The Method of Hypothesis in the Meno Hugh H. Benson Published in Proceedings of BACAP 18, 2003, pp. 95-126. (please cite that version) The Meno has long been considered a transitional Platonic dialogue. Indeed, Gregory Vlastos once maintained that he could identify the precise point in the dialogues where the historical Socrates (interpreted by Plato) gave off and Plato (on his own) began - Meno 80d-e. I am less sanguine than I once was about this historical and developmental claim. But that the Meno marks a break with the so-called elenctic dialogues appears secure. i At Meno 80d-e, Plato has first Meno and then Socrates pose a challenge which the readers of the elenctic dialogues have been wanting to pose for some time. For Socrates’ immediate goal in those dialogues is eliminating the interlocutor’s false conceit of knowledge. ii And yet, it is clear that Socrates’ purpose in eliminating the interlocutor’s false conceit is to encourage the interlocutor to seek the knowledge he has been shown to lack. iii But how is such a search to take place given Socrates’ repeated claims to be ignorant as well? Socrates’ only explicit recommendation is that one should seek out someone who knows and learn from him. But if no one with the requisite knowledge is to be found, how is one to proceed? Indeed, is progress even possible? This is the problem Meno raises in response to Socrates’ encouragement to join him in the search for knowledge of the nature of virtue which both he and Meno have professed to lack. iv The problem has come to be known as Meno’s paradox. (T1) MENO: In what way, Socrates, will you search for that thing which you do not know at all what it is? What sort of thing, of those things you do not know will you set up as the object of your search? Or even if you should happen upon it, how will you know that this is what you didn’t know? (Kai; tivna trovpon zhthvsei~, w\ Swvkrate~, tou'to o} mh; oi\sqa to; paravpan o{ti ejstivn; poi'on ga;r w|n oujk oi\sqa proqevmeno~ zhthvsei~; h] eij kai; o{ti mavlista ejntuvcoi~ aujtwæ', pw'~ ei[shæ o{ti tou'tov ejstin o} su; oujk hæ[dhsqa;) (Meno 80d5-8), followed by Socrates’ version