructivecommentson anearlierversionoftheentiremanuscript. Thanks are due to Peter Momtchiloff of Oxford University Press for his help in overseeingtheproject;toNateBulthuisforpreparingthefirstversionoftheBibliog- raphy;andtoIanHensleyforhisvaluablehelpasaresearchassistant.Ianhelpedmeto preparearevisedversionofthebibliography,downloadedGreek,checkedreferences, preparedtheindexlocorumandtheindexnominum,andfilledinpagereferencesfor alltheindexes.Thanksarealsoduetomycopyeditor,MalcolmTodd,forhisexpert andefficienthelp;andtoTerryIrwinforhelpwiththegeneralindex. Mygreatestdebt,inthisprojectasinallelse,istomyhusband,TerryIrwin.He hasendurednumerousdiscussionsandreadmanydraftsofthisbook(aswellas draftsofeverythingIwrite);hismanyoralandwrittencomments,aswellashis faithinmyabilities,havebeeninvaluable.Withouthishelp,ineveryaspectofmy life,fromthemostmundanetothemostimportant,Iwouldneverhavefinished this book; and it would be very much worse than it is. Nor, more importantly, wouldIhavehadthewonderfullifewe’veshared. Ialsothankmyparents,JeanandSidneyFine,fortheirloveandsupport,and for instilling in me a love of education, of reading and writing, and of classical music. I am sorry that my father did not live to see this book completed. Idedicateitmymotherandtothememoryofmyfather. AfewpartsofChapters2–5drawonmaterialfrommy‘InquiryintheMeno’ in R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (1992). I thank CambridgeUniversityPress for permission to use a revisedversion of this material. An earlier version of parts of Chapter5 originally appeared as ‘Enquiry and Discovery:ADiscussionofDominicScott,Plato’sMeno’inOxfordStudies in Ancient Philosophy 32 (2007), 331–67. I thank Oxford University Press forpermissiontousearevisedversionofthismaterial. AnearlierversionofpartsofChapters2–4appearedin‘Signification,Essence, andMeno’sParadox:AReplytoDavidCharles’s“TypesofDefinitioninthe Meno”’ in Phronesis 55 (2010), 125–52. I thank Koninklijke Brill NV for permissiontousearevisedversionofthismaterial.