Plato: Meno

Meno includes a disarming question:

Can you explain what virtue is, or is it something we just assume we know?

The dialogue begins with confidence and ends in uncertainty—but not defeat. Along the way, Socrates introduces the famous theory of recollection: the idea that the soul already holds knowledge and learning is a kind of remembering.

Meno weaves together ethics, epistemology, and myth. It explores:

• Can virtue be taught, or is it divine?

• How can we inquire into something we don’t yet understand?

• What does it mean to truly learn?

This is one of Plato’s most elegant and layered dialogues. It caps off his early epoch and is the bridge to his middle cycle starting with The Republic. 

It begins with the challenge of how to transmit wisdom from one person to another, and thereby one generation to the next.

Meno

What is virtue?

MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor by practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?

SOCRATES: Meno, before this the Thessalians were well thought of among the Greeks and were admired for both horsemanship and wealth, but now, as it seems to me, also for wisdom, and not least the Larissaeans, fellow citizens of your friend Aristippus. And this is Gorgias’ doing; for when he came there, they fell in love with his wisdom. And besides he has given you this very habit of fearlessly and magnificently answering any question anyone asks, as is only reasonable for people who have knowledge, since he himself makes himself available for any Greek who wishes to pose him any question he likes, and answers absolutely everyone. How different is our lot my dear Meno! There has been a drought of wisdom, as it were, and in all likelihood wisdom has vanished from these parts and migrated to your people. At any rate, if you want to put a question like that to one of the people here, any one of them will laugh and say: ‘Stranger, you must think I am richly blessed, at least if you expect me to know whether virtue is teachable or how people come to have it. I am so far from knowing whether or not it’s teachable that even the very question what on earth virtue is is one regarding which I don’t in fact have any knowledge at all.’ Now I myself, Meno, am also in this condition. I’m poverty stricken in this matter along with my fellow citizens, and I blame myself for not knowing about virtue at all. And if I don’t know what something is, how would I know what sort of thing it is? Or does it seem to you to be possible that someone who doesn’t know Meno at all, who he is, could know whether he’s beautiful or rich and also well-born, or even the opposite of these? Does it seem to you to be possible?

MENO: No. But do you really not know even what virtue is, Socrates, and is that the news about you we are to take back home as well?

SOCRATES: Yes, and not only that, my friend, but also that I don’t think I’ve yet met anyone else who knows.

Virtue belongs to all

MENO: What? Didn’t you meet Gorgias when he was here?

SOCRATES: I did indeed.

MENO: And so you didn’t think that he knew?

SOCRATES: Well then, let’s let him be, since in fact he’s not here. But you yourself, Meno—by the gods, what do you claim virtue is? For I shall be truly delighted to find that I have been mistaken, and that you and Gorgias do really have this knowledge; although I have been just saying that I have never found anybody who had.

MENO: Well, it isn’t difficult to say, Socrates. First, if you want to take the virtue of a man, it is easy to state that the virtue of a man is to be competent at managing the affairs of his city, and in so doing to benefit friends and harm enemies; and he must also be careful not to suffer harm himself. A woman’s virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described: she must run her household well, conserving its property. Every age, every condition of life, young or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And the same may be said of vice, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Does it seem to you that way only about virtue, Meno—that there’s one for a man, another for a woman and for the rest—or is it the same concerning health and size and strength? Does it seem to you that there’s one health for a man, another for a woman? Or is it the same form everywhere, if in fact there is health, whether it’s in a man or in anyone else? Then also size and strength? Whenever a woman is strong, will she be strong by the same form and the same strength? What I mean by ‘the same’ is this: strength doesn’t differ at all in respect of its being strength, whether it’s in a man or in a woman. Or does it seem to you that they differ in some way? And will virtue differ in some way with respect to being virtue, whether it’s in a child or in an elder, or in a woman or in a man?

MENO: I cannot help feeling, Socrates, that this case is different from the others.

SOCRATES: But why? Were you not saying that the virtue of a man was to order a state, and the virtue of a woman was to order a house?

MENO: I did say so.

SOCRATES: And can either house or state or anything be well ordered without temperance and without justice?

MENO: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then they who order a state or a house temperately or justly order them with temperance and justice?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then both men and women, if they are to be good men and women, must have the same virtues of temperance and justice?

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And can either a young man or an elder one be good, if they are intemperate and unjust?

MENO: They cannot.

SOCRATES: They must be temperate and just?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Then all humans are good in the same way. For they become good by attaining the same things.

MENO: It looks that way.

