37

Logic IV 40

How will you manage to investigate without the remotest idea of what it is that you want to investigate? Or if you [light?] on what you want, how shall you know that is what you wanted? All that Plato can answer to this is captious [foreign text] that it makes men shiggards and the like and then brings forward his famous doctrine of reminiscences as if that met the point. To prove this nonsense he leads a slave to perform a little process of mathematical reasoning. He also notices that it is better not to know one does not know, than not know but fancy that one knows. Also it is better to inquire than to idly think that it is hopeless to inquire. the last part of the dialogue is inteded to prove that virtue is knowledge because it can be taught; although it is so present that some readers have imagined that it was intended to show that it can be taught if it is knowledge.