Meno and Socratic Questioning/Posturing(?)

Today I tackled Meno, a less famous work by Plato which of course chronicles a dialogue between Socrates and a guy named Meno who would like to know what excellence is. Not 20 minutes into the read and I was reminded of how tedious Socratic questioning seems sometimes and how you just wish he got to the same point that he always gets to: I don't know the answer, you don't know the answer, but trust yourself, hate sophistry and seek out the real answer.

It was only towards the end of the book when he really gets to politics, because Meno wants to know what excellence which he links to good governance. The last two to three pages contain some classical ideas: 1)politicians don't have any wisdom and do not speak of what they know and 2) politicians are certainly never inspired and they can only claim to have right opinions if they are to be considered good. It is not by wisdom that the politician governs, the great leader is no more endowed with wisdom then the inspired prophet, but right action guided by true opinion can work as a sort of knowledge of how to guide people, which is beneficial, and what is beneficial is excellent...I think. I believe that this book is just a preview of The Cave because he is speaking in a sort of hierarchy of thought in which right opinion is the shadow of knowledge, experience is fickle but must be trusted and there are always higher truths.

So much of what Socrates does is hashing out the argument by dismantling and rebuilding arguments based on assumptions that he later takes away. Socrates punches so many holes in arguments that you begin to think that he will never take a stance on what it is he is analyzing, and in the case of The Republic, when he finally comes to a conclusion, it is a little disconcerting to people who would perfer a more egalitarian and less Orwellian social construct. However, and I realize might be guilty of taking this out of context, I like how Socrates says that politicians are not divinely inspired people, "possessed by god," and "they achieve success in speaking of many great matters while knowing nothing about what they say." That my friend will NEVER GET OLD, that is a bit of "divinely inspired" wisdom that has withstood the test of time. To turn the critical light back on Socrates, I can't help but to think of him as machiavellian, he advocates philosopher kings and discredits politicians, but I think that every philosopher inevitably puts themselves at the center of their philosophy.

I can also see why Socrates is called the only real philosopher, or at least why all subsequent people who call themselves philosophers model themselves after Socrates. He asks asks you to clearly define your terms which is important in all types of philosophy, but there are things about him that appeal to every group of philosopher. Metaphysicians like him because he seeks intangible truths and believes that there is more then what meets the eye. Epistemologists like him because he lays forth an argument of how he knows what he knows. Logicians like him because his quick wit and flawless argumentation. Political theorists like him because all of his speculation is done in a political context and usually speaking about practical problems that politics grapple with. Everyone loves and hates him because he taught us to hate the sophists, the people who claim expertise and do not seek a higher truth, and in a way there is a little sophistry in us all.

What do I like about Socrates besides what I have already written, I like how he affirms the power of the individual in the polity and refuses to settle. Cornel West would say that he is a man who can envision civic death, but is a political animal because under these conditions he can ask the questions with the answers that are just barely out of our reach but define us as human beings, like what is equality, what is justice and what is man? He brings us so close to the answer everytime, but then we find out we are no closer then we were before. The answer is still there within us and I think that was his final challenge to us, to seek truth no matter what the consequences.