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    Meno
    Meno
    Meno
    Ebook116 pages2 hours

    Meno

    By Plato

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    What is virtue? Can it be learned or is it innate? Is it possible to know things a priori (before experience)? In this important and influential Socratic dialogue, Plato addresses a wealth of philosophy's fundamental questions, including the difference between actually knowing something and merely maintaining a correct belief about it.
    The dialogue begins when Meno, a young aristocrat from Thessaly, confidently declares that he can define virtue—only to be reduced in short order to utter confusion, a fate common to those engaging in debate with Socrates. Meno's contention that a concept cannot be defined without knowledge of its nature leads to one of the most celebrated passages in the history of philosophy: Socrates asserts the doctrine of reincarnation, and by posing a mathematical puzzle to Meno's slave, demonstrates the existence of innate knowledge. This brief but profound dialogue, which forms the basis for subsequent examinations of a priori knowledge, appears here in the translation by the distinguished scholar Benjamin Jowett.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover DesignWorks
    Release dateMar 20, 2019
    ISBN9780486839004
    Author

    Plato

    Plato, one of the most renowned ancient Greek philosophers, was born in 427 B.C. to an aristocratic and wealthy family, which played a prominent part in Athenian politics. Plato in conjunction his teacher, Socrates, and his pupil, Aristotle helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and culture. While primarily influenced by Socrates, Plato’s work was also affected by the philosophies of Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans. Under the guidance of Socrates, Plato devoted himself to the pursuit of wisdom and upon Socrates’ death, joined a group of the Socratic disciples gathered at Megara. Later he travelled in Egypt, Magna Graecia, and Sicily. He returned to Athens and founded a school, known as the Academy, which seems to have been his home base for the remainder of his life. While thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of some of them. His early dialogues are also known as the Socratic dialogues and include Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Protagoras. He followed these with his transitional dialogues: Gorgias, Meno , and Euthydemus . The Symposium and the Republic are considered the centerpieces of Plato's middle period and are considered some of his most revered work, and other middle dialogues include Phaedo, Phaedrus, and Theaetetus. Plato’s Laws is the best known dialogues of his late period. Plato died in 347 B.C.

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    • 5/5
      This might be a starting place for our currently divided society since it addresses so MANY of our current controversies
    • 4/5
      The book that I read this dialogue in also contained the Protagoras, which is a good pairing because both of them deal with the question of whether virtue can be taught (the Penguin edition uses the word good, but the better translation would be virtue: I do find that the Penguin editions do tend to dumb down these dialogues, a lot, which sort of defeats the purpose; which is not surprising that my Classics' lecturers tried to stay away from them as much as possible). However, it is interesting as to what they put first because it is clear that the Protagoras was the later text and dealt with an event that occurred thirty years before the Meno, in which Plato was not present, while the Meno was most likely written before the Protagoras about an event that occurred after the Protagoras, one in which it is likely that Plato was present. If you look at both of them you will note that the Protagoras is not a dialogue but a retelling, by Socrates, of an event that occurred thirty years earlier, while the Meno is an actual dialogue which forms a discussion between Socrates and Meno with a slave and Anytas popping in as extras.The Meno is an interesting work because it demonstrates how Socrates really taught people to think. He is like the teacher that when you ask them a question they do not give you an answer but rather then respond to your question with a question of their own which forces us to come up with an answer all of our own. It reminds me of a bible study leader who would never answer a question but respond with 'that is a really good question, David, what do you think?' (though that went a little overboard afterwards when the response to all of his questions was 'that is a really good question Phil, what do you think?'). Mind you, another reason that he never actually answered my questions was because I was notorious for asking really curly questions.Now, it seems that the Meno jumps all over the place, and as I was reading it I thought that Socrates was simply getting the whole question of what virtue was wrong. However, the question that Meno asked him was not 'what is virtue?' but rather 'can virtue be taught?'. Socrates is very clever because he then breaks down the question to 'what is virtue?' which means that to understand whether it can be taught we need to understand what it is, and as such for the first part of the dialogue Meno is trying to understand what virtue is and coming up with ideas (such as acquiring good things) which Socrates then turns around and shoots down in flames. For instance, the question of virtue being the acquisition of good things is brought down when you point out that if you acquire a good thing in a bad way, then can that acquisition of that good thing be an example of virtue? Of course not, Meno realises, and then discards that idea.Now, Anytus makes an entrance (Anytus was one of Socrates' prosecutors, and also Meno's host while Meno was in Athens. Meno was from Thessaly, in far northern Greece). Upon entering Socrates drags him into the discussion, at which point Anytus turns around and pretty much dishes out what he thinks of sophists (the Greek version of lawyers, but in this context, people that go around selling their services as teachers of virtue), and then promptly leaves. However it is an interesting aspect to the discussion because he brings in a completely new dynamic to the entire discussion since by the time he storms out we come to an understanding that these people that go around believing that they can teach virtue really do not know what virtue is. However, Socrates also destroys Anytus' argument by asking in why he hates Sophists, but if he has never actually sat down in one of their classes then how can he know that they are bad.Now, the conclusion is that virtue can not be taught but it can be only handed out by the Gods. When I got to this point I came to understand, from the dialogue, that Socrates really did have an objective understanding of truth in that he moves truth into the objective sphere. Also, it seems to reflect that which is said in the Bible in that nobody is good and that virtue can only come about in a person by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Personally I believe that people can only love God through the power of the Holy Spirit in the sense that there are lots of good people out there who would never do anything bad to another human.Oh, and I should also note that Meno actually leaves this discussion with understanding, something which differs from a number of the other dialogues that I have read as the main participant in the discussion does not excuse himself because he is fed up with Socrates destroying his belief and undermining his opinion of what he believes to be true but rather leaves with a greater understanding of virtue, which suggests, that in the end, that virtue can be taught, but only to people who really want to learn.
    • 3/5
      Key for understanding The Republic, imo. Otherwise, fuck Plato.

    Book preview

    Meno - Plato

    DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

    GENERAL EDITOR: SUSAN L. RATTINER

    EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: STEPHANIE CASTILLO SAMOY

    Bibliographical Note

    This Dover edition, first published in 2019, is an unabridged republication of the work originally printed by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, in 1871.

    International Standard Book Number

    ISBN-13: 978-0-4868-3178-7

    ISBN-10: 0-486-83178-7

    Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

    83178701 2019

    www.doverpublications.com

    Contents

    Introduction

    Meno

    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 someone 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 the 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

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