Ignition for Education

In Plato’s dialogue Meno, Socrates proves, to the satisfaction of Meno, that learning would be impossible without innate knowledge. We would not recognize truth when we encounter it unless the knowledge of it was already in us. In other words, what we think of as learning is actually recollection of what we already, in some sense, know. And we know it because we learned it in previous lives.

This, like other beliefs that involve reincarnation, presents an infinite regress problem. In my opinion, that problem is not resolvable. However, my purpose here is not to tackle that but to resolve “Meno’s paradox.” How is it that we can learn that which we do not already know? The answer involves what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls “partial knowledge.” [i] One may know enough to recognize the veracity of a truth that one encounters for the first time, if that truth is proximate to one’s existing knowledge.

For example, if I have encountered various dogs and come to understand the category of dog, but I have never encountered a spaniel, I can very quickly deduce, upon my first encounter with a spaniel, that it is another kind of dog. However, if I am presented with the results of a study from which new scientific knowledge can be gleaned, I will not glean that knowledge. I am not a scientist; I do not have the “partial knowledge” that would allow me to overcome Meno’s paradox in this case.

This is another reason why respect for expertise is an important part of a right-thinking approach to knowledge: The expert has the partial knowledge that enables her to recognize truth within her field. The doofus “doing his own research” on the internet does not. That is why he falls for conspiracy theories and other nonsense.

But, on first glance, the partial knowledge solution to Meno’s paradox also falls afoul of an infinite regress, because, if we can only obtain new knowledge only thanks to our existing knowledge, how do we obtain our first knowledge?

This question is difficult to answer, because we can’t ask a baby. So, my answer is not demonstrable. But it is, I hope, a reasonable supposition.

An infant’s first discovery is the distinction between self and not-self. She learns to lift her head and control her limbs. These are her first experiences of competence. But she cannot control the bodies of her caregivers. She cannot control external objects, at least without direct contact with them.

Even though she cannot frame them as propositions, she makes her first deductions: She is, and the world that she inhabits is separate to her. She has her first partial knowledge. (If she had telekinetic powers, they would not be a blessing. They would render her permanently incapable of knowledge.)

From this epiphany, she begins learning to navigate the world–to grasp, shake, throw, and smash objects; eventually to manipulate them; to move around, and to do so in spite of obstacles; to interact with others, please them, oppose them, get what she wants from them. She seeks to impose her will, on objects and on others. Her will might be to hear the noise of a rattle or to be given more chocolate.

As she grows, she learns to navigate the world in more complicated ways. She learns to function as part of a social unit—a family, a friend group, a class, a school. She learns to secure her place, to please, to avoid offense, to defend her membership, to improve her position and grow her power within the group.

And she continues to learn to get what she wants. This may make her sound selfish, but it is both a survival needs and a part of her learning, even if she sometimes takes it too far. And if she becomes a manipulator, even a bully, we must likewise avoid harsh judgement. She is learning the social world, and she is answering her social survival needs, even if she sometimes causes unnecessary pain to others because she misunderstands those needs.

She is struggling to navigate that which is not herself. She is frightened.

This is important to me as a teacher who is perhaps takes his students misbehavior too hard, who feels attacked when he should instead try to understand. But the defiant kid, the class clown, the student who looks for the chink in the armor, the way to anger the teacher apparently just for the fun of seeing him angry, is merely trying out a role, a way to belong, a way to navigate the world, and a way to test her powers of navigation.

Even if she doesn’t come from a broken home, she hasn’t been abused, and her caregivers aren’t drug addicts, her misbehavior warrants sympathy. Even when it is not necessary to her development, it is an understandable byproduct of it.

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[i] “Epistemic Paradoxes.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 21 June 2006. Revised 3 March 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemic-paradoxes/