MENON.
[Side-note: Persons of the Dialogue.]
This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of
noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city
of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his
native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias.[1] The
name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the
Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten
Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the
Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that
meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The
conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two
episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered
youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict
with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.
[Footnote 1: Cicero notices Isokrates as having heard Gorgias in
Thessaly (Orator. 53, 176).]
The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the
Hipparchus and Minos:
[Side-note: Question put by Menon--Is virtue teachable?
Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of
Menon.]
_Menon._--Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is
teachable--or acquirable by exercise--or whether it comes by nature--or
in what other manner it comes? _Sokr._--I cannot answer your
question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is:
and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing
about its attributes or accessories? A man who does not know, Menon,
cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary.
_Menon._--Certainly not. But is it really true, Sokrates,
that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting
you, when I go home?[2] _Sokr._--Yes--undoubtedly: and proclaim
besides that I have never yet met with any one who _did_ know.
_Menon._--What! have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not
he appear to you to know? _Sokr._--I have met him, but I do not
quite recollect what he said. We need not consider what he said,
since he is not here to answer for himself.[3] But you doubtless
recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what
virtue is? _Menon._--There is _no difficulty_ in telling
you.[4]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Menon, p. 71 B-C. [Greek: A)lla\ su/, ô)=
Sô/krates, ou)d' o(/ ti a)retê/ e)stin oi)=stha, a)lla\ tau=ta peri\
sou= kai\ oi)/kade a)pagge/llômen?]]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Menon, p. 71 D. [Greek: a)kei=non me/ntoi nu=n
e)ô=men, e)peidê\ kai\ a)/pestin.] Sokrates sets little value upon
opinions unless where the person giving them is present to explain
and defend: compare what he says about the uselessness of citation
from poets, from whom you can ask no questions, Plato, Protagor. p.
347 E.]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Menon, p. 71 E. [Greek: A)ll' ou) chalepo/n, ô)=
Sô/krates, ei)pei=n], &c.]
[Side-note: Sokrates stands alone in this confession.
Unpopularity entailed by it.]
Many commentators here speak as if such disclaimer on the part of
Sokrates had reference merely to certain impudent pretensions to
universal knowledge on the part of the Sophists. But this (as I have
before remarked) is a misconception of the Sokratic or Platonic point
of view. The matter which Sokrates proclaims that _he_ does not
know, is, what, not Sophists alone, but every one else also,
professes to know well. Sokrates stands alone in avowing that he does
not know it, and that he can find no one else who knows. Menon treats
the question as one of no difficulty--one on which confessed
ignorance was discreditable. "What!" says Menon, "am I really to
state respecting you, that you do not know what virtue is?" The man
who makes such a confession will be looked upon by his neighbours
with surprise and displeasure--not to speak of probable consequences
yet worse. He is one whom the multifarious agencies employed by King
Nomos (which we shall find described more at length in the
Protagoras) have failed to mould into perfect and uninquiring
conformity, and he is still in process of examination to form a
judgment for himself.
[Side-note: Answer of Menon--plurality of virtues, one
belonging to each different class and condition. Sokrates enquires
for the property common to all of them.]
Menon proceeds to answer that there are many virtues: the virtue of a
man--competence to transact the business of the city, and in such
business to benefit his friends and injure his enemies: the
virtue of a woman--to administer the house well, preserving every
thing within it and obeying her husband: the virtue of a child, of an
old man, a slave, &c. There is in short a virtue--and its
contrary, a vice--belonging to each of us in every work, profession,
and age.[5]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Menon, p. 72 A. [Greek: kath' e(ka/stên ga\r tô=n
pra/xeôn kai\ tô=n ê(likô=n pro\s e(/kaston e)/rgon e(ka/stô| ê(mô=n
ê( a)retê/ e)stin. ô(sau/tôs de\ kai\ ê( kaki/a.]
Though Sokrates disapproves this method of answering--[Greek: to\
e)xarithmei=n ta\s a)reta/s] (to use the expression of Aristotle)--yet
Aristotle seems to think it better than searching for one general
definition. See Politica, i. 13, p. 1260, a. 15-30, where he has the
Platonic Menon in his mind.]
But (replies Sokrates) are they not all the same, _quatenus_
virtue? Health, _quatenus_ Health, is the same in a man or a
woman: is not the case similar with virtue? _Menon._--Not
exactly similar. _Sokr._--How so? Though there are many diverse
virtues, have not all of them one and the same form in common,
through the communion of which they _are_ virtues? In answer to
my question, you ought to declare what this common form is. Thus,
both the man who administers the city, and the woman who administers
the house, must act both of them with justice and moderation. Through
the same qualities, both the one and the other are good. There is
thus some common constituent: tell me what it is, according to you
and Gorgias? _Menon._--It is to be competent to exercise command
over men.[6] _Sokr._--But that will not suit for the virtue of a
child or a slave. Moreover, must we not superadd the condition, to
command justly, and not unjustly? _Menon._--I think so: justice
is virtue. _Sokr._--Is it virtue--or is it one particular
variety of virtue?[7] _Menon._--How do you mean? _Sokr._--Just
as if I were to say about roundness, that it is not figure, but
a particular variety of figure: because there are other figures
besides roundness. _Menon._--Very true: I say too, that there
are other virtues besides justice--namely, courage, moderation,
wisdom, magnanimity, and several others also. _Sokr._--We are
thus still in the same predicament. In looking for one virtue, we
have found many; but we cannot find that one form which runs through
them all. _Menon._--I cannot at present tell what that one
is.[8]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Menon, p. 73 D.]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Menon, p. 73 E. [Greek: Po/teron a)retê/, ô)=
Me/nôn, ê)\ a)retê/ tis?]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Menon, p. 74 A. [Greek: ou) ga\r du/namai/ pô,
ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s su\ zêtei=s, mi/an a)retê\n labei=n kata\
pa/ntôn.]]
[Side-note: Analogous cases cited--definitions of figure
and colour.]
Sokrates proceeds to illustrate his meaning by the analogies of
figure and colour. You call _round_ a figure, and _square_
a figure: you call _white_ and _black_ both colour, the one
as much as the other, though they are unlike and even opposite.[9]
Tell me, What is this same common figure and property in both, which
makes you call both of them figure--both of them colour? Take this as
a preliminary exercise, in order to help you in answering my enquiry
about virtue.[10] Menon cannot answer, and Sokrates answers his own
question. He gives a general definition, first of figure, next of
colour. He first defines figure in a way which implies colour to be
known. This is pointed out; and he then admits that in a good
definition, suitable to genuine dialectical investigation, nothing
should be implied as known, except what the respondent admits himself
to know. Figure and colour are both defined suitably to this
condition.[11]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Menon, p. 74 D.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Menon, c. 7, pp. 74-75. [Greek: Peirô= ei)pei=n,
i(/na kai\ ge/nêtai/ soi mele/tê pro\s tê\n peri\ tê=s a)retê=s
a)po/krisin] (75 A).
The purpose of practising the respondent is here distinctly
announced.]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Menon, p. 75 C-E.]
[Side-note: Importance at that time of bringing into conscious
view, logical subordination and distinctions--Neither logic nor
grammar had then been cast into system.]
All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of
getting the question clearly conceived as a general question--of
exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which
unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that
which ought to be conceived as a generic whole--and of clearing up
what is required in a good definition. A generic whole, including
various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at
that time little understood by any one. There existed no grammar, nor
any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes.
To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species--to
predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true
of the whole genus in which it is contained--to lose the integrity of
the genus in its separate parcels or fragments[12]--these were errors
which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid. To assign the
one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term,
had never yet been put before them as a problem. Such
preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when
formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in
the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to
arrive at a full conception of any general question.[13]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Menon, p. 79 A. [Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos sou
mê\ katagnu/mai mêde\ kermati/zein tê\n a)retên], &c. 79 B:
[Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos o(/lên ei)pei=n tê\n a)retê/n], &c.]
