Plato's Meno: the road to Larisa and the statues of Daedalus
Plato, Meno (c. 385 BCE), translated by Benjamin Jowett
Why a true opinion is as good a guide as knowledge, and yet worth less: it runs away unless it is tied down by the reason why.
Why it matters
A man who has never been to Larisa but guesses the road correctly is as good a guide, while he guesses right, as one who knows the way. Socrates concedes this freely. Then he asks why knowledge is prized above true opinion, and answers with the statues of Daedalus, which run away unless they are tied. True opinions are like that: beautiful while they stay, but they do not stay, until they are fastened by ‘the tie of the cause’.
This is, I think, the oldest statement of the distinction between two kinds of reliability that my work turns on. One kind is a record of being right. The other is a connection to the reason why. A guide who knows the road can recover when the road changes; a guide who guessed cannot, and does not know that he cannot.
A language model that answers correctly is, for the user, the guide who has been right so far. Whether its answers are tied, in Socrates’ sense, is exactly the question of what governs their production, which is why I describe relying on one as reading an instrument whose ties the user cannot see, rather than taking the word of someone who has walked the road.
The road to Larisa and the statues of Daedalus
Meno c. 97a–98b
MENO: What do you mean by the word 'right'?
SOCRATES: I will explain. If a man knew the way to Larisa, or anywhere else, and went to the place and led others thither, would he not be a right and good guide?
MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And a person who had a right opinion about the way, but had never been and did not know, might be a good guide also, might he not?
MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And while he has true opinion about that which the other knows, he will be just as good a guide if he thinks the truth, as he who knows the truth?
MENO: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion.
MENO: True.
SOCRATES: Then right opinion is not less useful than knowledge?
MENO: The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will always be right; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right, and sometimes not.
SOCRATES: What do you mean? Can he be wrong who has right opinion, so long as he has right opinion?
MENO: I admit the cogency of your argument, and therefore, Socrates, I wonder that knowledge should be preferred to right opinion--or why they should ever differ.
SOCRATES: And shall I explain this wonder to you?
MENO: Do tell me.
SOCRATES: You would not wonder if you had ever observed the images of Daedalus (Compare Euthyphro); but perhaps you have not got them in your country?
MENO: What have they to do with the question?
SOCRATES: Because they require to be fastened in order to keep them, and if they are not fastened they will play truant and run away.
MENO: Well, what of that?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that they are not very valuable possessions if they are at liberty, for they will walk off like runaway slaves; but when fastened, they are of great value, for they are really beautiful works of art. Now this is an illustration of the nature of true opinions: while they abide with us they are beautiful and fruitful, but they run away out of the human soul, and do not remain long, and therefore they are not of much value until they are fastened by the tie of the cause; and this fastening of them, friend Meno, is recollection, as you and I have agreed to call it. But when they are bound, in the first place, they have the nature of knowledge; and, in the second place, they are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more honourable and excellent than true opinion, because fastened by a chain.
MENO: What you are saying, Socrates, seems to be very like the truth.
SOCRATES: I too speak rather in ignorance; I only conjecture. And yet that knowledge differs from true opinion is no matter of conjecture with me. There are not many things which I profess to know, but this is most certainly one of them.
MENO: Yes, Socrates; and you are quite right in saying so.
Questions for discussion
- If a man who guesses the road to Larisa correctly is as good a guide as one who knows it, why should knowledge be worth more than true opinion?
- Socrates says true opinions run away unless they are fastened by the tie of the cause. What does fastening them involve in practice?
- Can you think of a belief you hold correctly but could not defend? Is it knowledge?
The text and its source
- Edition
- The Dialogues of Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett, as transcribed in Project Gutenberg eBook #1643 (the e-text, produced by Sue Asscher, does not say which of Jowett's editions (1871, 1875 or 1892) it reproduces)
- Source
- Project Gutenberg
- Status
- Public domain: Plato (d. c. 347 BCE); Jowett's translation first published 1871, Jowett died 1893; the Gutenberg e-text is public domain in the US.
- Notes on the text
- Stephanus numbers are not printed in the Gutenberg e-text; the locators give the conventional Stephanus range and are approximate ("c."). Gutenberg renders dashes as "--" in this file; they are kept as in the source. The passage opens one line before "If a man knew the way to Larisa" (Meno's question, to which Socrates' "I will explain" replies). Kept verbatim from the e-text: Jowett's parenthetical cross-reference "(Compare Euthyphro)" after "images of Daedalus" (probably a footnote in print; the editor may drop it). Note also that the e-text's earlier line (outside this passage) transliterates phronesis as "phrhonesis".
Questions it bears on
Terms
Cite this page
Plato. Meno. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. In: Plato's Meno: the road to Larisa and the statues of Daedalus, abhinavsaxena.in library. https://abhinavsaxena.in/library/plato-meno/