플라톤의 「메논」에서의 메논의 역설과 상기설 (Meno’s Paradox and the Theory of Recollection in Plato’s Meno)

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초록

This article discusses the relationship between Meno’s paradox and the theory of recollection in Plato’s Meno. What the point of Meno’s paradox is and how the theory of recollection is supposed to respond to it have been a matter of great scholarly debate. In this article I discuss the view that the paradox is a mere sophism based on the false dichotomy of complete knowledge and ignorance; and the view that the paradox derives form the principle of the priority of the knowledge of what X is. With regard to the former, I argue that the theory of recollection does not give an adequate response; with regard to the latter, though there is a way the theory might offer an answer to the paradox, Plato does not give a clear indication that he intends the theory to play that role. I then discuss the interpretation by Irwin and Fine that Plato’s solution to the paradox is given not by the theory of recollection but by the distinction between knowledge and true belief; and argue that it is mistaken. I show that their interpretation is based on a misreading of a crucial text. They believe that in that passage Plato introduces the distinction between true belief and knowledge. But I argue that this distinction is not brought up until the last part of the Meno. The discussion of their interpretation makes it all the more urgent to consider the paradox from the perspective beyond the inner context of the Meno. I suggest that the central point Plato wants to make about Meno’s paradox concerns the nature of knowledge in the strict sense and how it can be obtained. The methodological question about Socrates’ elenchus is also relevant, but I argue that it is derivative to the epistemological question about the nature of true knowledge and its acquisition.

영어초록

This article discusses the relationship between Meno’s paradox and the theory of recollection in Plato’s Meno. What the point of Meno’s paradox is and how the theory of recollection is supposed to respond to it have been a matter of great scholarly debate. In this article I discuss the view that the paradox is a mere sophism based on the false dichotomy of complete knowledge and ignorance; and the view that the paradox derives form the principle of the priority of the knowledge of what X is. With regard to the former, I argue that the theory of recollection does not give an adequate response; with regard to the latter, though there is a way the theory might offer an answer to the paradox, Plato does not give a clear indication that he intends the theory to play that role. I then discuss the interpretation by Irwin and Fine that Plato’s solution to the paradox is given not by the theory of recollection but by the distinction between knowledge and true belief; and argue that it is mistaken. I show that their interpretation is based on a misreading of a crucial text. They believe that in that passage Plato introduces the distinction between true belief and knowledge. But I argue that this distinction is not brought up until the last part of the Meno. The discussion of their interpretation makes it all the more urgent to consider the paradox from the perspective beyond the inner context of the Meno. I suggest that the central point Plato wants to make about Meno’s paradox concerns the nature of knowledge in the strict sense and how it can be obtained. The methodological question about Socrates’ elenchus is also relevant, but I argue that it is derivative to the epistemological question about the nature of true knowledge and its acquisition.

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