[Footnote 13: These examples of trial, error, and exposure, have
great value and reflect high credit on Plato, when we regard them as
an intellectual or propædeutic discipline, forcing upon hearers an
attention to useful logical distinctions at a time when there existed
no systematic grammar or logic. But surely they must appear degraded,
as they are presented in the Prolegomena of Stallbaum, and by some
other critics. We are there told that Plato's main purpose in this
dialogue was to mock and jeer the Sophists and their pupil, and that
for this purpose Sokrates is made to employ not his own arguments but
arguments borrowed from the Sophists themselves--"ut callidé suam
ipsius rationem occultare existimandus sit, quo magis illudat
Sophistarum alumnum" (p. 15). "Quæ quidem argumentatio" (that of
Sokrates) "admodum cavendum est ne pro Socraticâ vel Platonicâ
accipiatur. Est enim prorsus ad mentem Sophistarum aliorumque id
genus hominum comparata," &c. (p. 16). Compare pp. 12-13 seq.
The Sophists undoubtedly had no distinct consciousness, any more than
other persons, of these logical distinctions, which were then for the
first pressed forcibly upon attention.]
[Side-note: Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls
it to pieces.]
Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a
definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some
lyric poet--"To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine,
honourable--and to have the power of getting them". But Sokrates
remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one
without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he
mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the
distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of
the definition--in the power of acquiring good things, such as
health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.[14] But the
acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made
consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts
justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears
then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is
virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice
and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be
themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless
he knows what virtue itself is.[15] Menon must look for a better
definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.
[Footnote 14: Plato, Menon, p. 77 B. [Greek: dokei= toi/nun moi
a)retê\ ei)=nai, katha/per o( poiêtê\s le/gei, chai/rein te kaloi=si
kai\ du/nasthai. Kai\ e)gô\ tou=to le/gô a)retê\n e)pithumou=nta tô=n
kalô=n dunato\n ei)=nai pori/zesthai.]
Whoever this lyric poet was, his real meaning is somewhat twisted by
Sokrates in order to furnish a basis for ethical criticism, as the
song of Simonides is in the Protagoras. A person having power, and
taking delight in honourable or beautiful things--is a very
intelligible Hellenic idéal, as an object of envy and admiration.
Compare Protagoras, p. 351 C: [Greek: ei)/per toi=s kaloi=s zô/|ê
ê(do/menos.] A poor man may be [Greek: philo/kalos] as well as a rich
man: [Greek: philokalou=men met' eu)telei/as], is the boast of
Periklês in the name of the Athenians, Thucyd. ii. 40.
Plato, Menon, p. 78 C. _Sokr._ [Greek: A)gatha\ de\ kalei=s
ou)chi oi(=on u(gi/eia/n te kai\ plou=ton? kai\ chrusi/on le/gô kai\
a)rgu/rion kta=sthai kai\ tima\s e)n po/lei kai\ a)rcha/s? mê\ a)/ll'
a)/tta le/geis ta)gatha\ ê)\ ta\ toiau=ta?] _Menon._ [Greek:
Ou)k; a)lla\ pa/nta le/gô ta\ toiau=ta.]]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Menon, p. 79.]
[Side-note: Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates
confounds him like an electric shock--Sokrates replies that he is
himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance. He urges
continuance of search by both.]
_Menon._--Your conversation, Sokrates, produces the effect of
the shock of the torpedo: you stun and confound me: you throw me into
inextricable perplexity, so that I can make no answer. I have often
discoursed copiously--and, as I thought, effectively--upon virtue;
but now you have shown that I do not even know what virtue is.
_Sokr._--If I throw you into perplexity, it is only because I am
myself in the like perplexity and ignorance. I do not know what
virtue is, any more than you: and I shall be glad to continue the
search for finding it, if you will assist me.
[Side-note: But how is the process of search available to any
purpose? No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he
does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he
has found it.]
_Menon._--But how are you to search for that of which you are
altogether ignorant? Even if you do find it, how can you ever know
that you have found it? _Sokr._--You are now introducing a
troublesome doctrine, laid down by those who are averse to the labour
of thought. They tell us that a man cannot search either for what he
knows, or for what he does not know. For the former, research is
superfluous: for the latter it is unprofitable and purposeless, since
the searcher does not know what he is looking for.
[Side-note: Theory of reminiscence propounded by
Sokrates--anterior immortality of the soul--what is called teaching is
the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but
forgotten.]
I do not believe this doctrine (continues Sokrates). Priests,
priestesses, and poets (Pindar among them) tell us, that the mind of
man is immortal and has existed throughout all past time, in
conjunction with successive bodies; alternately abandoning one body,
or dying--and taking up new life or reviving in another body. In this
perpetual succession of existences, it has seen every thing,--both
here and in Hades and everywhere else--and has learnt every thing.
But though thus omniscient, it has forgotten the larger portion of
its knowledge. Yet what has been thus forgotten may again be
revived. What we call learning, is such revival. It is reminiscence
of something which the mind had seen in a former state of existence,
and knew, but had forgotten. Since then all the parts of nature are
analogous, or cognate--and since the mind has gone through and learnt
them all--we cannot wonder that the revival of any one part should
put it upon the track of recovering for itself all the rest, both
about virtue and about every thing else, if a man will only persevere
in intent meditation. All research and all learning is thus nothing
but reminiscence. In our researches, we are not looking for what we
do not know: we are looking for what we do know, but have forgotten.
There is therefore ample motive, and ample remuneration, for
prosecuting enquiries: and your doctrine which pronounces them to be
unprofitable, is incorrect.[16]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Menon, pp. 81 C-D. [Greek: A(=te ou)=n ê(
psuchê\ a)tha/nato/s te ou)=sa kai\ polla/kis gegonui=a, kai\
e(ôrakui=a kai\ ta\ e)ntha/de kai\ ta\ e)n Ai)/dou kai\ pa/nta
chrê/mata, ou)k e)/stin o(/ ti ou) mema/thêken; ô(/ste ou)de\n
thaumasto\n kai\ peri\ a)retê=s kai\ peri\ a)/llôn oi(=o/n te ei)=nai
au)tê\n a)namnêsthê=nai a(/ ge kai\ pro/teron ê)pi/stato. A(=te ga\r
tê=s phu/seôs a(pa/sês suggenou=s ou)/sês kai\ memathêkui/as tê=s
psuchê=s a(/panta, ou)de\n kôlu/ei e(\n mo/non a)namnêsthe/nta, o(\
dê\ ma/thêsin kalou=sin a)/nthrôpoi, ta)/lla pa/nta au)to\n
a)neurei=n, e)a/n tis a)ndrei=os ê)=| kai\ mê\ a)poka/mnê| zêtô=n.
To\ ga\r zêtei=n a)/ra kai\ to\ mantha/nein a)na/mnêsis o(/lon
e)sti/n.]]
[Side-note: Illustration of this theory--knowledge may be
revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly
untaught. Sokrates questions the slave of Menon.]
Sokrates proceeds to illustrate the position, just laid down, by
cross-examining Menon's youthful slave, who, though wholly untaught
and having never heard any mention of geometry, is brought by a
proper series of questions to give answers out of his own mind,
furnishing the solution of a geometrical problem. The first part of
the examination brings him to a perception of the difficulty, and
makes him feel a painful perplexity, from which he desires to obtain
relief:[17] the second part guides his mind in the efforts necessary
for fishing up a solution out of its own pre-existing, but forgotten,
stores. True opinions, which he had long had within him without
knowing it, are awakened by interrogation, and become cognitions.