SOCRATES: And they wouldn’t be good in the same way, I presume—if their virtue were not the same.

MENO: Definitely not.

What is the universal in virtue?

SOCRATES: Well then, since the same virtue belongs to all, try to say and to recollect what thing Gorgias claims it is, and you along with him.

MENO: The ability to rule over people—what else? Assuming, that is, that you’re seeking one thing covering all cases.

SOCRATES: And does this definition of virtue include all virtue? Does a child also have the same virtue, Meno, and does a slave, namely the ability to rule their master? Do you think that one would still be a slave with such authority?

MENO: Not at all, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Right—it’s implausible, my friend. Besides, consider this further point. You say that virtue is ‘to be able to rule.’ Won’t we add to that ‘justly, and not unjustly?’

MENO: I think so, because justice is virtue, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Virtue, Meno, or a virtue?

MENO: What do you mean?

SOCRATES: I mean as I might say about anything; that a circle, for example, is ‘a figure’ and not simply ‘figure,’ and I should adopt this mode of speaking, because there are other figures.

MENO: Quite right; and that is just what I am saying about virtue—that there are other virtues as well as justice.

SOCRATES: What are they? Tell me the names of them.

MENO: Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and there are many others.

SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs through them all, for you know that all things have a common notion. Suppose now that someone asked you the question which I asked before: Meno, he would say, what is figure? And if you answered ’roundness,’ he would reply to you, in my way of speaking, by asking whether you would say that roundness is ‘figure’ or ‘a figure;’ and you would answer ‘a figure.’ And if he proceeded to ask, ‘What other figures are there?’ You would have told him. And if he similarly asked what colour is, and you answered whiteness, and the questioner rejoined, ‘Would you say that whiteness is colour or a colour?’ You would reply, a colour, because there are other colours as well. So, when you put it that way, are you then claiming that the round is no more round than straight, or the straight no more straight than round? You only assert that the round figure is not more a figure than the straight, or the straight than the round?

MENO: Very true.

SOCRATES: To what then do we give the name of figure? Try and answer. Suppose that when a person asked you this question either about figure or colour, you were to reply, Man, I do not understand what you want, or know what you are saying; he would look rather astonished and say: Do you not understand that I am looking for the ‘common in the multitude?’ And then he might put the question in another form: Meno, he might say, what is that ‘common in the multitude’ which you call figure, and which includes not only round and straight figures, but all? Figure is the only thing which always follows colour. Will you be satisfied with it, as I am sure that I should be, if you would let me have a similar definition of virtue?

MENO: But, Socrates, it is such a simple answer.

SOCRATES: Why simple?

MENO: Because, according to you, figure is that which always follows colour. But if a person were to say that he does not know what colour is, any more than what figure is—what sort of answer would you have given him?

SOCRATES: Tell me, do you call something an ‘end?’ I mean some such thing as limit or extremity—by all these I mean the same thing. Prodicus would perhaps differ with us, but you, at least, would no doubt call something ‘limited’ and ‘ended.’ That’s the sort of thing I want to say, nothing fancy.

MENO: But I do call it that, and I think I understand what you’re saying.

SOCRATES: What about this? Do you call something a plane surface, and something else in turn a solid—those things, for example, that come up in matters of geometry?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Well then, you are now in a condition to understand my definition of shape. I define shape to be that in which the solid ends; or, more concisely, the limit of solid.

MENO: But what do you say colour is, Socrates?

SOCRATES: Do not Gorgias, you and Empedocles say that there are certain effluences of existence? And passages into which and through which the effluences pass? And some of the effluences fit into the passages, and some of them are too small or too large?

The Presocratics: Empedocles: https://rumble.com/v4gwesw-the-presocratics-empedocles.html

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And there is such a thing as sight?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: And now, as Pindar says, ‘read my meaning:’—colour is an effluence of form, commensurate with sight, and palpable to sense.

MENO: That, Socrates, appears to me to be an admirable answer.

SOCRATES: Quite, for perhaps such an answer is familiar to you. And at the same time you realize, I think, that from it you could also say what sound is, and smell and many other such things.

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Tell me what virtue is in the universal; and do not make a singular into a plural. Leave virtue whole and intact, and say what it is. I’ve given you the models, after all.

Virtue is what is good for oneself and having the power to attain it

MENO: Well then, Socrates, virtue, as I take it, is when he, who desires the honourable, is able to provide it for himself; so the poet says, and I say too—

‘Virtue is the desire of things honourable and the power of attaining them.‘

SOCRATES: And does he who desires the honourable also desire the good?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

MENO: I think not.

