Learning and inquiry › The Two Faces of the Paradox

Meno's questions concern both the direction of a search and the recognition of its result. These problems can come apart. A person might have a method for trying possible answers while lacking a way to confirm success. Another might recognize a solution once shown it while having no method for reaching it independently.

The geometry lesson supplies direction through the problem's conditions and recognition through visible relations between areas. A modern reader can understand that process without accepting that the soul learned geometry before birth. The boy already has concepts and language with which to work. His ignorance of this particular answer does not erase all those resources.

Still, the scene does not answer every version of the recognition problem. In geometry the target is fixed: construct a square of twice a given area. In the search for virtue, the speakers disagree about what virtue itself is. They cannot simply compare a candidate with an agreed numerical target. The return to ethics will therefore test how much help the geometrical example really provides.