From the fact that the mind thus possesses the truth of things
which it has not acquired in this life, Sokrates infers that it must
have gone through a pre-existence of indefinite duration, or must be
immortal.[18]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Menon, p. 84 C. [Greek: Oi)/ei ou)=n a)\n
au)to\n pro/teron e)picheirê=sai zêtei=n ê)\ mantha/nein tou=to o(\
ô)=|eto ei)de/nai ou)k ei)dô/s, pri\n ei)s a)pori/an kate/pesen
ê(gêsa/menos mê\ ei)de/nai, kai\ e)po/thêse to\ ei)de/nai? Ou)/ moi
dokei=. Ô)/nêto a)/ra narkê/sas?]]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Menon, p. 86. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ei) a)ei\ ê(
a)lê/theia ê(mi=n tô=n o)/ntôn e)sti\n e)n tê=| psuchê=|, a)tha/natos
a)\n ê( psuchê\ ei)/ê?]]
[Side-note: Enquiry taken up--Whether virtue is teachable?
without determining what virtue is.]
The former topic of enquiry is now resumed: but at the instance of
Menon, the question taken up, is not--"What is virtue?" but--"Is
virtue teachable or not?" Sokrates, after renewing his objection
against the inversion of philosophical order by discussing the second
question without having determined the first, enters upon the
discussion hypothetically, assuming as a postulate, that nothing can
be taught except knowledge. The question then stands thus--"Is virtue
knowledge?" If it be, it can be taught: if not, it cannot be
taught.[19]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Menon, p. 87.]
[Side-note: Virtue is knowledge--no possessions, no
attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except
under the guidance of knowledge.]
Sokrates proceeds to prove that virtue is knowledge, or a mode of
knowledge. Virtue is good: all good things are profitable. But none
of the things accounted good are profitable, unless they be rightly
employed; that is, employed with knowledge or intelligence. This is
true not only of health, wealth, beauty, strength, power, &c.,
but also of the mental attributes justice, moderation, courage, quick
apprehension, &c. All of these are profitable, and therefore
good, if brought into action under knowledge or right intelligence;
none of them are profitable or good, without this condition--which is
therefore the distinctive constituent of virtue.[20]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Menon, p. 89.]
Virtue, therefore, being knowledge or a mode of knowledge, cannot
come by nature, but must be teachable.
[Side-note: Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet
there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No
teachers of it can be found.]
Yet again there are other contrary reasons (he proceeds) which prove
that it cannot be teachable. For if it were so, there would be
distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times
and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt. We see
that this is the case with all arts and professions. But in regard to
virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor
years of learning. The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are
not:[21] the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do
not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach
it even to their own sons--as the character of those sons
sufficiently proves.[22]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Menon, p. 92.]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Menon, p. 97. Isokrates (adv. Sophistas, s. 25,
p. 401) expressly declares that he does not believe [Greek: ô(/s
e)sti dikaiosu/nê didakto/n]. There is no [Greek: te/chnê] which can
teach it, if a man be [Greek: kakô=s pephukô/s]. But if a man be
well-disposed, then education in [Greek: lo/goi politikoi/] will
serve [Greek: sumparakeleu/sasthai/ ge kai\ sunaskê=sai].
For a man to announce himself as a teacher of justice or virtue, was
an unpopular and invidious pretension. Isokrates is anxious to guard
himself against such unpopularity.]
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests
the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can
teach virtue.]
Here, a new speaker is introduced into the dialogue--Anytus, one of
the accusers of Sokrates before the Dikastery. The conversation is
carried on for some time between Sokrates and him. Anytus denies
altogether that the Sophists are teachers of virtue, and even
denounces them with bitter contempt and wrath. But he maintains that
the leading and esteemed citizens of the state do really teach it.
Anytus however presently breaks off in a tone of displeasure and
menace towards Sokrates himself.[23] The conversation is then renewed
with Menon, and it is shown that the leading politicians cannot be
considered as teachers of virtue, any more than the Sophists. There
exist no teachers of it; and therefore we must conclude that it is
not teachable.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Menon, p. 94 E.]
[Side-note: Confused state of the discussion. No way of
acquiring virtue is shown.]
The state of the discussion as it stands now, is represented by two
hypothetical syllogisms, as follows:
1. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is knowledge:
Therefore virtue is teachable.
2. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is not teachable:
Therefore virtue is not knowledge.
The premisses of each of these two syllogisms contradict the
conclusion of the other. Both cannot be true. If virtue is not
acquired by teaching and does not come by nature, how are there any
virtuous men?
[Side-note: Sokrates modifies his premisses--knowledge is not
the only thing which guides to good results--right opinion will do
the same.]
Sokrates continues his argument: The second premiss of the first
syllogism--that virtue is knowledge--is true, but not the whole
truth. In proving it we assumed that there was nothing except
knowledge which guided us to useful and profitable consequences. But
this assumption will not hold. There is something else besides
knowledge, which also guides us to the same useful results. That
something is _right opinion_, which is quite different from
knowledge. The man who holds right opinions is just as profitable to
us, and guides us quite as well to right actions, as if he knew.
Right opinions, so long as they stay in the mind, are as good as
knowledge, for the purpose of guidance in practice. But the
difference is, that they are evanescent and will not stay in the
mind: while knowledge is permanent and ineffaceable. They are exalted
into knowledge, when bound in the mind by a chain of causal
reasoning:[24] that is, by the process of reminiscence, before
described.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Menon, pp. 97 E--98 A. [Greek: kai\ ga\r ai(
do/xai ai( a)lêthei=s, o(/son me\n a)\n chro/non parame/nôsin, kalo/n
ti chrê=ma kai\ pa/nta ta)gatha\ e)rga/zontai; polu\n de\ chro/non
ou)k e)the/lousi parame/nein, a)lla\ drapeteu/ousin e)k tê=s psuchê=s
tou= a)nthrô/pou. ô(/ste ou) pollou= a)/xiai/ ei)sin, _e(/ôs a)\n
tis au)ta\s dê/sê| ai)ti/as logismô=|_; tou=to d' e)sti\n
_a)na/mnêsis_, ô(s e)n toi=s pro/sthen ê(mi=n ô(molo/gêtai.]]
[Side-note: Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in
the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach
others--good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration
from the Gods.]
Virtue then (continues Sokrates)--that which constitutes the virtuous
character and the permanent, trustworthy, useful guide--consists in
knowledge. But there is also right opinion, a sort of
_quasi-knowledge_, which produces in practice effects as good as
knowledge, only that it is not deeply or permanently fixed in the
mind.[25] It is this right opinion, or _quasi-knowledge_, which
esteemed and distinguished citizens possess, and by means of which
they render useful service to the city. That they do not possess
knowledge, is certain; for if they did, they would be able to teach
it to others, and especially to their own sons: and this it has been
shown that they cannot do.[26] They deliver true opinions and
predictions, and excellent advice, like prophets and oracular
ministers, by divine inspiration and possession, without knowledge or
wisdom of their own. They are divine and inspired persons, but not
wise or knowing.[27]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Menon, p. 99 A. [Greek: ô(=| de\ a)/nthrôpos
ê(gemô/n e)stin e)pi\ to\ o)rtho/n, du/o tau=ta, do/xa a)lêthê\s kai\
e)pistê/mê.]]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Menon, p. 99 B. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra sophi/a tini\
ou)de\ sophoi\ o)/ntes oi( toiou=toi a)/ndres ê(gou=nto tai=s
po/lesin, oi( a)mphi\ Themistokle/a. . . . dio\ kai\ ou)ch oi(=oi/ te
a)/llous poiei=n toiou/tous oi(=oi au)toi/ ei)sin, a(/te ou) di'
e)pistê/mên o)/ntes toiou=toi.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Menon, p. 99 D. [Greek: kai\ tou\s politikou\s
ou)ch ê(/kista tou/tôn phai=men, a)\n thei/ous te ei)=nai kai\
e)nthousia/zein, e)pi/pnous o)/ntas kai\ katechome/nous e)k tou=
theou=, o(/tan katorthô=si le/gontes polla\ kai\ mega/la pra/gmata,
mêde\n ei)do/tes ô(=n le/gousin.]]