SOCRATES: There are some who desire evil?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

MENO: Both, I think.

SOCRATES: Do you really think, Meno, that there is anyone who knows that the bad things are bad but nonetheless desires them?

MENO: Certainly I do.

SOCRATES: What do you assert he desires? Isn’t it that they become his?

MENO: Yes, what else?

SOCRATES: And does he think that the evils will do good to him who possesses them, or does he know that they will do him harm?

MENO: There are some who think that the evils will do them good, and others who know that they will do them harm.

SOCRATES: And do you think that those who believe that bad things benefit know that the bad things are bad?

MENO: That I don’t believe.

SOCRATES: Then it is clear that these people, at least, don’t desire bad things, ignorant as they are about them, but desire things they thought were good, but in fact are bad. And so the people who are ignorant about these things and think they are good clearly desire good things. Or don’t they?

MENO: It does look like they, at least, do.

SOCRATES: Very well. The people who desire bad things, according to you, but think that bad things harm whoever acquires them, presumably know that they will be harmed by them?

MENO: They must.

SOCRATES: But don’t these people believe that those who are harmed are pitiful to the extent that they are harmed? And that the pitiful are unhappy? So is there anyone who wants to be pitiful and unhappy?

MENO: I should say not, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Therefore, no one, Meno, wants bad things, if in fact no one wants to be such a person. For what else is it to be wretched than to desire bad things—and also to get them?

MENO: It looks as if what you say is true, Socrates, and no one wants bad things.

SOCRATES: Now weren’t you saying a moment ago that virtue is wanting good things and being capable?

MENO: Yes, I was saying that.

SOCRATES: Clearly, rather, if someone is better than another, he would be better in respect of his proficiency.

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: It seems then that what virtue is, according to your account, is proficiency at securing good things for oneself.

MENO: Exactly.

SOCRATES: Then, according to your definition, virtue would appear to be the power of attaining good?

MENO: I entirely approve, Socrates, of the manner in which you now view this matter.

SOCRATES: You affirm virtue to be the power of attaining goods?

MENO: Yes.

Virtue includes the just use of power, but still no universal found

SOCRATES: And the goods which you mean are such as health and wealth and the possession of gold and silver, and having office and honour in the state—those are what you would call goods?

MENO: Yes, and acquiring gold and silver, and political honours and offices.

SOCRATES: Then, according to Meno, who is the hereditary friend of the great king, virtue is the power of getting silver and gold; and would you add that they must be gained piously, justly, or do you deem this to be of no consequence? And is any mode of acquisition, even if unjust and dishonest, equally to be deemed virtue?

MENO: Not virtue, Socrates, but vice.

SOCRATES: One must therefore, as it seems, attach to this provision justice or moderation or piety, or some other part of virtue; otherwise, it won’t be virtue, even if it succeeds in providing good things.

MENO: Why, how can there be virtue without these?

SOCRATES: But what about not providing gold and silver, whenever it isn’t just, either for oneself or for another? Isn’t it virtue too, this failure to provide [through injustice]?”

MENO: It seems so.

SOCRATES: Therefore providing such goods wouldn’t be virtue any more than the failure to provide them is. Instead, it seems, whatever is done with justice will be virtue, but whatever is done without all such things will be vice.

MENO: It seems to me to be necessarily as you say.

Returning to the question ‘What is virtue?’

SOCRATES: And were we not saying just now that justice, temperance, and the like, were each of them a part of virtue? Why, did not I ask you to tell me the nature of virtue as a whole? And you are very far from telling me this; but declare every action to be virtue which is done with a part of virtue; as though you had told me and I must already know the whole of virtue, and this too frittered away into little pieces. And, therefore, my dear Meno, I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question: What is virtue? For otherwise, I can only say, that every action done with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the question over again; for can anyone who does not know virtue know a part of virtue?

MENO: No; I do not think that.

SOCRATES: Right, and if you remember, when I gave you an answer about shape just now, I think we started discarding this sort of answer, the sort that tries to respond through things which are still being searched for and on which agreement has not yet been reached.

MENO: And we were right to do so, Socrates.

SOCRATES: But then, my friend, do not suppose that we can explain to anyone the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of virtue, or anything at all in that fashion; we should only have to ask over again the old question, What is virtue? Am I not right? What, according to you and your friend Gorgias, is the definition of virtue?

