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 have a definition of colour. Some raillery follows; and
at length Socrates is induced to reply, 'that colour is the effluence of
form, sensible, and in due proportion to the sight.' This definition is
exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who welcomes the familiar language
of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of opinion that the more abstract
or dialectical definition of figure is far better.
Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general
definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the
words of a poet, 'that virtue is to delight in things honourable, and to
have the power of getting them.' This is a nearer approximation than
he has yet made to a complete definition, and, regarded as a piece
of proverbial or popular morality, is not far from the truth. But the
objection is urged, 'that the honourable is the good,' and as every one
equally desires the good, the point of the definition is contained in
the words, 'the power of getting them.' 'And they must be got justly or
with justice.' The definition will then stand thus: 'Virtue is the power
of getting good with justice.' But justice is a part of virtue, and
therefore virtue is the getting of good with a part of virtue. The
definition repeats the word defined.
Meno complains that the conversation of Socrates has the effect of a
torpedo's shock upon him. When he talks with other persons he has plenty
to say about virtue; in the presence of Socrates, his thoughts desert
him. Socrates replies that he is only the cause of perplexity in others,
because he is himself perplexed. He proposes to continue the enquiry.
But how, asks Meno, can he enquire either into what he knows or into
what he does not know? This is a sophistical puzzle, which, as Socrates
remarks, saves a great deal of trouble to him who accepts it. But the
puzzle has a real difficulty latent under it, to which Socrates will
endeavour to find a reply. The difficulty is the origin of knowledge:--
He has heard from priests and priestesses, and from the poet Pindar, of
an immortal soul which is born again and again in successive periods of
existence, returning into this world when she has paid the penalty of
ancient crime, and, having wandered over all places of the upper and
under world, and seen and known all things at one time or other, is by
association out of one thing capable of recovering all. For nature is
of one kindred; and every soul has a seed or germ which may be developed
into all knowledge. The existence of this latent knowledge is further
proved by the interrogation of one of Meno's slaves, who, in the skilful
hands of Socrates, is made to acknowledge some elementary relations
of geometrical figures. The theorem that the square of the diagonal
is double the square of the side--that famous discovery of primitive
mathematics, in honour of which the legendary Pythagoras is said to
have sacrificed a hecatomb--is elicited from him. The first step in the
process of teaching has made him conscious of his own ignorance. He
has had the 'torpedo's shock' given him, and is the better for the
operation. But whence had the uneducated man this knowledge? He had
never learnt geometry in this world; nor was it born with him; he must
therefore have had it when he was not a man. And as he always either was
or was not a man, he must have always had it. (Compare Phaedo.)
After Socrates has given this specimen of the true nature of teaching,
the original question of the teachableness of virtue is renewed. Again
he professes a desire to know 'what virtue is' first. But he is willing
to argue the question, as mathematicians say, under an hypothesis. He
will assume that if virtue is knowledge, then virtue can be taught.
(This was the stage of the argument at which the Protagoras concluded.)
Socrates has no difficulty in showing that virtue is a good, and
that goods, whether of body or mind, must be under the direction of
knowledge. Upon the assumption just made, then, virtue is teachable. But
where are the teachers? There are none to be found. This is extremely
discouraging. Virtue is no sooner discovered to be teachable, than the
discovery follows that it is not taught. Virtue, therefore, is and is
not teachable.
In this dilemma an appeal is made to Anytus, a respectable and
well-to-do citizen of the old school, and a family friend of Meno,
who happens to be present. He is asked 'whether Meno shall go to the
Sophists and be taught.' The suggestion throws him into a rage. 'To
whom, then, shall Meno go?' asks Socrates. To any Athenian gentleman--to
the great Athenian statesmen of past times. Socrates replies here, as
elsewhere (Laches, Prot.), that Themistocles, Pericles, and other great
men, had sons to whom they would surely, if they could have done so,
have imparted their own political wisdom; but no one ever heard that
these sons of theirs were remarkable for anything except riding and
wrestling and similar accomplishments. Anytus is angry at the imputation
which is cast on his favourite statesmen, and on a class to which he
supposes himself to belong; he breaks off with a significant hint. The
mention of another opportunity of talking with him, and the suggestion
that Meno may do the Athenian people a service by pacifying him, are
evident allusions to the trial of Socrates.
Socrates returns to the consideration of the question 'whether virtue is
teachable,' which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of
it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the rest of the world do
not profess to teach). But there is another point which we failed to
observe, and in which Gorgias has never instructed Meno, nor Prodicus
Socrates. This is the nature of right opinion. For virtue may be under
the guidance of right opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion
is for practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of
being taught, and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to 'walk
off,' because not bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of
instinct which is possessed by statesmen, who are not wise or knowing
persons, but only inspired or divine. The higher virtue, which is
identical with knowledge, is an ideal only. If the statesman had this
knowledge, and could teach what he knew, he would be like Tiresias in
the world below,--'he alone has wisdom, but the rest flit like shadows.'