[Side-note: All the real virtue that there is, is
communicated by special inspiration from the Gods.]
And thus (concludes Sokrates) the answer to the question originally
started by Menon--"Whether virtue is teachable?"--is as follows.
Virtue in its highest sense, in which it is equivalent to or
coincident with knowledge, is teachable: but no such virtue exists.
That which exists in the most distinguished citizens under the name
of virtue,--or at least producing the results of virtue in practice--is
not teachable. Nor does it come by nature, but by special
inspiration from the Gods. The best statesmen now existing cannot
make any other person like themselves: if any one of them could do
this, he would be, in comparison with the rest, like a real thing
compared with a shadow.[28]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Menon, p. 100.]
[Side-note: But what virtue itself is, remains unknown.]
Nevertheless the question which we have just discussed--"How virtue
arises or is generated?"--must be regarded as secondary and
dependent, not capable of being clearly understood until the primary
and principal question--"What is virtue?"--has been investigated and
brought to a solution.[29]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Menon, p. 100 B.]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for
examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.]
This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end--as it had
been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the
continuance--of the dialogue. In fact, Sokrates seems at first
resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter
question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the
order.[30]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Menon, p. 86.]
[Side-note: Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary
questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.]
The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates
is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or
communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You
must know the essence of the subject--or those predicates which the
word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its
accidents and antecedents.[31] Menon begins by being satisfied that
he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it
discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer
like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even
understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only
confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never
yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in
this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of
proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having
settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of
knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar
ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind.
He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else
knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he
still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside
to his original object of curiosity--"Whether virtue is teachable".
Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough
sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions--[Greek: to\ ga\r
o)rthou=sthai gnô/man, o)duna=|].
[Footnote 31: To use the phrase of Plato himself in the Euthyphron,
p. 11 A, the [Greek: ou)si/a] must be known before the [Greek:
pa/thê] are sought--[Greek: kinduneu/eis, ô)= Eu)thu/phron,
e)rôtô/menos to\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)sti, _tê\n me\n
ou)si/an_ moi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai dêlô=sai, _pa/thos de/ ti
peri\ au)tou=_ le/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe tou=to to\ o(/sion,
philei=sthai u(po\ pa/ntôn theô=n; _o(/ ti de\ o)/n, ou)/pô
ei)=pes_.]
Compare Lachês, p. 190 B and Gorgias, pp. 448 E, 462 C.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon--desire of good
alleged to be universally felt--in what sense this is true.]
The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in
his experience knows what virtue is--that it must be made a subject
of special and deliberate investigation--and that no man can know
what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows
what virtue as a whole is[32]--are matters to be kept in mind also,
as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein
virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed (according to the
received habit) as matters known and understood. The contributions
which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic
notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive. The comments of
Sokrates upon Menon's first definition include the doctrine often
announced in Plato--That no man by nature desires suffering or evil;
every man desires good: if he seeks or pursues suffering or
evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for
good.[33] This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil
for himself: and if by good or evil we mean (according to the
doctrine enforced by Sokrates in the Protagoras) the result of items
of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring
Reason. Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of
acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from
pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and
measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality.
But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for
others: and if by good we mean (as Sokrates is made to declare in the
Gorgias) something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart
from pain (understanding pleasure and pain in their largest sense). A
man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil
for others, as the case may be. Plato's observation therefore cannot
be admitted--That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one
man is no better than another.[34]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Menon, p. 79 B-C. [Greek: tê\n ga\r dikaiosu/nên
mo/rion phê\| a)retê=s ei)=nai kai\ e(/kasta tou/tôn. . . . oi)/ei tina
ei)de/nai mo/rion a)retê=s o(/ ti e)/stin, au)tê\n mê\ ei)do/ta? Ou)k
e)/moige dokei=.]]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Menon, p. 77.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Menon, p. 78 B. [Greek: to\ me\n bou/lesthai
pa=sin u(pa/rchei, kai\ tau/tê| ge ou)de\n o( e(/teros tou= e(te/rou
belti/ôn.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal
condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?]
The second portion of Plato's theory, advanced to explain what virtue
is, presents nothing more satisfactory. Virtue is useful or
profitable: but neither health, strength, beauty, wealth, power,
&c., are profitable, unless rightly used: nor are justice,
moderation, courage, quick apprehension, good memory, &c.,
profitable, unless they are accompanied and guided by knowledge or
prudence.[35] Now if by _profitable_ we have reference not to
the individual agent alone, but to other persons concerned also, the
proposition is true, but not instructive or distinct. For what is
meant by _right use_? To what ends are the gifts here enumerated
to be turned, in order to constitute right use? What again is meant
by _knowledge_? knowledge of what?[36] This is a question put by
Sokrates in many other dialogues, and necessary to be put here also.
Moreover, knowledge is a term which requires to be determined, not
merely to some assignable object, but also in its general import,
no less than virtue. We shall come presently to an elaborate
dialogue (Theætêtus) in which Plato makes many attempts to determine
knowledge generally, but ends in a confessed failure. Knowledge must
be knowledge _possessed by some one_, and must be knowledge of
_something_. What is it, that a man must know, in order that his
justice or courage may become profitable? Is it pleasures and pains,
with their causes, and the comparative magnitude of each (as Sokrates
declares in the Protagoras), in order that he may contribute to
diminish the sum of pains, increase that of pleasures, to himself or
to the society? If this be what he is required to know, Plato should
have said so--or if not, what else--in order that the requirement of
knowledge might be made an intelligible condition.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Menon, pp. 87-88.]
[Footnote 36: See Republic, vi. p. 505 B, where this question is put,
but not answered, respecting [Greek: phro/nêsis].]
[Side-note: Subject of Menon; same as that of the
Protagoras--diversity of handling--Plato is not anxious to settle a
question and get rid of it.]
Though the subject of direct debate in the Menon is the same as that
in the Protagoras (whether virtue be teachable?) yet the manner of
treating this subject is very different in the two. One point of
difference between the two has been just noticed. Another difference
is, that whereas in Menon the teachability of virtue is assumed to be
disproved, because there are no recognised teachers or learners of
it--in the Protagoras this argument is produced by Sokrates, but is
combated at length (as we shall presently see) by a counter-argument
on the part of the Sophists, without any rejoinder from Sokrates. Of
this counter-argument no notice is taken in the Menon: although, if
it be well-founded, it would have served Anytus no less than
Protagoras, as a solution of the difficulties raised by Sokrates.
Such diversity of handling and argumentative fertility, are
characteristic of the Platonic procedure. I have already remarked,
that the establishment of positive conclusions, capable of being
severed from their premisses, registered in the memory, and used as
principles for deduction--is foreign to the spirit of these Dialogues
of Search. To settle a question and finish with it--to get rid of the
debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity--is not what
Plato desires. His purpose is, to provoke the spirit of enquiry--to
stimulate responsive efforts of the mind by a painful shock of
exposed ignorance--and to open before it a multiplicity of new roads
with varied points of view.
[Side-note: Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the
spirit of research.]
Nowhere in the Platonic writings is this provocative shock more
vividly illustrated than in the Menon, by the simile of the
electrical fish: a simile as striking as that of the magnet in
Ion.[37] Nowhere, again, is the true character of the Sokratic
intellect more clearly enunciated. "You complain, Menon, that I
plunge your mind into nothing but doubt, and puzzle, and conscious
ignorance. If I do this, it is only because my own mind is already in
that same condition.[38] The only way out of it is, through joint
dialectical colloquy and search; in which I invite you to accompany
me, though I do not know when or where it will end." And then, for
the purpose of justifying as well as encouraging such prolonged
search, Sokrates proceeds to unfold his remarkable
hypothesis--eternal pre-existence, boundless past experience, and
omniscience, of the mind--identity of cognition with recognition,
dependent on reminiscence. "Research or enquiry (said some) is fruitless.