MENO: Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits’ end. How will you search for something, Socrates, if you don’t know at all what it is? For what sort of thing among those you don’t know will you set before you as you search? Or even if in the best case you should run right into it, how will you know that this is what you didn’t know?

SOCRATES: I understand what you mean to say, Meno. Do you see how contentious this account is that you’re spinning? You argue that a man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the very subject about which he is to enquire.

MENO: Don’t you think this argument a good one, Socrates?

Divine intuition

SOCRATES: I think not. I will tell you why: I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of things divine. They are those priests and priestesses who’ve taken an interest in being able to give an account of their practices, though the idea also occurs in Pindar and many other inspired poets…They say that the human soul is immortal—that it periodically comes to an end and is born again, but that it never perishes. And that, they say, is why one should live as moral a life as possible, because. ‘In the ninth year Persephone restores once more to the sun above, the souls of those from whom she has received in atonement for the original sin of man tainted by the death of Dionysus, and she returns the divine soul; From them illustrious kings and men swift in strength and greatest in wisdom grow. For the rest of time, they are called among humans: heroes undefiled.’ So since the soul both is immortal and has been born many times, and has seen both what is here and what is in Hades, and in fact all things, there is nothing it has not learned. Hence it isn’t at all surprising that it should be possible for the soul to recall what, after all, it also knew before about excellence and about everything else. For since all nature is akin and the soul has learnt everything, there’s nothing to stop a man recovering everything else by himself, once he has remembered—or ‘learnt’, as commonly expressed—just one thing; all he needs is the fortitude not to give up the search. For seeking and learning turn out to be wholly recollection. So we shouldn’t trust that controversial argument of yours: it would make us lazy and appeals only to the faint-hearted; while this other account makes us both ready to work and ready to search. For my part, I will put my trust in this doctrine and take it to be true, and on that basis I’m prepared to try to find out, with your help, what excellence is.

MENO: Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me how this is?

SOCRATES: Meno, you are a rascal! You ask if I can teach you—I, who claim that there is no teaching, but only recollection—so as to make me contradict myself?

MENO: No, indeed, Socrates, I didn’t say it with that in mind, but out of habit. Still, if there is some way you can demonstrate to me that it is as you say, then please do so.

SOCRATES: Well, it isn’t an easy matter, but all the same I’m willing to make the effort for your sake. Please call over one of your many attendants.

Demonstration

In Socrates’ demonstration, he used basic counting to show how a person who starts off not knowing a solution for doubling the area of a square can count as a way to confirm necessary relations that are perfect in the mind, if imperfect in any drawing or construction in the world of the senses. At first the attendant slave recognizes the perfect square as having equal sides regardless of the length of those sides. Then the question of how to double the area of a square came up: 2² = 4, but the slave incorrectly guesses that 4² ≠ 8. Four, four times equals sixteen. Approximating the area of 8 as 3², the answer was still wrong. Socrates then established that it was better to accept one’s error and not fall into defensiveness and to angrily assert knowledge where there was none, like telling “the world again and again that the double space should have a double side.” It’s better to accept ignorance and then renew a desire to figure it out.

Socrates then filled in the area of a corner square that was divided into four smaller squares. It became evident that the larger square would have needed four of the smaller square areas to fill the entire area. Based on necessity, Socrates introduced an investigation of the diagonal line bisecting the square, which immediately revealed the necessity of the length of that diagonal would have to be what it was in order for the larger square to be traversed. This led to the need for decimals where the ratio between a diagonal of a square shape compared to a side of a square was 1.414… etc. To keep it more simple Socrates demonstrated to the slave that the square has 4 spaces and the diagonal traverses 2 of them. 4 x 2 = 8, but 8 in area. So 1.414… x 2 spaces traversed = 2.828…and so approximately 2.828…² = an area of 8.

The quiet revolution embedded in the demonstration was the adequacy of the slave in learning and how the contributions of a class of slaves could be equal of that of the master, if they put in the equal effort. It was a subtle challenge to the institution of slavery. Even if decimals were introduced here to explain the math, Socrates, and Plato, were using necessary geometric relations to illustrate that the mind could grasp them. Shockingly, the diagonal of a square introduced an irrational number, one with endless decimals, which the slave boy could not use arithmetic to count, unless only when he was counting to the approximation of 3 from 2.828 etcetera…Both the concrete drawing of the square in perception, and arithmetic, failed. Whereas, a geometric understanding succeeded, even when the slave boy was never taught geometry formally. This for Socrates proved that there was something in the soul that could recognize necessary relations, much like the Socratic method of inquiring about necessary relations in virtue. The sense of soul could also expand in that Socratic method to acknowledge the supports for the different virtues, which would ultimately be about the Good in a spatial and geometric search. Plato, through Socrates, could only turn to divine influence, for humans could not count their way to the answer or see a natural example of a microscopically perfect square in nature to learn from. It was there before birth. If the necessary relations comprehended in the soul were always there, then the soul was immortal.

