JILL GORDONact of ignorance, but they are different insofar as Meno’s slave has ad-
mitted his ignorance. They are similar insofar as both are shameful acts
committed by ignorant people, but they are different insofar as the geo-
metrical falsehoods are more easily correctable. In order to correct his
ignorance, Meno must engage in dialectic which is risky and personally
diffi cult in ways that geometry lessons are not. The reader and Meno
gain important insights into virtue, knowledge, and ignorance by close
examination of the image of the slave’s public lectures and its original
instance in Meno’s lectures on virtue.
If the Platonic dialogues urge the use of images in the service of
good philosophy, then what can be concluded about the traditional
view of “Platonic metaphysics”? That there are two distinct realms—of
things-in-themselves and of the objects of human experience—seems
clear enough. But that pure reason, leading to insight into the forms, is
to be identifi ed with philosophy, is not supported by the texts. Reason
alone as an avenue to enlightenment is not a possibility for humans.
Philosophy, the very tool necessary for limited, embodied persons, me-
diates between the two realms for those beings necessitated to dwell in
one alone but with aspirations to understand the other. In this capacity,
philosophy certainly includes arguments, but it relies as well on images
in the form of myth, analogy, metaphor, and the like. Pure reason is left
to the gods; philosophy is left to humans.
A renewed look at Plato’s metaphysics reveals surprising results.
Even the forms—the eternal, unchanging bearers of reality—and the
disembodied rationality that can grasp the forms are themselves im-
ages.^29 It has perhaps escaped our notice that even these stories that
are spun throughout the dialogue are imagistic, and what has tradition-
ally passed for Plato’s metaphysics and his epistemology are themselves
composed of images. We have perhaps neglected to see that even these
things called “forms” take shape in our imagination in ways other than
their ascribed reality. They are meant to have no physical manifestation
and yet they are presented to us and are taken up into our cognition
as shapes, forms, literally “that which is seen.”^30 Furthermore, we must
imagine another world beyond our own, this realm of the things-in-
themselves, this reality which is different from our lived experience and
yet similar, and we must construct it from our fancy or imagination, fur-
nish it with conceptions drawn from our own limited experience. And
Plato expects us truly to have some access to this reality from the images
he creates and from the images he compels us to create for ourselves.
Ultimately, all of Plato’s images are addressed to an audience fi rmly and
necessarily grounded in human phenomena and are meant to turn us
toward philosophy. Does this imply that ultimately we are only relegated