You must search either for that which you know, or for that which you do
not know. The first is superfluous--the second impossible: for if you do
not know what a thing is, how are you to be satisfied that the answer
which you find is that which you are looking for? How can you
distinguish a true solution from another which is untrue, but
plausible?"
[Footnote 37: Plato, Menon, p. 80 A. [Greek: na/rkê thalassi/a].
Compare what I have said above about the Ion, ch. XVII., p. 128.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Menon, p. 80 D.]
[Side-note: Great question discussed among the Grecian
philosophers--criterion of truth--Wherein consists the process of
verification?]
Here we find explicitly raised, for the first time, that difficulty
which embarrassed the different philosophical schools in Greece for
the subsequent three centuries--What is the criterion of truth?
Wherein consists the process called verification and proof, of that
which is first presented as an hypothesis? This was one of the great
problems debated between the Academics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics,
until the extinction of the schools of philosophy.[39]
[Footnote 39: Sokrates here calls this problem an [Greek: e)ristiko\s
lo/gos]. Stallbaum (in his Prolegom. to the Menon, p. 14) describes
it as a "quæstiunculam, haud dubie e sophistarum disciplinâ
arreptam". If the Sophists were the first to raise this question, I
think that by doing so they rendered service to the interests of
philosophy. The question is among the first which ought to be
thoroughly debated and sifted, if we are to have a body of "reasoned
truth" called philosophy.
I dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum (p. 20), though it is adopted
both by Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 185) and by Steinhart (Einleitung
zum Menon, p. 123), that the Menon was composed by Plato during the
lifetime of Sokrates. Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 22;
Einleitung zum Menon, pp. 329-330), Ueberweg (Aechth. Plat. Schr. p.
226), and K. F. Hermann, on the other hand, regard the Menon as
composed after the death of Sokrates, and on this point I agree with
them, though whether it was composed not long after that event (as K.
F. Hermann thinks) or thirteen years after it (as Schleiermacher
thinks), I see no sufficient grounds for deciding. I incline to the
belief that its composition is considerably later than Hermann
supposes; the mention of the Theban Ismenias is one among the reasons
rendering such later origin probable. Plato probably borrowed from
the Xenophontic Anabasis the name, country, and social position of
Menon, who may have received teaching from Gorgias, as we know that
Proxenus did, Xen. Anab. ii. 6, 16. The reader can compare the
Einleitung of Schleiermacher (in which he professes to prove that the
Menon is a corollary to the Theætêtus and Gorgias, and an immediate
antecedent to the Euthydêmus,--that it solves the riddle of the
Protagoras--and that it presupposes and refers back to the Phædrus)
with the Einleitung of Steinhart (p. 120 seq.), who contests all
these propositions, saying that the Menon is decidedly later than the
Euthydêmus, and decidedly earlier than the Theætêtus, Gorgias, and
Phædrus; with the opinions of Stallbaum and Hermann, who recognise an
order different from that either of Steinhart or Schleiermacher; and
with that of Ast, who rejects the Menon altogether as unworthy of
Plato. Every one of these dissentient critics has _something_ to
say for his opinion, while none of them (in my judgment) can make out
anything like a conclusive case. The mistake consists in assuming
that there must have been a peremptory order and intentional
interdependence among the Platonic Dialogues, and next in trying to
show by internal evidence what that order was.]
[Side-note: None of the philosophers were satisfied with
the answer here made by Plato--that verification consists in appeal
to pre-natal experience.]
Not one of these schools was satisfied with the very peculiar answer
which the Platonic Sokrates here gives to the question. When truth is
presented to us (he intimates), we recognise it as an old friend
after a long absence. We know it by reason of its conformity to our
antecedent, pre-natal, experience (in the Phædon, such pre-natal
experience is restricted to commerce with the substantial,
intelligible, Ideas, which are not mentioned in the Menon): the soul
or mind is immortal, has gone through an indefinite succession of
temporary lives prior to the present, and will go through an
indefinite succession of temporary lives posterior to the
present--"longæ, canitis si cognita, vitæ Mors media est". The mind has
thus become omniscient, having seen, heard, and learnt every thing, both
on earth and in Hades: but such knowledge exists as a confused and
unavailable mass, having been buried and forgotten on the
commencement of its actual life.
Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or
interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the
memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten
omniscience.[40] It is in this recall or reminiscence that
search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists. Teaching and
learning are words without meaning: the only process really
instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably
prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within.[41] So vast
is the theory generated in Plato's mind, by his worship of dialectic,
respecting that process of search to which more than half of his
dialogues are devoted.
[Footnote 40: The doctrine of communion or interdependence pervading
all Nature, with one continuous cosmical soul penetrating everywhere,
will be found set forth in the kosmology of the Timæus, pp. 37-42-43.
It was held, with various modifications, both by the Pythagoreans and
the Stoics. Compare Cicero, Divinat. ii. 14-15; Virgil, Æneid vi. 715
seqq.; Georgic. iv. 220; Sextus Empir. adv. Mathem. ix. 127;
Ekphantus Pythagoreus ap. Stobæum, Tit. 48, vol. ii. p. 320,
Gaisford.
The view here taken by Plato, that all nature is cognate and
interdependent--[Greek: a(/te ga\r tê=s phu/seôs a(pa/sês suggenou=s
ou)/sês]--is very similar to the theory of Leibnitz:--"Ubique per
materiam disseminata statuo principia vitalia seu percipientia. Omnia
in naturâ sunt analogica" (Leibnitz, Epist. ad Wagnerum, p. 466;
Leibn. Opp. Erdmann). Farther, that the human mind by virtue of its
interdependence or kindred with all nature, includes a confused
omniscience, is also a Leibnitzian view. "Car comme tout est plein
(ce qui rend toute la matière liée) et comme dans le plein tout
mouvement fait quelqu' effet sur les corps distans à mesure de la
distance, de sorte que chaque corps est affecté non seulement par
ceux qui le touchent, et se ressent en quelque façon de tout ce qui
leur arrive--mais aussi par leur moyen se ressent de ceux qui
touchent les premiers dont il est touché immédiatement. Il s'ensuit
que cette communication va à quelque distance que ce soit. Et par
consequent tout corps se ressent de tout ce qui se fait dans
l'Univers: tellement que celui, qui voit tout, pourroit lire dans
chacun ce qui se fait partout et même ce qui s'est fait et se fera,
en remarquant dans le présent ce qui est éloigné tant selon les temps
que selon les lieux: [Greek: su/mpnoia pa/nta], disoit Hippocrate.
Mais une âme ne peut lire en elle même que ce qui y est representé
distinctement: elle ne sauroit developper tout d'un coup ses règles,
car elles vont à l'infini. Ainsi quoique chaque monade créée
représente tout l'Univers, elle représente plus distinctement le
corps qui lui est particulièrement affecté, et dont elle fait
l'Entéléchie. Et comme ce corps exprime tout l'Univers par la
connexion de toute la matière dans le plein, l'âme représente aussi
tout l'Univers en représentant ce corps qui lui appartient d'une
manière particulière" (Leibnitz, Monadologie, sect. 61-62, No. 88, p.
710; Opp. Leibn. ed. Erdmann).
Again, Leibnitz, in another Dissertation: "Comme à cause de la
plénitude du monde tout est lié, et chaque corps agit sur chaque
autre corps, plus ou moins, selon la distance, et en est affecté par
la réaction--il s'ensuit que chaque monade est un miroir vivant, ou
doué d'action interne, représentatif de l'Univers, suivant son point
de vue, et aussi réglé que l'Univers même" (Principes de la Nature et
de la Grace, p. 714, ed. Erdmann; also Système Nouveau, p. 128, a.
36).
