PLATONIC "TRUE BELIEF" AND THE PARADOX OF INQUIRY
abstract
In this paper, I use the Theaetetus as a key for understanding the paradox of inquiry in the Meno. I explore two questions specifically: (1) What is the cognitive status of the "true beliefs" which come to be transformed into exact knowledge by the addition of an "account"?; and (2) How is the content of these beliefs affected by this transformation? I argue that true beliefs, in being significantly intuitive in nature, possess a reliability independent of the discursive account which transforms that belief into knowledge. Uncertainty over this relation, however, blocks a straightforward answer to the second question and thus both fuels the paradox of inquiry in the Meno and accounts for the disagreement among its various interpreters.