Perplexity and Paradox (79e5–81a7)

Abstract

At this point in the dialogue, Socrates invites Meno to make a fresh start. Meno professes, however, to be incapable of inquiry, claiming that Socrates has reduced him to a state of aporia or perplexity. Intellectually, Socrates has had the same numbing effect on Meno as the electric-ray inflicts physically on its victims. In the early dialogues when the respondent is driven into a state of aporia the conversation promptly concludes on a negative note. Not so with the Meno where Plato’s attempt to proceed beyond the point of impasse between the two disputants has been hailed as a laudable effort on his part to move beyond “destructive to constructive thinking, from elenchus and the refutation of other men’s views to the elaboration of positive views of his own.”⁸⁴