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Meno
P >> Plato >> Meno This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher
MENO
by Plato
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
INTRODUCTION.
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.
...
ON THE IDEAS OF PLATO.
Plato's doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and
definiteness which is not to be found in his own writings. The popular
account of them is partly derived from one or two passages in his Dialogues
interpreted without regard to their poetical environment. It is due also
to the misunderstanding of him by the Aristotelian school; and the
erroneous notion has been further narrowed and has become fixed by the
realism of the schoolmen. This popular view of the Platonic ideas may be
summed up in some such formula as the following: 'Truth consists not in
particulars, but in universals, which have a place in the mind of God, or
in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former state of
existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (anamnesis) or association
from sensible things. The sensible things are not realities, but shadows
only, in relation to the truth.' These unmeaning propositions are hardly
suspected to be a caricature of a great theory of knowledge, which Plato in
various ways and under many figures of speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry
has been converted into dogma; and it is not remarked that the Platonic
ideas are to be found only in about a third of Plato's writings and are not
confined to him. The forms which they assume are numerous, and if taken
literally, inconsistent with one another. At one time we are in the clouds
of mythology, at another among the abstractions of mathematics or
metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly from one to the other. Reason and fancy
are mingled in the same passage. The ideas are sometimes described as
many, coextensive with the universals of sense and also with the first
principles of ethics; or again they are absorbed into the single idea of
good, and subordinated to it. They are not more certain than facts, but
they are equally certain (Phaedo). They are both personal and impersonal.
They are abstract terms: they are also the causes of things; and they are
even transformed into the demons or spirits by whose help God made the
world. And the idea of good (Republic) may without violence be converted
into the Supreme Being, who 'because He was good' created all things
(Tim.).
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