Leibnitz expresses more than once how much his own metaphysical views
agreed with those of Plato. Lettre à M. Bourguet, pp. 723-725. He
expresses his belief in the pre-existence of the soul: "Tout ce que
je crois pouvoir assurer, est, que l'âme de tout animal a préexisté,
et a été dans un corps organique: qui enfin, par beaucoup de
changemens, involutions, et évolutions, est devenu l'animal présent"
(Lettre à M. Bourguet, p. 731). And in the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence to a certain point: "II y a quelque chose de solide dans
ce que dit Platon de la réminiscence" (p. 137, b. 10). Also
Leibnitz's Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain, p. 196, b. 28;
and Epistol. ad Hanschium, p. 446, a. 12.
See the elaborate account of the philosophy of Leibnitz by Dr. Kuno
Fischer--Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 226-232.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Menon, p. 81 D. [Greek: e)a/n tis a)ndrei=os
ê)=|, kai\ mê\ a)poka/mnê| zêtô=n.] Compare also p. 86 B.]
[Side-note: Plato's view of the immortality of the
soul--difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon.]
In various other dialogues of Plato, the same hypothesis is found
repeated. His conception of the immortality of the soul or mind,
includes pre-existence as well as post-existence: a perpetual
succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body, each
terminated by death, and each followed by renewed life for a time in
another body. In fact, the pre-existence of the mind formed the most
important part of Plato's theory about immortality: for he employed
it as the means of explaining how the mind became possessed of
general notions. As the doctrine is stated in the Menon, it is made
applicable to all minds (instead of being confined, as in Phædrus,
Phædon, and elsewhere, to a few highly gifted minds, and to commerce
with the intelligible substances called Ideas). This appears from the
person chosen to illustrate the alleged possibility of stimulating
artificial reminiscence: that person is an unlettered youth, taken at
hazard from among the numerous slaves of Menon.[42]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Menon, pp. 82 A, 85 E. [Greek: proska/leson tô=n
pollô=n a)kolou/thôn toutôni\ tô=n sautou= e(/na, o(/ntina bou/lei,
i(/na e)n tou/tô| soi e)pidei/xômai.] Stallbaum says that this
allusion to the numerous slaves in attendance is intended to
illustrate conspicuously the wealth and nobility of Menon. In my
judgment, it is rather intended to illustrate the operation of pure
accident--the perfectly ordinary character of the mind worked
upon--"one among many, which you please".]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited
by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind--how far correct?]
It is true, indeed (as Schleiermacher observes), that the questions
put by Sokrates to this youth are in great proportion leading
questions, suggesting their own answers. They would not have served
their purpose unless they had been such. The illustration here
furnished, of the Sokratic interrogatory process, is highly
interesting, and his theory is in a great degree true.[43] Not all
learning, but an important part of learning, consists in
reminiscence--not indeed of acquisitions made in an antecedent
life, but of past experience and judgments in this life. Of such
experience and judgments every one has travelled through a large
course; which has disappeared from his memory, yet not irrevocably.
Portions of it may be revived, if new matter be presented to the
mind, fitted to excite the recollection of them by the laws of
association. By suitable interrogations, a teacher may thus recall to
the memory of his pupils many facts and judgments which have been
hitherto forgotten: he may bring into juxtaposition those which have
never before been put together in the mind: and he may thus make them
elicit instructive comparisons and inferences. He may provoke the
pupils to strike out new results for themselves, or to follow, by
means of their own stock of knowledge, in the path suggested by the
questions. He may farther lead them to perceive the fallacy of
erroneous analogies which at first presented themselves as plausible;
and to become painfully sensible of embarrassment and perplexing
ignorance, before he puts those questions which indicate the way of
escape from it. Upon the necessity of producing such painful
consciousness of ignorance Plato insists emphatically, as is his
custom.[44]
[Footnote 43: Plutarch (Fragment. [Greek: Peri\ psuchê=s]). Ei) a)ph'
e(te/rou e(/teron e)nnoou=men? ou)k a)/n, ei) mê\ proe/gnôsto. To\
e)pichei/rêma Platôniko/n. Ei) prosti/themen to\ e)/lleipon toi=s
ai)sthêtoi=s?--kai\ au)to\ Platôniko/n.]
Plutarch, in the same fragment, indicates some of the objections made
by Bion and Straton against the doctrine of [Greek: a)na/mnêsis]. How
(they asked) does it happen that this reminiscence brings up often
what is false or absurd? (asked Bion). If such reminiscence exists
(asked Straton) how comes it that we require demonstrations to
conduct us to knowledge? and how is it that no man can play on the
flute or the harp without practice?
[Greek: O(/ti Bi/ôn ê)po/rei peri\ tou= pseu/dous, ei) kai\ au)to\
kat' a)na/mnêsin, ô(s to\ e)nanti/on ge, ê)\ ou)/? kai\ ti/ ê(
a)logi/a? O(/ti Stra/tôn ê)po/rei, ei) e)/stin a)namnêsis, pô=s
a)/neu a)podei/xeôn ou) gigno/metha e)pistê/mones? pô=s de\ ou)dei\s
au)lêtê\s ê)\ kitharistê\s ge/gonen a)/neu mele/tês?]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Menon, p. 84. The sixteenth Dissertation of
Maximus Tyrius presents a rhetorical amplification of this
doctrine--[Greek: pa=sa ma/thêsis, a)na/mnêsis]--in which he enters fully
into the spirit of the Menon and the Phædon--[Greek: au)todi/dakto/n ti
chrê=ma ê( psuchê/--ê( psuchê=s eu(/resis, au)togenê/s tis ou)=sa,
kai\ au)tophuê\s, kai\ xu/mphutos, ti/ a)/llo e)/stin ê)\ do/xai
a)lêthei=s e)geiro/menai, ô(=n tê=| e)pege/rsei te kai\ xunta/xei
e)pistê/mê o)/noma?] (c. 6). Compare also Cicero, Tusc. D. i. 24.
The doctrine has furnished a theme for very elegant poetry: both in
the Consolatio Philosophiæ of Boethius--the piece which ends with
"Ac si Platonis Musa personat verum,
Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur"--
and in Wordsworth--"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,"
&c.
On the other hand Aristotle alludes also to the same doctrine and
criticises it; but he does not seem (so far as I can understand this
brief allusion) to seize exactly Plato's meaning. This is the remark
of the Scholiast on Aristotle: and I think it just. It is curious to
compare the way in which [Greek: a)na/mnêsis] is handled by Plato in
the Menon and Phædon, and by Aristotle in the valuable little
tract--[Greek: Peri\ mnê/nês kai\ a)namnê/seôs] (p. 451, b.). Aristotle
has his own way of replying to the difficulty raised in the question of
Menon, and tries to show that sometimes we _know_ in one sense
and _do not know_ in another. See Aristotel. Anal. Prior., ii.
p. 67, a. 22; Anal. Poster. i. p. 71, a. 27; and the Scholia on the
former passage, p. 193, b. 21, ed. Brandis.
Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Appendixes to his edition of
Reid's Works (Append. D. p. 890 seq.), has given a learned and
valuable translation and illustration of the treatise of Aristotle
[Greek: Peri\ A)namnê/seôs]. I note, however, with some surprise,
that while collecting many interesting comments from writers who
lived _after_ Aristotle, he has not adverted to what was said
upon this same subject by Plato, _before_ Aristotle. It was the
more to be expected that he would do this, since he insists so
emphatically upon the complete originality of Aristotle.]
[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about _à priori_
reasonings--Different from the modern doctrine.]
