This summary works through the debate between Socrates and Meno on the nature and acquisition of virtue. it seeks to build a foundational understanding of the arguments and refutations discussed within the text and some of the debates surrounding it since.
The Key Questions:
- What is virtue?
- What is the relationship between virtue and knowledge?
- Can virtue thus be taught? If virtue is teachable, it must then be a kind of knowledge.
- What then is knowledge and is it different from true belief?
Virtue is not easily defined – much more complicated than one would initially think (as is the case
with many concepts which Socrates challenges his conversational opponents with).
- We do know however that it has to do with
o Knowledge
o ‘right-living
o But not much else…
The Meno also deals with the idea of intuition, what (if anything), do we humans know
intuitively? Are there predetermined concepts which are universally innate for all of
mankind? Does knowledge have to be derived from experience?
Definition One:
‘There is no difficulty about it… if it is manly virtue you are after, it is easy to see that [it] consists in
managing the city’s affairs capably… Or if you want a woman’s virtue… She must be a good
housewife… Then there is another virtue for a child… and another for an old man… [etc.]’ (71e)
- Thus there are ‘a whole swarm of virtues to offer,’ – in Socrates’ words.
- As in Euthyphro’s definition of piety – this confuses the extension with the intension of the
concept of virtue.
- Note that when Socrates asks of an opponent, a definition – he means the ‘form’ or ‘model’
which may be universally applied.
Definition Two:
‘It must be simply the capacity to govern men, if you are looking for one quality to cover all the
instances,’ (73c-d)
- Thus, children cannot be virtuous. (d)
- Is the capacity to govern then equivalent to the capacity to govern virtuously?
This ‘definition’ is simply too narrow (it cannot be universally, logically applied), the definition
itself begs the question of the nature of virtue and at best it leads us back to the ‘swarms’ or
‘fragments’ of virtue, referenced in the first definition.
Socrates then offers some examples of true/explanatory definitions (those which supply the
intension rather than the extension).
- Socrates defines the concept of ‘shape’ as the ‘limit of a solid,’ (76a)
- He defines ‘colour’ as ‘an effluence of shapes’ (76d)
, Definition Three:
‘Virtue is… desiring fine things and being able to acquire them,’ (77b)
Socrates rejects the first conjunct of the argument, supplying that everyone necessarily desires
what they view to be good, (77e) – as such nobody knowingly desires things which they view
to be bad. (such is the well-known ‘Socratic Paradox’)
This definition is refined (as Definition Three*) as desiring what is (actually/truly) fine and
being able to acquire them.
- This begs questions of its own, namely what is ‘fine’?
- This is answered in 78c as things like wealth, silver, gold – fine materials.
- These are things that Aristotle will term ‘External Goods’
Socrates refutes this definition by holding that external goods must be acquired justly,
temperately and/or piously if the acquisition is to be deemed virtuous – and thus Meno has
begged the question again.
However, refusing to acquire external goods unjustly – does count as virtuous (78e). In this
case, acquiring external goods is neither necessary nor sufficient for virtue – and thus:
- Definition Three* is circular as it ‘employs terms which are still in question and thus not yet
agreed upon’ which beg questions of their own – complicating the argument. (79d)
- It is based on faulty logic and is thus false.
Meno describes his aporia, Socrates replies:
‘The truth is.. that I infect [people] with the perplexity that I feel myself. So with virtue now. I
don’t know what it is … Nevertheless I am ready to carry out a joint investigation and enquiry
into what it is,’ (80c-d)
- The problem as such is the natural assumption that Socrates is in effect, a teacher and Meno,
his student. However, by definition – teachers are meant to know more than their students.
- Socrates disavows knowledge of virtue and thus he cannot teach, and Meno cannot learn.
- Rather like the blind leading the blind, but while they are both blind, they are not even
leading.
- How then can Socrates go about enquiring with Meno into the nature of virtue?
o ‘Meno’s paradox’ or the ‘paradox of enquiry’
This simply asks the question as to how someone can look for something without knowing the
nature of it. ‘How on earth are you going to set up something you don’t know as the object of
your search?’ (80d) Socrates replies ‘… a man cannot try to discover either what he knows or
what he does not know… He would not seek what he knows, for since he knows it there is no
need of the enquiry, nor what he does not know, for in that case, he does not even know what
he is to look for,’ (80e)
Thus:
- If S knows something, S cannot learn it.
- If S doesn’t know something, S cannot learn it.
o As such, learning is impossible.
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