Socrates attempts to show his disciple that even though Meno has given many speeches in Athens and Thessalonia about virtue, he really doesn't know what it is, nor does he know how people achieve virtue. In their logical examination of ideas, (a dialectic) Socrates leads Meno down a rabbit trail of questions with the intent of leaving him "know" that what he thought he knew he doesn't know. And Socrates admits that he is unsure if he [Socrates] knows of one virtuous person in the city. Sure enough, Socrates has rightfully earned the earmark prescribed to him for 25oo years."The unexamined life is not worth living. "
Objection. I didn't say that but as we finished the 3rd quarter of the book this, "Is the over-examined life worth living?' Everyone laughed. But I was serious. If in the end we find out that the more we learn, the more we find out we know nothing, where does Socrates leave us? Does he offer anything to fill the vacuum? I will continue to push the question next week because I think it totally relevant to where we live today.
Even today, the Socratic Seminar, which is the primary mode of teaching and learning here at St. John's is used across the country today in public high schools. Questions are raised, responses are given, only by sharing logical rationalle of those conclusions, which give rise to other questions, which are pondered over, examined by all in order to lead us to the right question for our personal lives. whew. The shared inquiry method. whew. It is a valuable tool of learning but has its limits.
As I walked outside those heavy, wooden doors fastened to the very old library, I pondered over a discussion I had within it. Nearly graduated graduate students asked me, the newcomer,
" So how are you enjoying school?" To which I replied, "So far very much, however, I think in 4 semesters I will be ready for answers instead of a constant stream of wondering questions. To which she replied, "Oh you will get used to it. It is the way I like it. It is the most comfortable. "
Postmodernity is the name of the age we live in. It is all around us. The notion that there are no answers. Human beings live in a sea of flux and since answers change with every era, one needs to get used to living without, and no longer search for objective truth. So we may as well not offer up 'Jesus is the answer', because everyone knows there are only constant questions.
In my very first orientation of seminar on January 5, I asked the tutors if 'answers' or some semblence of conclusion, or we might say today 'take - aways' were ever the desired outcome of the seminar. To which they replied, Well, possibly not, hopefully, you will come to the right question which is right for you and your wisdom that is needed.' Don't misunderstand, staff and faculty here are great, the St Johns community is a small intimate family that I sense is not attempting to be politically correct, nor hostile to the influence of Judeo-Christianity in the west, everyone speaks very respectfully of it since it is infiltrated throughout and dominates the literature. Nonetheless, the overarching narrative of Christian worldview is not sought after here.
I read the end of the book and 'by Zeus', Socrates redeems himself when he says, that virtue must come from the 'divine'... outside of oneself.
Coming soon in a curriculum near you. Recommended reading. Author Plato and his Meno.
It has most everything a big school has but it is little. A little bookstore, a little health center, a little library, little dorms, little houses that hold offices, and a little hall ( like the Victorian halls used for the Jane Austen balls ) for formal ceremonies--- all held together by winding brick-paved sidewalks and big, old trees. The incoming Graduate Institute students (GI's) met around those tables and dug right into Plato. Bright, articulate students thinking through Socrates' motives on discussing Virtues with his friend Meno. Then we discussed our thoughts about the activity we just went through. 1.5 hours of non-stop, intense exhausting thinking-- listening to everyone's thought process and formulating and articulating a response. Later, a different group dug into Genesis 1-11 for 2 hours. No notetaking allowed. No lecture. Just texts, students and a tutor who guides the dialogue. The school campus is old, but the ideas are even older. Where in our society does this kind of sustained, thoughtful discussion.... where real listening ...occur? I look forward to the discipline and training. More later.