The Scientist In The Crib

Socrates answer is that we did not learn about virtue, or any other abstract concept, from our experience. We must have known about it in the first place. Socrates thought we remembered it from a past life. Contemporary versions of Socrates argument would say that it is in our genetic code.
Every first-year philosophy student learns about Socrates argument. What that first-year student doesnt learn, though, is that it isnt just an abstract logical argument. Its actually based on a kind of experiment, a piece of empirical scientific investigation. The most important person in the Meno isnt Meno or Socrates or any of the aristocrats but an anonymous child, the slave boy who pours the wine. The Meno is both the first discussion of the problem of knowledge and the first recorded develop