A Discussion of Meno

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Many times parents have this little game they like to play when a child comes and asks a question the parent often tells the child to look it up. This could serve any number of purposes. Maybe the parent doesn't know the answer and would rather not admit that to their child. The most common purpose may be that parents want their children to learn how to think critically and find the answers, or develop them, on their own. This is a very useful skill to have, for how many of us always have someone around to give us the easy way out? In Plato's Meno, Socrates is approached by Meno and asked, "can virtue be taught? Or is it not teachable but the result of practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess it by nature or in some other way?" () Socrates doesn't quite take the easy way out and send Meno away, but he doesn't just give the answer either. He starts a discussion of many concepts that will eventually, though not until the end, answer the original question.

Socrates begins by asking Meno what virtue is. That of course seems like the most logical place to start, because in order to discuss attaining virtue, one must first have an understanding of what virtue is. Meno's definition of virtue was more or less a list of different virtues. This was not a satisfactory definition for Socrates who says,

"Even if they are many and various, all of them have one and the same form which makes them virtues, and it is right to look to this when one is asked to make clear what virtue is" (5).

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Therefore, Socrates was looking for the one thing that all examples of virtue have in common.

The search for this common bond between many virtues leads Socrates and Meno to discuss other topics. One such topic is that of shape. Socrates and Meno find that there is a difference between "shape" and "a shape". They separate these two ideas by "seeking that which is the same in all cases [shape]" (7). Their conclusion is, "that a shape is that which limits a solid; in a word, a shape is the limit of a solid" (8).

Similar exercises in critical thinking are practiced many times throughout the text. The perception of color, the human desire for wickedness, the idea that knowledge is recollected from an immortal soul, and the comparison between right opinion and knowledge are the concepts that these exercises are applied to.

In their discussion of human desire, Socrates and Meno discuss whether men purposely desire good or evil. At first, Meno agreed that, "anyone, knowing that bad things are bad, nevertheless desires them" (10). However, they eventually conclude otherwise. Virtue is brought back to the surface when they conclude that, "No one then wants what is bad" (11). Virtue then becomes the desire for good things and the ability to secure them. Socrates and Meno finally agree that, "the capacity to acquire good things is virtue" (11). Since the conclusion now is that all men desire good, then the desire for what is good is the common ground of virtue in general.

Now that the common thread of virtue is defined, that virtue is goodness within men, Socrates and Meno can tackle the source of this virtue, or goodness. In the beginning of this dialogue, Meno poses a question to Socrates "can virtue be taught? Or is it not teachable but the result of practice, or is it neither of these, but men possess it by nature or in some other way?" () Using the critical thinking exercises already introduced in the dialogue, they will attempt to answer the question. First, they decided that, "if virtue is a kind of knowledge, it is clear that it could be taught" (1). Now they are faced with deciding whether or not virtue is knowledge. At first, they conclude that virtue is knowledge based on the following argument

"Therefore, in a word, all that the soul undertakes and endures, if directed by wisdom, ends in happiness, but if directed by ignorance, it ends in the opposite? That is likely. If then virtue is something in the soul and it must be beneficial, it must be knowledge…This argument shows that virtue, being beneficial, must be a kind of wisdom" ().

After coming to this conclusion, Socrates decided he was not satisfied. He wanted to further test the idea of virtue as knowledge, and introduced other examples to consider. He brought up a man named Themistocles, who he and Meno agree is a virtuous man. (6) Socrates talks about how this man raised his son to do many great things, but his son did not have the good qualities that would be considered virtues. (6) Socrates continues with, "are we to believe that he wanted to educate his son in those other things but not to do better than his neighbors in that skill which he himself possessed, if indeed virtue can be taught?" (6). Socrates uses this example to show that virtue is not knowledge because it can't be taught. Instead, Socrates argues that virtue is a gift of the gods and is unattainable even for a good man without divine intervention. This conclusion ends the dialogue.

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