This was Socrates new starting point in the search for geometrically necessary connection(s) that formed the abstract concept of virtue and excellence in all things, and it required knowledge. Therefore if knowledge could be taught, then virtue could also be taught. Even if geometric and spatial excellence was possible to understand perfectly in the soul, their imitations applied to the imperfect world of perception, and necessary relations between citizens in a city-state, accumulated knowledge of this kind could perhaps improve lived experience and manifest the simulacra of the good life. Typically this good life would allow the concrete matter of the body to experience an unruffled conscience, peace and joy.

There’s also a therapeutic angle as well, when Socrates saw the benefit of accepting ignorance as the foundation for further inquiry. Humans are not naturally good, otherwise we would be perfectly wise from the beginning of life. The stigma of error and folly is countered by an acceptance of fault, but also a desire to improve. Past behavior doesn’t have to guarantee that it cannot change, and there’s license for improving oneself when the goal is to discover anew ever more necessary relations, that are ever more good, and then imitating those new foundations that appear to be more solidly grounded in the blameless. Blamelessness then implies that what is beneficial for oneself should not unfairly be harmful to others.

Is Virtue knowledge of the beneficial?

SOCRATES: Now, if there be any sort of good which is distinct from knowledge, virtue may be that good; but if knowledge embraces all good, then we shall be right in thinking that virtue is knowledge? And virtue makes us good? And if we are good, then we benefit; for all good things are beneficial? Then virtue is beneficial?

MENO: That is the only inference.

SOCRATES: Then now let us see what are the things which severally benefit us. Health and strength, and beauty and wealth—these, and the like of these, we call beneficial?

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And yet these things may also sometimes do us harm: would you not think so?

MENO: Yes.

SOCRATES: And what is the guiding principle which makes them beneficial or the reverse? Are they not beneficial when they are rightly used, and hurtful when they are not rightly used?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Next, let us consider the goods of the soul: they are temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, memory, magnanimity, and the like?

MENO: Surely.

SOCRATES: And such of these as are not knowledge, but of another sort, are sometimes beneficial and sometimes harmful; as, for example, courage wanting prudence, which is only a sort of confidence? When a man has no sense he is harmed by courage, but when he has sense he is benefitted?

Plato: Laches: https://rumble.com/v6utof9-plato-laches.html

MENO: True.

SOCRATES: And the same may be said of temperance and quickness of apprehension; whatever things are learned or done with sense are beneficial, but when done without sense they are harmful? And in general, all that the soul attempts or endures, when under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness; but when she is under the guidance of folly, in the opposite? If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be beneficial, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the soul are either beneficial or harmful in themselves, but they are all made beneficial or harmful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore if virtue is beneficial, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?

MENO: That appears to be true.

SOCRATES: And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do not they also become beneficial or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly? And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul wrongly. And is not this universally true of human nature? All other things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon wisdom, if they are to be good; and so wisdom is inferred to be that which benefits—and virtue, as we say, is beneficial?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: And thus we arrive at the conclusion that virtue is either wholly or partly wisdom, which is knowledge of the good?

MENO: I think that what you are saying, Socrates, is very true.

SOCRATES: But if this is true, then the good are not by nature good? If the good became good by nature, presumably we would have people who could tell which of our young men were naturally good, and that once they’d pointed them out to us, we’d seize these young men and keep them in secure quarters on the Acropolis. We’d seal them up much more carefully than our gold, to stop them being corrupted and to make sure that when they reached adulthood they could serve the city well. But if the good are not by nature good, are they made good by instruction?

MENO: I think that conclusion is now inevitable. It also clearly follows from our assumption, Socrates, that if excellence is knowledge it must be teachable.

SOCRATES: Indeed it may be. But what if we were wrong to agree to that?

MENO: Well, it certainly seemed right just now.

SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; but a principle which has any soundness should stand firm not only just now, but always. I do not take back the assertion that if virtue is knowledge it may be taught; but I fear that I have some reason in doubting whether virtue is knowledge: for consider now if anything at all—not just virtue—is teachable, isn’t it necessary that there be teachers and students of it? And conversely, wouldn’t we be right to suppose that something which has neither teachers nor students isn’t teachable?