Plato does not intend here to distinguish (as many modern writers
distinguish) geometry from other sciences, as if geometry were known
_à priori_, and other sciences known _à posteriori_ or from
experience. He does not suppose that geometrical truths are such that
no man can possibly believe the contrary of them; or that they are
different in this respect from the truths of any other science. He
here maintains that all the sciences lie equally in the untaught
mind,[45] but buried, forgotten, and confused: so as to require the
skill of the questioner not merely to recall them into consciousness,
but to disentangle truth from error. Far from supposing that the
untaught mind has a natural tendency to answer correctly geometrical
questions, he treats erroneous answers as springing up more naturally
than true answers, and as requiring a process of painful exposure
before the mind can be put upon the right track. The questioner,
without possessing any knowledge himself, (so Plato thinks,) can
nevertheless exercise an influence at once stimulating, corrective,
and directive. He stimulates the action of the associative process,
to call up facts, comparisons, and analogies, bearing on the
question: he arrests the respondent on a wrong answer, creating
within him a painful sense of ignorance and embarrassment: he directs
him by his subsequent questions into the path of right answers. His
obstetric aid (to use the simile in Plato's Theætetus), though
presupposing the pregnancy of the respondent mind, is indispensable
both to forward the childbirth, and to throw away any offspring which
may happen to be deformed. In the Theætetus, the main stress is laid
on that part of the dialogue which is performed by the questioner: in
the Menon, upon the latent competence and large dead stock of an
untaught respondent.
[Footnote 45: Plato, Menon, p. 85 E. [Greek: ou(=tos ga\r] (the
untaught slave) [Greek: poiê/sei peri\ pa/sês geômetri/as tau)ta\
tau=ta, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn mathêma/tôn a(pa/ntôn.]]
The mind of the slave questioned by Sokrates is discovered to be
pregnant. Though he has received no teaching from any professed
geometer, he is nevertheless found competent, when subjected to a
skilful interrogatory, to arrive at last, through a series of
mistakes, at correct answers, determining certain simple
problems of geometry. He knows nothing about geometry:
nevertheless there exist in his mind true opinions respecting that
which he does not know. These opinions are "called up like a dream"
by the interrogatories: which, if repeated and diversified, convert
the opinions into knowledge, taken up by the respondent out of
himself.[46] The opinions are inherited from an antecedent life and
born with him, since they have never been taught to him during this
life.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p. 85. [Greek: tô=| ou)k eido/ti a)/ra
peri\ ô(=n a)\n mê\ ei)dê=| e)/neisin a)lêthei=s do/xai. . . . kai\
nu=n me/n ge _au)tô=| ô(/sper o)/nar_ a)/rti a)nakeki/nêntai ai(
do/xai au(=tai; ei) de\ au)to/n tis a)nerê/setai polla/kis ta\ au)ta\
tau=ta kai\ pollachê=, oi)=sth' o(/ti teleutô=n ou)deno\s ê(=tton
a)kribô=s e)pistê/setai peri\ au)tôn. . . . Ou)kou=n ou)deno\s
dida/xantos a)ll' e)rôtê/santos e)pistê/setai, a)nalabô\n au)to\s e)x
au)tou= tê\n e)pistê/mên?]]
[Side-note: Plato's theory about pre-natal experience. He took
no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal
experience.]
It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine
(borrowed from the Pythagoreans) of pre-natal experience and
cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the
mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent
lives. These ideas (Plato argues) cannot have been acquired during
the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching
in geometry. But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and
diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and
acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however
unlettered. He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through
special teaching. So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him
putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine--That virtue is not
taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or
times of teaching. But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato
furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of
Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences
which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in
creating and enforcing ethical sentiment. If Plato had taken pains to
study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts,
judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c.,
he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the
slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue. And even if
enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific
explanation--we must remember that only a very small proportion
of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the
child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded. To assume
that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to
afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor
reasonable. This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate
ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation
to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth
interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.
[Side-note: Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the
Platonic Ideas or Forms.]
I have already observed, that though great stress is laid in this
dialogue upon the doctrine of opinions and knowledge inherited from
an antecedent life--upon the distinction between true opinion and
knowledge--and upon the identity of the process of learning with
reminiscence--yet nothing is said about universal Ideas or Forms, so
much dwelt upon in other dialogues. In the Phædrus and Phædon, it is
with these universal Ideas that the mind is affirmed to have had
communion during its prior existence, as contrasted with the
particulars of sense apprehended during the present life: while in
the Menon, the difference pointed out between true opinions and
knowledge is something much less marked and decisive. Both the one
and the other are said to be, not acquired during this life, but
inherited from antecedent life: to be innate, yet
unperceived--revived by way of reminiscence and interrogation. True
opinions are affirmed to render as much service as knowledge, in
reference to practice. There is only this distinction between them--that
true opinions are transient, and will not remain in the mind until they
are bound in it by causal reasoning, or become knowledge.
[Side-note: What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning--his
distinction between knowledge and right opinion.]
What Plato meant by this "causal reasoning, or computation of cause,"
is not clearly explained. But he affirms very unequivocally, first,
that the distinction between true opinion and knowledge is one of the
few things of which he feels assured[47]--next, with somewhat less
confidence, that the distinction consists only in the greater
security which knowledge affords for permanent in-dwelling in the
mind. This appears substantially the same distinction as what is laid
down in other words towards the close of the dialogue--That those,
who have only true opinions and not knowledge, judge rightly without
knowing how or why; by an aptitude not their own but supplied to them
from without for the occasion, in the nature of inspiration or
prophetic _oestrus_. Hence they are unable to teach others, or
to transfer this occasional inspiration to any one else. They cannot
give account of what they affect to know, nor answer scrutinizing
questions to test it. This power of answering and administering
cross-examination, is Plato's characteristic test of real knowledge--as
I have already observed in my eighth** chapter.
[Footnote 47: Plato, Menon, p. 98 B. [Greek: o(/ti de/ e)sti/ ti
a)lloi=on o)rthê\ do/xa kai\ e)pistê/mê, ou) pa/nu moi dokô= tou=to
ei)ka/zein; a)ll' ei)/per ti a)/llo phai/ên a)\n ei)de/nai,
_o)li/ga d' a)\n phai/ên, e(\n d' ou)=n kai\ tou=to e)kei/nôn
thei/ên a)\n ô(=n oi)=da_.]]
[Side-note: This distinction compared with modern
philosophical views.]
To translate the views of Plato into analogous views of a modern
philosopher, we may say--That right opinion, as contrasted with
knowledge, is a discriminating and acute empirical judgment:
inferring only from old particulars to new particulars (without the
intermediate help and guarantee of general propositions distinctly
enunciated and interpreted), but selecting for every new case the
appropriate analogies out of the past, with which it ought to be
compared. Many persons judge in this manner fairly well, and some
with extreme success. But let them be ever so successful in practice,
they proceed without any conscious method; they are unable to
communicate the grounds of their inferences to others: and when they
are right, it is only by haphazard--that is (to use Plato's
language), through special inspiration vouchsafed to them by the
Gods. But when they ascend to knowledge, and come to judge
scientifically, they then distribute these particular facts into
classes--note the constant sequences as distinguished from the
occasional--and draw their inferences in every new case according to
such general laws or uniformities of antecedent and consequent. Such
uniform and unconditional antecedents are the only causes of which we
have cognizance. They admit of being described in the language which
Plato here uses ([Greek: ai)ti/as logismô=|]), and they also serve as
reasons for justifying or explaining our inferences to others.[48]
[Footnote 48: We have seen that in the Menon Plato denies all [Greek:
didachê/], and recognises nothing but [Greek: a)na/mnêsis]. The
doctrine of the Timæus (p. 51 D-E) is very different. He there lays
especial stress on the distinction between [Greek: didachê\] and
[Greek: peithô/]--the first belonging to [Greek: e)pistê/mê], the
second to [Greek: do/xa]. Also in Gorgias, 454, and in Republic, v.
pp. 477-479, about [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê]. In those
dialogues the distinction between the two is presented as marked and
fundamental, as if [Greek: do/xa] alone was fallible and [Greek:
e)pistê/mê] infallible. In the Menon the distinction appears as
important, but not fundamental; the Platonic Ideas or Universals
being _not_ recognised as constituting a substantive world by
themselves. In this respect the Menon is nearer to the truth in
describing the difference between [Greek: o)rthê\ do/xa] and [Greek:
e)pistê/mê]. Mr. John Stuart Mill (in the chapter of his System of
Logic wherein the true theory of the Syllogism is for the first time
expounded) has clearly explained what that difference amounts to. All
our inferences are _from_ particulars, sometimes _to_ new
particulars directly and at once ([Greek: do/xa]), sometimes
_to_ generals in the first instance, and through them _to_
new particulars; which latter, or scientific process, is highly
valuable as a security for correctness ([Greek: e)pistê/mê]). "Not
only" (says Mr. Mill) "_may_ we reason from particulars to
particulars without passing through generals, but we perpetually
_do_ so reason. All our earliest inferences are of this nature.
