Plato, Meno | Knowledge and Right Opinion | Philosophy Core Concepts

[@shelleyfunny19]

Dr. Sadler, I've been watching your vids since I was taking phil 102 at comm college. I've since graduated with my AA and subsequently moved on to university studying for my bachelors in Journalism, minoring in Philosophy - in part based on your share of YOUR knowledge :) and how you bring ancient philo into the present. thank you for that and for making it understandable and oh soooo important to me for me to know!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome! If you like, you can pass it on by stressing to your fellow journalism majors/working journalists that philosophy does have some resources that can be useful for them

[@GregoryBSadler]

Last of the Meno-focused Core Concept videos for a while. Later this month, more material on the Ion, Euthyphro, and Phaedo in this series

[@BucsFan1307]

I know this video is old but thank you Dr. Sadler, i really appreciate these videos👍

[@GregoryBSadler]

You’re very welcome!

[@sandshew4158]

My prof just spent an hour confusing everyone trying to explain this. You are getting me through this class❤😅

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad the videos are helpful!

[@lusidkid]

Dr. Sadler, first of all, thank you for these videos. I have a question about the knowledge/opinion dichotomy. Could we demarcate the two by saying that a person knows x if s/he can get x right even when the circumstances of x have changed? For example, compare a chef to an amateur cook. The amateur cook can follow a recipe and, in theory, make the same dish that the chef can make. But suppose the conditions change: The eggs are unusually large or the cacao is less potent or the mixer is broken etc. The chef can still produce the same dish, but the amateur cannot. In other words, the one who has knowledge can accommodate for unusual circumstances, whereas the one who has true belief cannot. Knowing how to get to Larissa implies that I can get to Larissa even when the main road is shut down for construction. Thank you.

[@Bereboot100]

This is fascinating, it is a discussion about the place of intellectuals in society, a uncertainty of many people, that even in the capitalist society of 2020 stil not is solved.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes. That's why we keep reading classic philosophical texts

[@LLMresearch]

Having knowledge allows the ability to apply it to different variables and observe the outcomes. This gives different opinions.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Knowledge and opinion are two different things for Plato.

[@LLMresearch]

@@GregoryBSadler thanks I’m working my way through your short videos. I feel I’m working backwards and only now discovering Greek philosophy. Appreciate your feedback.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@LLMresearch You'll want to read the texts along with watching videos. The videos are no substitute for reading and study

[@LLMresearch]

@@GregoryBSadler I’ve read Plato’s Meno Part 1 I think it’s the introduction.

[@GregoryBSadler]

@@LLMresearch You'll want to just read the entire text. The actual text doesn't have part 1 or or another parts

[@spencerc2139]

I like to think of it in math terms. Right opinion is knowing the answer to a question, knowledge is more like knowing the formula to a question.

[@GregoryBSadler]

That's an analogy that works for math, not for everything else. Maybe don't think about it in "math terms" but rather stick with the actual philosophy

[@GeneralReadingInterest]

I think right opinion in math would be knowing the formula for the question, maybe you need to use the quadratic formula to work something out, and you just have that formula memorised so you can use it. Knowledge would be knowing how the formula functions from first principles.

[@shelleyfunny19]

Philo has ALL the resources. Every subject I've studied: anthropology, sociology, psychology have all their roots and theories based in a some thing that I've read as coming from one of the original thinkers: Aristotle, DesCarte, Plato. So as to not receive any of my knowledge hand-me-down, I approach my pedagogy the way I look to straighten out overcharges on my electric bill, "Hey, where's the head guy?!" Philo is the head guy. My fellow fellows can concentrate on engineering and computer science, we don't want to over-saturate our market, lol, And anyway philo is like a puppy, you don't choose it, it chooses you. And this puppy bit me on my essence and left a helluva smart smart. lol. I'll be getting the philo word out myself, when I throw my hobby into the mix. I do stand up comedy and am working on a bunch of intelligent jokes that will transcend the stumbling block that challenges all comics; 2 drink minimum. Thanks again, Dr. S!!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're welcome! Watched a few of your videos -- funny stuff! You might want to check out Michael Connell -- another philosophy person who does standup.

[@shelleyfunny19]

Tremendous share! Thank you. Right now we're reading Posterior Analytics, can you point me towards your best vid/lecture? Also in symbolic logic we just covered derivations and re going to predicate logic, can you also give me your best links to those two? THANK YOU!!

[@GregoryBSadler]

I haven't got videos discussing those

[@steviel123]

I've been stung so hard that my eyes are swollen and only through squinting can I see! Essentially though....Is there anything Plato thinks we can't know? Do you Dr. Sadler think there is anything we can't know. If so why? Probably a loaded question but I'm interested never the less.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Is there anything Plato thinks we can't know? Sure -- that which doesn't really work as an object of knowledge, e.g. material things (though certain aspects of them can be objects of knowledge for arts/disciplines, like medicine). There's something less intelligible, less knowlable in a strict sense to the changing world of material things, by contrast to the Forms. When I'm asked about knowledge, I'm not a Platonist in an important respect -- I am willing to say there's a number of different modes of "knowledge" -- not just one single thing that all knowledges fit under. So, there will be some things that will certain be "unknowable" for some modes. For a contemporary example, neuroscientists can do as much imaging in their experiments as they like, but they can't through them arrive at knowledge of "what emotions are" -- that of course doesn't mean that they can't generate a lot of knowledge about other things, and working/structured in other ways. . . .

[@JamesParus]

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.-Rumsfeld

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

I have to say that I've never thought that Plato was quite right in this area. It is strange to say that the distinction between knowledge and true opinion is that in the former case, one can give a good account. I believe that Hank Mobley is a better saxophonist than John Coltrane. I can provide very good reasons for this belief and can probably explain it in a way convincing enough to satisfy Plato's stipulation that I be able to explain reasons for this knowledge. It'd be strange to suggest, though, that my being able to explain it (versus someone who just intuits that Mobley is superior) means that my belief is knowledge and hers is not. Conversely, n the early 20th century, most reputable scientists in many fields were eugenicists. They not only believed that there were characteristics of races but that there was a hierarchy we could place races on based on these characteristics. They could provide not only excellent reasons for this belief, but these excellent reasons were very much in accord with the science that was being produced. If we would have asked them, based on Plato's criteria, whether theirs was opinion or knowledge, they'd have had no trouble telling us that it was indeed knowledge. But I'm not sure we could call what they had knowledge, at least looking back on it today. I also did not mention that since Plato has written, there have been many scientists and philosophers who've suggested that there is such a thing as tacit knowledge, things we know but cannot articulate how or why we know. Interestingly, crafts and techne often fall into that type of knowledge. A songwriter may be quite excellent and know that this melody or lyric will be better for a song than another, but not be able to say how she knows that. It'd be strange for us to demand that either Pharrell Williams can give us a detailed account of how he knows what goes into a good song or else deem him to not know how to write good songs.

[@GregoryBSadler]

It isn't JUST being able to give a good account

[@kevincurrie-knight3267]

Okay, but my point is that I don't even see how giving a good account is any sort of necessary condition. To elaborate, what I'm saying is that whether I can give a good explanation seems irrelevant to deciding whether I have knowledge or a true opinion. I can give good reasons for my true opinions, and I can have knowledge (like how to tell how much salt to use in a particular recipe) that I can't necessarily give good reasons for.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Kevin Currie-Knight well, then you have a different conception of what knowledge is. Plenty of them out there