MENO: True; but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue?

Are there teachers of virtue?

SOCRATES: Well, I’ve often tried to see if there are any teachers of excellence, but despite my best efforts I’ve failed to find any, even though I enlist the support of a lot of other people for my enquiries, and especially those whom I take to be the greatest experts in the matter. In fact, Meno, Anytus has sat down here next to us at just the right time: let’s get him to help us in our enquiry. It makes sense for us to do so, not least because Anytus here is the son of a clever and wealthy father, Anthemion. Now, Anthemion became rich not by accident, but thanks to his own skill and care; moreover, he was generally held to be essentially a decorous and well-behaved member of his community, not overbearing or offensively authoritarian, and in addition he did a good job of raising and educating his son—or so the Athenian people think, to judge by the fact that they elect Anytus to the most important posts. So Anytus is typical of the kind of person with whom one ought to try to see whether or not there are any teachers of excellence, and if so who they are. Please, Anytus, to help me and your friend Meno in answering our question, who are the teachers? Consider the matter thus: If we wanted Meno to be a good physician, to whom should we send him? Should we not send him to the physicians? Or if we wanted him to be a good cobbler, should we not send him to the cobblers? And so forth? When we say that we should be right in sending him to the physicians if we wanted him to be a physician, do we mean that we should be right in sending him to those who profess the art, rather than to those who do not, and to those who demand payment for teaching the art, and profess to teach it to anyone who will come and learn? You are in a position to advise with me about my friend Meno. He has been telling me, Anytus, that he desires to attain that kind of wisdom and virtue by which men order the state or the house, and are ready to impart instruction to any one who likes, at a fixed price. These are the people whom mankind call Sophists.

ANYTUS: Heavens, don’t speak of them, Socrates! May no relative or friend of mine, from either this city or abroad, fall prey to such madness as to go to see those men and be ruined, because it’s as plain as daylight that they are the ruin and corruption of those who associate with them.

SOCRATES: What, Anytus? For I know that one man, Protagoras, acquired more money from this wisdom than Pheidias, who used to make artefacts of such conspicuous beauty, and ten other sculptors put together. And what you’re saying is quite bizarre: A mender of old shoes, or patcher up of clothes, who made the shoes or clothes worse than he received them, could not have remained thirty days undetected, and would very soon have starved; whereas during more than forty years, Protagoras was corrupting all Hellas, and sending his disciples from him worse than he received them, and he was never found out. For, if I am not mistaken, he was about seventy years old at his death, forty of which were spent in the practice of his profession; and during all that time he had a good reputation, which to this day he retains: and not only Protagoras, but many others are well spoken of; some who lived before him, and others who are still living. Now, when you say that they deceived and corrupted the youth, are they to be supposed to have corrupted them consciously or unconsciously? Can those who were deemed by many to be the wisest men of Hellas have been out of their minds?

Plato: Protagoras: https://rumble.com/v757vga-plato-protagoras.html

ANYTUS: The young men who gave their money to them were out of their minds, and their relations and guardians who entrusted their youth to the care of these men were still more out of their minds, and most of all, the cities who allowed them to come in, and did not drive them out.

SOCRATES: Have any of the Sophists wronged you, Anytus? What makes you so angry with them?

ANYTUS: No, indeed, neither I nor any of my belongings has ever had, nor would I suffer them to have, anything to do with them.

SOCRATES: Then you are entirely unacquainted with them?

ANYTUS: And I have no wish to be acquainted.

SOCRATES: Then, my dear friend, how can you know whether a thing is good or bad of which you are wholly ignorant? But I am not enquiring of you who are the teachers who will corrupt Meno; I only ask you to tell him who there is in this great city who will teach him how to become eminent in the virtues which I was just now describing. He is the friend of your family, and you will oblige him.

ANYTUS: Any Athenian gentleman, taken at random, if he will mind him, will do far more good to him than the Sophists.

SOCRATES: And did those gentlemen grow of themselves; and without having been taught by anyone, were they nevertheless able to teach others that which they had never learned themselves?

ANYTUS: I imagine that they learned of the previous generation of gentlemen. Have there not been many good men in this city?

SOCRATES: Yes, certainly, Anytus; and many good statesmen also there always have been and there are still, in the city of Athens. But the question is whether they were also good teachers of their own virtue;—not whether there are, or have been, good men in this part of the world, but whether virtue can be taught, is the question which we have been discussing. Now, do we mean to say that the good men of our own and of other times knew how to impart to others that virtue which they had themselves; or is virtue a thing incapable of being communicated or imparted by one man to another? That is the question which I and Meno have been arguing.

