Yunus asked:

I study electronic engineering in a foreign country. We have been asked to make an essay:

Le savoir est-il ce qui peut s'enseigner?

I understand that question to mean: Is it possible to teach all forms of knowledge?

I think for Plato knowledge is what has a precise content, we can give a definition. I refer to the
dialogue Menowhich is about a problematic definition of virtue. According to Plato, if something — for
example, virtue — is knowledge, then it can be taught.

But if we consider knowledge acquired from experience, and not from a professor, in this case, is it
possible to teach this knowledge? Personally, I learnt a lot of things during my work experience that I
think someone else couldn't teach me.

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Plato thought that we acquire practical 'knowledge' by means of the mere transfer of information,
examples being flute-playing and medicine. Real knowledge, for Plato, had to be of the abstract and
eternal and when we apply concepts for which we don't have a definition — such as virtue — to the
empirical world, we are using beliefs and opinions

Real knowledge is acquired by the "tethering" of right opinion — which is appropriate for geometrical
problems — where repeated working out of problems is needed before you can claim to know. It
involves "reasoning out the explanation" which is needed for conceptual knowledge such as the
definition of "virtue", or knowledge of properties in the empirical world. To tether or reason out the
explanation is to fully understand. We can only know certain things. Plato thought that the world was
subject to change and flux and could not be an object of knowledge, so real knowledge is that which
is attained through reasoning.

Today it is thought sufficient that we know what something means just so long as we can use the
concept — this is so for knowledge of the empirical world, at least. "Virtue" is a more difficult concept
because it is evaluative, so although we have beliefs about what virtue is, real knowledge can only be
achieved by understanding which requires reasoning. We can inform others of our beliefs about
virtue, but if we don't actually know what it is we cannot really teach others because we would not
pass on knowledge.

I don't know what it is that you have learnt from experience which you feel someone else couldn't
teach you. If you have learnt from observation, supposedly you could have been shown. Of course,
this would not amount to knowledge according to Plato, and couldn't be taught.

Basically, on teaching, practical knowledge (for Plato and everyone else) can be taught. For abstract
knowledge (maths and conceptual definitions), Plato would not allow that this can be taught, because
you can only come to know something on your own, having reasoned out the explanation, or having
understood. You can only "prompt" (i.e. question) others to acquire a proper understanding for
themselves. Philosophers other than Plato might characterise prompts as teaching. For difficult
concepts such as "virtue" we do not have definitions, and so on Plato's view and most other people's,
we can only transfer information. Where we don't have undisputed explanations, we only have beliefs,
and these are what cannot be taught on anyone's account, only conveyed or passed on. This may be
characterised as "being taught", by non-Platonists, but it is not the acquisition of knowledge on
anyone's account.

I don't know anything about electronic engineering, but perhaps you can achieve a deep
understanding as opposed to just following instructions or rules. Understanding is something you do
on your own.

Rachel Browne