This Dialogue is an attempt to answer the question, Can virtue be
taught? No one would either ask or answer such a question in modern
times. But in the age of Socrates it was only by an effort that the mind
could rise to a general notion of virtue as distinct from the particular
virtues of courage, liberality, and the like. And when a hazy conception
of this ideal was attained, it was only by a further effort that the
question of the teachableness of virtue could be resolved.
The answer which is given by Plato is paradoxical enough, and seems
rather intended to stimulate than to satisfy enquiry. Virtue is
knowledge, and therefore virtue can be taught. But virtue is not taught,
and therefore in this higher and ideal sense there is no virtue and no
knowledge. The teaching of the Sophists is confessedly inadequate, and
Meno, who is their pupil, is ignorant of the very nature of general
terms. He can only produce out of their armoury the sophism, 'that you
can neither enquire into what you know nor into what you do not know;'
to which Socrates replies by his theory of reminiscence.
To the doctrine that virtue is knowledge, Plato has been constantly
tending in the previous Dialogues. But the new truth is no sooner found
than it vanishes away. 'If there is knowledge, there must be teachers;
and where are the teachers?' There is no knowledge in the higher sense
of systematic, connected, reasoned knowledge, such as may one day be
attained, and such as Plato himself seems to see in some far off vision
of a single science. And there are no teachers in the higher sense of
the word; that is to say, no real teachers who will arouse the spirit
of enquiry in their pupils, and not merely instruct them in rhetoric or
impart to them ready-made information for a fee of 'one' or of 'fifty
drachms.' Plato is desirous of deepening the notion of education, and
therefore he asserts the paradox that there are no educators. This
paradox, though different in form, is not really different from the
remark which is often made in modern times by those who would depreciate
either the methods of education commonly employed, or the standard
attained--that 'there is no true education among us.'
There remains still a possibility which must not be overlooked. Even
if there be no true knowledge, as is proved by 'the wretched state of
education,' there may be right opinion, which is a sort of guessing
or divination resting on no knowledge of causes, and incommunicable to
others. This is the gift which our statesmen have, as is proved by the
circumstance that they are unable to impart their knowledge to their
sons. Those who are possessed of it cannot be said to be men of science
or philosophers, but they are inspired and divine.
There may be some trace of irony in this curious passage, which forms
the concluding portion of the Dialogue. But Plato certainly does not
mean to intimate that the supernatural or divine is the true basis of
human life. To him knowledge, if only attainable in this world, is of
all things the most divine. Yet, like other philosophers, he is willing
to admit that 'probability is the guide of life (Butler's Analogy.);'
and he is at the same time desirous of contrasting the wisdom which
governs the world with a higher wisdom. There are many instincts,
judgments, and anticipations of the human mind which cannot be reduced
to rule, and of which the grounds cannot always be given in words. A
person may have some skill or latent experience which he is able to use
himself and is yet unable to teach others, because he has no principles,
and is incapable of collecting or arranging his ideas. He has practice,
but not theory; art, but not science. This is a true fact of psychology,
which is recognized by Plato in this passage. But he is far from
saying, as some have imagined, that inspiration or divine grace is to be
regarded as higher than knowledge. He would not have preferred the poet
or man of action to the philosopher, or the virtue of custom to the
virtue based upon ideas.
Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an
unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only
has knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There
may be a sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But
there is no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he
is deriding the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or
of oracles in the Apology, or of divine intimations when he is speaking
of the daemonium of Socrates. He recognizes the lower form of right
opinion, as well as the higher one of science, in the spirit of one who
desires to include in his philosophy every aspect of human life; just
as he recognizes the existence of popular opinion as a fact, and the
Sophists as the expression of it.
This Dialogue contains the first intimation of the doctrine of
reminiscence and of the immortality of the soul. The proof is very
slight, even slighter than in the Phaedo and Republic. Because men had
abstract ideas in a previous state, they must have always had them, and
their souls therefore must have always existed. For they must always
have been either men or not men. The fallacy of the latter words is
transparent. And Socrates himself appears to be conscious of their
weakness; for he adds immediately afterwards, 'I have said some things
of which I am not altogether confident.' (Compare Phaedo.) It may be
observed, however, that the fanciful notion of pre-existence is combined
with a true but partial view of the origin and unity of knowledge,
and of the association of ideas. Knowledge is prior to any particular
knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the individual, but
of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be appropriated
by strenuous exertion.
The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than in
the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of ideas
of justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of
anything but the duty of enquiry. The doctrine of reminiscence too is
explained more in accordance with fact and experience as arising out of
the affinities of nature (ate tes thuseos oles suggenous ouses). Modern
philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one another;
the ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind when
he affirmed that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The
subjective was converted by him into an objective; the mental phenomenon
of the association of ideas (compare Phaedo) became a real chain of
existences. The germs of two valuable principles of education may also
be gathered from the 'words of priests and priestesses:' (1) that
true knowledge is a knowledge of causes (compare Aristotle's theory of
episteme); and (2) that the process of learning consists not in what is
brought to the learner, but in what is drawn out of him.
Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the
acute observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is
embellished with poetical language, to the better and truer one; or (2)
the shrewd reflection, which may admit of an application to modern
as well as to ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made large
fortunes; this must surely be a criterion of their powers of teaching,
for that no man could get a living by shoemaking who was not a good
shoemaker; or (3) the remark conveyed, almost in a word, that the verbal
sceptic is saved the labour of thought and enquiry (ouden dei to toiouto
zeteseos). Characteristic also of the temper of the Socratic enquiry
is, (4) the proposal to discuss the teachableness of virtue under
an hypothesis, after the manner of the mathematicians; and (5) the
repetition of the favourite doctrine which occurs so frequently in
the earlier and more Socratic Dialogues, and gives a colour to all
of them--that mankind only desire evil through ignorance; (6) the
experiment of eliciting from the slave-boy the mathematical truth which
is latent in him, and (7) the remark that he is all the better for
knowing his ignorance.
The character of Meno, like that of Critias, has no relation to the
actual circumstances of his life. Plato is silent about his treachery
to the ten thousand Greeks, which Xenophon has recorded, as he is also
silent about the crimes of Critias. He is a Thessalian Alcibiades,
rich and luxurious--a spoilt child of fortune, and is described as the
hereditary friend of the great king. Like Alcibiades he is inspired
with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn of
Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in the same
relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other
great Sophist. He is the sophisticated youth on whom Socrates tries his
cross-examining powers, just as in the Charmides, the Lysis, and
the Euthydemus, ingenuous boyhood is made the subject of a similar
experiment. He is treated by Socrates in a half-playful manner suited to
his character; at the same time he appears not quite to understand the
process to which he is being subjected. For he is exhibited as ignorant
of the very elements of dialectics, in which the Sophists have failed
to instruct their disciple. His definition of virtue as 'the power and
desire of attaining things honourable,' like the first definition
of justice in the Republic, is taken from a poet. His answers have a
sophistical ring, and at the same time show the sophistical incapacity
to grasp a general notion.
Anytus is the type of the narrow-minded man of the world, who is
indignant at innovation, and equally detests the popular teacher and
the true philosopher. He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new
opinions, whether of Socrates or the Sophists, as fatal to Athenian
greatness. He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of
a different variety; the immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles
are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is
remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated
by his parting words. Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing
that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or
malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds. Or he may have
been regardless of the historical truth of the characters of his
dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias. Like Chaerephon (Apol.)
the real Anytus was a democrat, and had joined Thrasybulus in the
conflict with the thirty.
The Protagoras arrived at a sort of hypothetical conclusion, that if
'virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.' In the Euthydemus, Socrates
himself offered an example of the manner in which the true teacher
may draw out the mind of youth; this was in contrast to the quibbling
follies of the Sophists. In the Meno the subject is more developed; the
foundations of the enquiry are laid deeper, and the nature of knowledge
is more distinctly explained. There is a progression by antagonism of
two opposite aspects of philosophy. But at the moment when we approach
nearest, the truth doubles upon us and passes out of our reach. We seem
to find that the ideal of knowledge is irreconcilable with experience.
In human life there is indeed the profession of knowledge, but right
opinion is our actual guide. There is another sort of progress from the
general notions of Socrates, who asked simply, 'what is friendship?'
'what is temperance?' 'what is courage?' as in the Lysis, Charmides,
Laches, to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of
his philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and
future state of existence.
The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and
in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the Gorgias and Theaetetus as
well as in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but
in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to
have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men
and good speakers, are denounced as 'blind leaders of the blind.' The
doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being
made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine
of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge
to virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern
distinctions. The existence of the virtues without the possession
of knowledge in the higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be
possible. Right opinion is again introduced in the Theaetetus as
an account of knowledge, but is rejected on the ground that it is
irrational (as here, because it is not bound by the tie of the cause),
and also because the conception of false opinion is given up as
hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily different at different
times of his life, as new distinctions are realized, or new stages of
thought attained by him. We are not therefore justified, in order to
take away the appearance of inconsistency, in attributing to him hidden
meanings or remote allusions.
There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the
Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato
were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be
one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by
the allusion of Anytus.
We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has
done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already
seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in
Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The
repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon,
where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus 'and a fair youth
having lovers,' has no other trait of likeness to the Meno of Plato.
The place of the Meno in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal
evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the
'general definitions' of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed
in the Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Protagoras; the puzzle about
knowing and learning has already appeared in the Euthydemus. The
doctrines of immortality and pre-existence are carried further in the
Phaedrus and Phaedo; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is
more fully developed in the Theaetetus. The lessons of Prodicus, whom he
facetiously calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates.
Unlike the later Platonic Dialogues, the Meno arrives at no conclusion.
Hence we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than
the Protagoras, and earlier than the Phaedrus and Gorgias. The place
which is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to
bring together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain
allusions to the trial and death of Socrates.
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