Socrates then went on to question not just Sophists but also parents who achieved much but failed to impart their knowledge to their children. You would think every parent who achieved success would be able to transmit that wisdom in a way that planted a seed in the child and reliably brought results for the next generation.

Gladiator (2000) – Commodus Murders His Father Scene: https://youtu.be/m8_h4uCUCRA?si=n02en1Rq1L8FOw9A

ANYTUS: Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful. So I’d advise you to be cautious, if you’re willing to take my advice. There may be other cities too where it is easier to do ill to people than good, but in this city it certainly is. And I believe you yourself know that as well.

SOCRATES: It looks as though Anytus is angry, Meno, but that’s hardly surprising: in the first place, he thinks that I’m slandering these noble men; and secondly, he is of opinion that he is one of them himself. If he ever comes to realize what it is to speak badly of someone,
he’ll stop being angry, but he lacks that insight at the moment. Meanwhile I will return to you, Meno; for I suppose that there are gentlemen in your region too?

MENO: Certainly there are.

SOCRATES: And are they willing to teach the young? Do they profess to be teachers, and do they agree that virtue is taught?

MENO: No indeed, Socrates, they are anything but agreed; you may hear them saying at one time that virtue can be taught, and then change their minds.

SOCRATES: Can we call those teachers who do not acknowledge the possibility of their own vocation?

MENO: I think not, Socrates.

SOCRATES: What about these Sophists, then, who are the only ones who claim to teach excellence? Do you think they really can?

MENO: I often wonder, Socrates, that Gorgias is never heard promising to teach virtue: and when he hears others promising he only laughs at them; but he thinks that men should be taught to speak.

SOCRATES: Then do you not think that the Sophists are teachers?

MENO: I cannot tell you, Socrates; like the rest of the world, I am in doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not.

SOCRATES: And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet says the very same thing?

‘Drink and eat beside them, sit among them,
Amuse them—if their power is great.
From good men you will be taught good things. But if you keep
Bad company, you will lose even what sense you have. ‘

Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught?

But in some other verses he shifts about and says:

‘If understanding could be put into a man, then they would have obtained great rewards.’

‘Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a bad man into a good one.’

Do you realize that he contradicts himself on the same subject?

MENO: Clearly.

SOCRATES: When people are so confused about something, would you say that they are genuinely its teachers?

MENO: I should say, certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then if neither the sophists nor those who are themselves of noble character are teachers of the subject, isn’t it clear that others wouldn’t be? And if there are no teachers, neither are there students?

MENO: Agreed.

SOCRATES: Then virtue cannot be taught? It follows, then, that excellence cannot be teachable.

MENO: But I cannot believe, Socrates, that there are no good men: And if there are, how did they come into existence?

SOCRATES: I am afraid, Meno, that you and I are not good for much, and that Gorgias has been as poor an educator of you as Prodicus has been of me. Certainly we shall have to look to ourselves, and try to find someone who will help in some way or other to improve us. This I say, because I observe that in the previous discussion none of us remarked that right and good action is possible to man under other guidance than that of knowledge;—and indeed if this be denied, there is no seeing how there can be any good men at all.

MENO: How do you mean, Socrates?

SOCRATES: I mean that good men are necessarily useful or beneficial. Were we not right in admitting this? It must be so. And in supposing that they will be useful only if they are true guides to us of action—there we were also right? But when we said that a man cannot be a good guide unless he have knowledge, this we were wrong.

MENO: What do you mean by the word ‘right’?

SOCRATES: I will explain. If someone who knows the road to Larisa walks there and shows others the way, he’d be giving good and beneficial guidance, wouldn’t he?

MENO: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Well, what about someone who thinks he knows the way, and is right, but has never travelled the road and so doesn’t know it? Wouldn’t he too be a good guide? And as long as he correctly believes what the other person knows, he’ll be just as good a guide as the one with
knowledge, because his thinking is correct, even though he doesn’t have knowledge. Then true opinion is as good a guide to correct action as knowledge; and that was the point which we omitted in our speculation about the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge only is the guide of right action; whereas there is also right opinion.

MENO: The difference, Socrates, is only that he who has knowledge will always be right; but he who has right opinion will sometimes be right, and sometimes not.

