Plato: Meno, and Jacob Klein: Commentary on the Meno
Tuesdays, 8:50-10:20 ET | April 7 to June 30, 2026
How to read a great book? Let us read a Platonic dialogue, the Meno, guided by a commentary that rises to the level of a great book itself, Jacob Klein’s Commentary on Plato’s Meno. This is the first in a new series of seminars that aims even more deliberately than our usual seminars to help us become better readers. Not all great books are to be read in the same manner: each traverses distinct terrains in different ways, each asks questions different in kind that demand fitting and particular methods (Greek “methodos” means “way or path,” not a critical-methodological apparatus) of inquiry. Plato's Seventh Letter asks to be read in a way appropriate to it, which is different from his Republic, and both of which are different from his Laws, and so on. With our close reading of the Meno, we will follow the lead of one of the best commentaries on the Meno and on Platonic dialogues in general. Beginners and Intermediate-level welcome.
The Meno is one of Plato’s short dialogues or plays. Like many of his dialogues it is at once about a theme (the words on the pages) and a demonstration of the theme being worked on (the words and the actions of the play), in this case about what came to be called liberal learning and an exercise itself in liberal learning for the reader. We will read one of the most faithful translations into English.
Klein is especially alive to the issue of interpretations. He earned his PhD in 1920 under Nicolai Hartmann at Marburg, with a dissertation entitled “The Logical and Historical Element in Hegel’s Philosophy.” In April 1970 he said of it, “not worth the paper on which it is written.” Klein and Leo Strauss met at Marburg in 1920 and became each other’s closest friends. Strauss told Klein about a great new teacher, Martin Heidegger, and they audited various of Heidegger’s courses at Marburg in the period 1924-1928. Klein had been very depressed because he feared he could never understand what another person meant in speech. While he never became a Heideggerian, he did always credit Heidegger with being “the first man who made me understand something written by another man, namely Aristotle,” and he emerged from his depression.
Texts: Plato, Meno, trans. George Anastaplo and Laurence Berns, in the Focus Philosophical Library Series, Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004, ISBN 0941051714. Klein, Jacob, A Commentary on Plato's Meno, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965 (out of print); or, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012, ISBN 9780807873984.
Reading Load: App. 25 pp/week.
Leaders: Reynaldo Miranda-Zúñiga and Jason Happel. Reynaldo is an alumnus of St. John’s College, Annapolis, past president of the large Northern California Alumni Chapter, and has led Symposium seminars since it's founding 20 years ago, and for other organizations for the last 25. Jason is a visiting professor in ethics and political philosophy at Framingham State University. Both have taken a life-long interest in Plato, and in Klein's work.
Before the first meeting please read the Meno carefully, if possible re-read it, and also Klein’s Introduction to his book. We will proceed thereafter following Klein’s divisions by chapter.