From the first dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years
elapse before we learn the use of general language. We are constantly
reasoning from ourselves to other people, or from one person to
another, without giving ourselves the trouble to erect our
observations into general maxims of human or external nature. If we
have an extensive experience and retain its impressions strongly, we
may acquire in this manner a very considerable power of accurate
judgment, which we may be utterly incapable of justifying or of
communicating to others. Among the higher order of practical
intellects, there have been many of whom it was remarked how
admirably they suited their means to their ends, without being able
to give any sufficient account of what they did; and applied, or
seemed to apply, recondite principles which they were wholly unable
to state. This is a natural consequence of having a mind stored with
appropriate particulars, and having been accustomed to reason at once
from these to fresh particulars, without practising the habit of
stating to one's self or others the corresponding general
propositions. The cases of men of talent performing wonderful things
they know not how, are examples of the rudest and most spontaneous
forms of the operations of superior minds. It is a defect in them,
and often a source of errors, not to have generalised as they went
on; but generalisation, though a help, the most important indeed of
all helps, is not an essential" (Mill, Syst. of Logic, Book II. ch.
iii.). Compare the first chapter of the Metaphysica of Aristotle, p.
980, a. 15, b. 7.]
[Side-note: Manifestation of Anytus--intense antipathy to
the Sophists and to philosophy generally.]
The manner in which Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates before the
Dikastery, is introduced into this dialogue, deserves notice. The
questions are put to him by Sokrates--"Is virtue teachable? How is
Menon to learn virtue, and from whom? Ought he not to do as he would
do if he wished to learn medicine or music: to put himself under some
paid professional man as teacher?" Anytus answers these questions in
the affirmative: but asks, where such professional teachers of virtue
are to be found. "There are the Sophists," replies Sokrates. Upon
this Anytus breaks out into a burst of angry invective against the
Sophists; denouncing them as corruptors of youth, whom none but a
madman would consult, and who ought to be banished by public
authority.
Why are you so bitter against the Sophists? asks Sokrates. Have
any of them ever injured you? _Anyt._--No; never: I have never
been in the company of any one of them, nor would I ever suffer any
of my family to be so. _Sokr._--Then you have no experience
whatever about the Sophists? _Anyt._--None: and I hope that I
never may have. _Sokr._--How then can you know about this
matter, how far it is good or bad, if you have no experience whatever
about it? _Anyt._--Easily. I know what sort of men the Sophists
are, whether I have experience of them or not. _Sokr._--Perhaps
you are a prophet, Anytus: for how else you can know about them, I do
not understand, even on your own statement.[49]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Menon, p. 92.]
Anytus then declares, that the persons from whom Menon ought to learn
virtue are the leading practical politicians; and that any one of
them can teach it. But Sokrates puts a series of questions, showing
that the leading Athenian politicians, Themistoklês, Periklês,
&c., have not been able to teach virtue even to their own sons:
_à fortiori_, therefore, they cannot teach it to any one else.
Anytus treats this series of questions as disparaging and calumnious
towards the great men of Athens. He breaks off the conversation
abruptly, with an angry warning to Sokrates to be cautious about his
language, and to take care of his own safety.
The dialogue is then prosecuted and finished between Sokrates and
Menon: and at the close of it, Sokrates says--"Talk to Anytus, and
communicate to him that persuasion which you have yourself
contracted,[50] in order that he may be more mildly disposed: for, if
you persuade him, you will do some good to the Athenians as well as
to himself."
[Footnote 50: Plato, Menon, ad fin. [Greek: su\ de\ tau=ta a(/per
au)to\s pe/peisai, pei=the kai\ to\n xe/non to/nde A)/nuton, i(/na
pra|o/teros ê)=|; ô(s e)a\n pei/sê|s tou=ton, e)/stin o(/, ti kai\
A)thênai/ous o)nê/seis.]]
[Side-note: The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the
sophists--Practical statesmen.]
The enemy and accuser of Sokrates is here depicted as the bitter
enemy of the Sophists also. And Plato takes pains to exhibit the
enmity of Anytus to the Sophists as founded on no facts or
experience. Without having seen or ascertained anything about them,
Anytus hates them as violently as if he had sustained from them some
personal injury; a sentiment which many Platonic critics and
many historians of philosophy have inherited from him.[51] Whether
the corruption which these Sophists were accused of bringing about in
the minds of youth, was intentional or not intentional on their
part--how such corruption could have been perpetually continued, while at
the same time the eminent Sophists enjoyed long and unabated esteem
from the youth themselves and from their relatives--are difficulties
which Anytus does not attempt to explain, though they are started
here by Sokrates. Indeed we find the same topics employed by Sokrates
himself, in his defence before the Dikasts against the same
charge.[52] Anytus has confidence in no one except the practical
statesmen: and when a question is raised about _their_ power to
impart their own excellence to others, he presently takes offence
against Sokrates also. The same causes which have determined his
furious antipathy against the Sophists, make him ready to transfer
the like antipathy to Sokrates. He is a man of plain sense, practical
habits, and conservative patriotism--who worships what he finds
accredited as virtue, and dislikes the talkers and theorisers about
virtue in general: whether they debated in subtle interrogation and
dialectics, like Sokrates--or lectured in eloquent continuous
discourse, like Protagoras. He accuses the Sophists, in this
dialogue, of corrupting the youth; just as he and Melêtus, before the
Dikastery, accused Sokrates of the same offence. He understands the
use of words, to discuss actual business before the assembly or
dikastery; but he hates discourse on the generalities of ethics or
philosophy. He is essentially [Greek: miso/logos]. The point which he
condemns in the Sophists, is that which they have in common with
Sokrates.
[Footnote 51: Upon the bitter antipathy here expressed by Anytus
against the Sophists, whom nevertheless he admits that he does not at
all know, Steinhart remarks as follows:--"Gerade so haben zu allen
Zeiten Orthodoxe und Fanatiker aller Arten über ihre Gegner
abgeurtheilt, ohne sie zu kennen oder auch nur kennen lernen zu
wollen" (Einleit. zum Menon, not. 15, p. 173).
Certainly orthodox and fanatical persons often do what is here
imputed to them. But Steinhart might have found a still closer
parallel with Anytus, in his own criticisms, and in those of many
other Platonic critics on the Sophists; the same expressions of
bitterness and severity, with the same slender knowledge of the
persons upon whom they bear.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Apol. Sokr. pp. 26 A, 33 D, 34 B.]
[Side-note: The Menon brings forward the point of analogy
between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the
practical statesmen.]
In many of the Platonic dialogues we have the antithesis between
Sokrates and the Sophists brought out, as to the different point of
view from which the one and the other approached ethical
questions. But in this portion of the Menon, we find exhibited the
feature of analogy between them, in which both one and the other
stood upon ground obnoxious to the merely practical politicians. Far
from regarding hatred against the Sophists as a mark of virtue in
Anytus, Sokrates deprecates it as unwarranted and as menacing to
philosophy in all her manifestations. The last declaration ascribed
to Anytus, coupled with the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue,
show us that Plato conceives the anti-Sophistic antipathy as being
anti-Sokratic also, in its natural consequences. That Sokrates was in
common parlance a Sophist, disliked by a large portion of the general
public, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, on the same grounds as those
whom Plato calls Sophists--is a point which I have noticed elsewhere.