Virtue is not teachable

SOCRATES: True opinions are also a thing of beauty, as long as they stay with one, and all their consequences are good. But they’re not prepared to stay with one for long. Instead they run away from the person’s soul. As a result, they are not worth very much until someone ties them down by reasoning out the cause. And this, Meno, my friend, is recollection, as we have earlier agreed. When they’ve been tied down, they become, first of all, instances of knowledge, and, secondly, settled. It’s precisely for this reason that knowledge is something more precious than correct opinion, and it’s being tied down that makes knowledge different from correct opinion. But we’ve agreed that there are no teachers of it? Knowledge can’t be our guide in political action. And therefore it was not by some sort of wisdom nor because they were wise that men such as Themistocles and his circle, and those Anytus here just mentioned, guided their cities. And it is for this very reason that they are unable to make others the sort of men that they themselves are, in that it is not because of knowledge that they are like this.

MENO: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: So if this doesn’t happen by knowledge, the remaining alternative is that it happens by good opinion. Politicians use this when they make their cities run correctly, and, as far as wisdom goes, they’re no different from oracles and prophets. For these latter also say many true things when inspired, but they know none of the things they say. So, Meno, should we call ‘divine’ these men who, without understanding, act and speak correctly in many important matters? Then on the basis of this reasoning, Meno, it seems to us that whoever acquires virtue does so by divine allocation. But the time when we’ll know the plain truth about it will be when, before considering in what way people acquire virtue, we first attempt to search for what on earth virtue is, in and of itself. But now the time has come for me to go somewhere. As for you, please persuade your host Anytus here of the same things of which you yourself have been persuaded, so that he may be a gentler person. For if you persuade him, you’ll be doing the Athenians a service as well.

Anytus would eventually be an example of an adversary and failed father in the Apology, and on that score it’s known that Meno must have failed in Socrates’ assignment to change him. There’s a sense that if one is too psychologically ill, like a psychopath, moral teachings cannot penetrate and goodness, excellence, and virtue would be missing from any leader that could not firstly lead themselves. To be able to admit fault, ignorance, and the like, there would have to be enough humility, shame and contrition for an ego to course correct. Once that is possible, as in the example of the slave boy, the mind is quiet enough, patient enough, to search for those necessary and immutable patterns of thought that could contribute to a just society. This knowledge is remembered better through phronesis, which is knowledge through experience, than a mere collection of correct opinions that are easily forgotten. Humility, a desire for what is good for oneself, and the many, followed by an exhaustive search for necessary relations and forms of leverage, leads to ethical development in people who were not born with virtue. Even if Socrates at the end supports correct opinions through intuition, without a population having enough real knowledge, faulty opinions would be more likely to spread through the populace through imitation. The Socratic process that is a true guide is the following:

1. Ask what makes X what it is.
2. Then ask what makes that possible.
3. Then ask what grounds that further.
4. Keep going until you reach something that does not depend on anything else.

Leibniz was influenced by this method of learning where one was actually training another by questioning and having the learner go through the logic and verification instead of having to believe the teacher and regurgitate. “So that they can be found there by carefully considering and arranging what one already has in mind…as Plato showed in a dialogue, where he introduces Socrates leading a child to hidden truths through questioning alone, without teaching him anything.”

Unfortunately, most of the interlocuters Socrates conversed with had trouble going beyond self-sabotage or what was beneficial only for themselves, let alone making contributions that also benefited the polis. Double-standards, abuse, exploitation, and even in severe cases of people not knowing what was good for themselves, self-sabotage would also remain. Those addicted to their position of power are not likely to relinquish it when found in error, and without an institution like a democratic system of political removal, tyranny would likely be the result.

Plato: Meno – Benjamin Jowett: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1643/pg1643-images.html

Plato: Meno and Phaedo – David Sedley, Alex Long: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780521676779/

Plato: Meno – Peter Kalkavage, Eric Salem, Eva Brann: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781585109937/

Meno and Other Dialogues – Robin Waterfield: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780192804259/

A Commentary on Plato’s Meno – Jacob Klein: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780807873984/

Bedu-Addo JT. Recollection and the argument ‘from a hypothesis’ in Plato’s Meno. The Journal of Hellenic Studies. 1984;104:1-14.

Schwab, Whitney. (2019). The Metaphysics of Recollection in Plato’s Meno. Apeiron. 

Ebert, T. Plato’s Theory of Recollection reconsidered an interpretation of Meno 80a–86c. Man and World 6, 163–181 (1973).

Demir, Abdullah. (2025). Anamnesis between myth and epistemology: Recollection in Plato and cross-cultural memory symbolism. 

Philosophy: https://psychreviews.org/category/philosophy03/