Meno
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~21,900 words · 104 passages
Cite this work
- APAPlato. (n.d.). Meno. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/meno
- MLAPlato. "Meno." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/meno.
- ChicagoPlato. Meno. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/plato/meno.
What it is about
Can virtue be taught? The question opens onto a larger one: how can you look for something when you don't know what it is? Plato's answer is that learning is recollection, and he demonstrates it by walking an uneducated slave through a geometry proof.
Context and history
The birthplace of the theory of recollection and, in the slave scene, the first argument that knowledge is not all acquired from outside. Meno's paradox — you cannot search for what you do not know — remains live in epistemology and in machine learning.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
This Dialogue begins abruptly with a question of Meno, who asks, 'whether virtue can be taught.' Socrates replies that he does not as yet know what virtue is, and has never known anyone who did. 'Then he cannot have met Gorgias when he was at Athens.' Yes, Socrates had met him, but he has a bad memory, and has forgotten what Gorgias said. Will Meno tell him his own notion, which is probably not very different from that of Gorgias? 'O yes--nothing easier: there is the virtue of a man, of a woman, of an old man, and of a child; there is a virtue of every age and state of life, all of which may be easily described.' Socrates reminds Meno that this is only an enumeration of the virtues and not a definition of the notion which is common to them all. In a second attempt Meno defines virtue to be 'the power of command.' But to this, again, exceptions are taken. For there must be a virtue of those who obey, as well as of those who command; and the power of command must be justly or not unjustly exercised. Meno is very ready to admit that justice is virtue: 'Would you say virtue or a virtue, for there are other virtues, such as courage, temperance, and the like; just as round is a figure, and black and white are colours, and yet there are other figures and other colours. Let Meno take the examples of figure and colour, and try to define them.' Meno confesses his inability, and after a process of interrogation, in which Socrates explains to him the nature of a 'simile in multis,' Socrates himself defines figure as 'the accompaniment of colour.' But some one may object that he does not know the meaning of the word 'colour;' and if he is a candid friend, and not a mere disputant, Socrates is willing to furnish him with a simpler and more philosophical definition, into which no disputed word is allowed to intrude: 'Figure is the limit of form.' Meno imperiously insists that he must still hav← Back to Plato