more on this theme | more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?
Gist of Idea
How can you seek knowledge of something if you don't know it?
Source
Plato (Meno [c.385 BCE], 80d05)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.880
A Reaction
Vasilis Politis cites this as a nice example of the 'aporiai' (puzzles) which Aristotle said were the foundation of enquiry. Nowadays the problem is called the 'paradox of enquiry'.