Meno
Meno (/ˈmiːnoʊ/; Greek: Μένων, Ménōn) is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. Meno begins the dialogue by asking Socrates whether virtue is taught, acquired by practice, or comes by nature.[1] In order to determine whether virtue is teachable or not, Socrates tells Meno that they first need to determine what virtue is. When the characters speak of virtue, or rather arete, they refer to virtue in general, rather than particular virtues, such as justice or temperance. The first part of the work showcases Socratic dialectical style; Meno, unable to adequately define virtue, is reduced to confusion or aporia.[2] Socrates suggests that they seek an adequate definition for virtue together. In response, Meno suggests that it is impossible to seek what one does not know, because one will be unable to determine whether one has found it.[3]
This article is about Plato's dialogue. For the Thessalian general and character from Plato's dialogue, see Meno (general). For other uses, see Meno (disambiguation).Socrates challenges Meno's argument, often called "Meno's Paradox" or the "Learner's Paradox", by introducing the theory of knowledge as recollection (anamnesis). As presented in the dialogue, the theory proposes that souls are immortal and know all things in a disembodied state; learning in the embodied is actually a process of recollecting that which the soul knew before it came into a body.[4] Socrates demonstrates recollection in action by posing a mathematical puzzle to one of Meno's slaves.[5] Subsequently, Socrates and Meno return to the question of whether virtue is teachable, employing the method of hypothesis. Near the end of the dialogue, Meno poses another famous puzzle, called "The Meno Problem" or "The Value Problem for Knowledge", which questions why knowledge is valued more highly than true belief.[6] In response, Socrates provides a famous and somewhat enigmatic distinction between knowledge and true belief.[7]
Characters[edit]
Plato's Meno is a Socratic dialogue in which the two main speakers, Socrates and Meno (also transliterated as "Menon"), discuss human virtue: what it is, and whether or not it can be taught. Meno is visiting Athens from Thessaly with a large entourage of slaves attending him. Young, good-looking and well-born, he is a student of Gorgias, a prominent sophist whose views on virtue clearly influence that of Meno's. Early in the dialogue, Meno claims that he has held forth many times on the subject of virtue, and in front of large audiences.
One of Meno's slaves also has a speaking role, as one of the features of the dialogue is Socrates' use of the slave to demonstrate his idea of anamnesis: certain knowledge is innate and "recollected" by the soul through proper inquiry.
Another participant in the dialogue is Athenian politician Anytus, a prosecutor of Socrates with whom Meno is friendly.
Dialogue[edit]
Introduction of virtue[edit]
The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates to tell him if virtue can be taught. Socrates says that he does not know what virtue is, and neither does anyone else he knows.[8] Meno responds that, according to Gorgias, virtue is different for different people, that what is virtuous for a man is to conduct himself in the city so that he helps his friends, injures his enemies, and takes care all the while that he personally comes to no harm. Virtue is different for a woman, he says. Her domain is the management of the household, and she is supposed to obey her husband. He says that children (male and female) have their own proper virtue, and so do old men—free or slaves.[9] Socrates objects: there must be some virtue common to all human beings.
Socrates rejects the idea that human virtue depends on a person's sex or age. He leads Meno towards the idea that virtues are common to all people, that sophrosunê ('temperance', i.e. exercise of self-control) and dikê (aka dikaiosunê; 'justice', i.e. refrain from harming others) are virtues even in children and old men.[10] Meno proposes to Socrates that the "capacity to govern men" may be a virtue common to all people. Socrates points out to the slaveholder that "governing well" cannot be a virtue of a slave, because then he would not be a slave.[11]
One of the errors that Socrates points out is that Meno lists many particular virtues without defining a common feature inherent to virtues which makes them thus. Socrates remarks that Meno makes many out of one, like somebody who breaks a plate.[12]
Meno proposes that virtue is the desire for good things and the power to get them. Socrates points out that this raises a second problem—many people do not recognize evil.[13] The discussion then turns to the question of accounting for the fact that so many people are mistaken about good and evil and take one for the other. Socrates asks Meno to consider whether good things must be acquired virtuously in order to be really good.[14] Socrates leads onto the question of whether virtue is one thing or many.
No satisfactory definition of virtue emerges in the Meno. Socrates' comments, however, show that he considers a successful definition to be unitary, rather than a list of varieties of virtue, that it must contain all and only those terms which are genuine instances of virtue, and must not be circular.[15]
Meno and Protagoras[edit]
Meno's theme is also dealt with in the dialogue Protagoras, where Plato ultimately has Socrates arrive at the opposite conclusion: virtue can be taught. Likewise, while in Protagoras knowledge is uncompromisingly this-worldly, in Meno the theory of recollection points to a link between knowledge and eternal truths.[15]
