In the first of this lecture’s three parts, we will take a closer look at the “recollection doctrine” of knowledge and its supposed proof, namely Socrates’s famous conversation with one of Meno’s slaves. Since the recollection doctrine prompts Meno not to give up the quest for a definition of “virtue,” the dialogue is permitted to continue, and in the next section Socrates does answer Meno’s original question as to whether virtue is teachable. Socrates being Socrates, however, does not do so in an entirely straightforward way: Socrates says yes, virtue is teachable, but then suddenly suggests that maybe virtue isn’t teachable after all. An important ambiguity in the term “virtue,” present since Meno’s attempts to nail down a definition, explains Socrates’s own contradictory answers here: Everything depends on what one means by “virtue.” For only if the virtue in question is rational can it be taught, strictly speaking. After considering this ambiguity, and the quite dramatic appearance