This short dialogue has Socrates speaking with Meno, a young aristocrat from Thessaly, about the nature of virtue. Particularly, they are interested in figuring out whether virtue is innate or whether it can be learned. In fact, Meno initially asks, “Can you tell me, 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?” After some typically frustrating Socratic back and forth, Meno remains apoplectic, “But, Socrates, do you really not know what virtue is?” Socrates responds typically, “Not only that, my friend, but also that, as I believe, I have never met anyone else who did know.”
Before revealing his answer in his usual roundabout manner, Socrates delves into a couple fruitful asides. The first is on the nature of shape and color. Socrates states, “Let us try to tell you what shape is. See whether you will accept that it is this: Let us say that shape is that which alone of existing things always follows color…. From this you may understand what I mean by shape, for I say this of every shape, that a shape is that which limits a solid; in a word, a shape is the limit of a solid.” Secondly (and more famously), Socrates delves into the paradox of knowledge and learning, the so-called Meno’s Paradox, “Do you realize what a debater’s argument you are bringing up, that a man cannot search either for what he knows or for what he does not know? He cannot search for what he knows—since he knows it, there is no need to search—nor for what he does not know, for he does not know what to look for.”
Next, Socrates goes into yet another digression on the Sophists and their inability to teach virtue. He then recites a litany of the great men of Athens and pontificates on their inabilities to teach their own sons virtue, at one point even insulting Anytus, Meno’s host while in Athens. Socrates is not deterred, concluding by speaking about the Athenian statesman (not the historian), “Reflect that Thucydides too brought up two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, that he educated them well in all other things. They were the best wrestlers in Athens…. He belonged to a great house; he had great influence in the city and among other Greeks, so that if virtue could be taught he would have found the man who could make his sons good men, be it a citizen or a stranger, if he himself did not have the time because of his public concerns. But, friend Anytus, virtue certainly cannot be taught.” The implications for the sons of Athens (and their qualities) are left unsaid.
Socrates, finally, wraps up this debate (largely with himself), letting both Anytus and Meno off the hook. Socrates concludes, “True opinion is in no way a worse guide to correct action than knowledge. It is this that we omitted in our investigation of the nature of virtue, when we said that only knowledge can lead to correct action, for true opinion can do so also…. For true opinions, as long as they remain, are a fine thing and all they do is good, but they are not willing to remain long, and they escape from a man’s mind, so they are not worth much until one ties them down by (giving) an account of the reason why. And that, Meno, my friend, is recollection, as we previously agreed. After they are tied down, in the first place they become knowledge, and then they remain in place. That is why knowledge is prized higher than correct opinion…. And that only these two things, true belief and knowledge, guide correctly, and that if a man possesses these he gives correct guidance. The things that turn out right by some chance are not due to human guidance, but where there is correct human guidance it is due to two things, true belief and knowledge…. Now because it cannot be taught, virtue no longer seems to be knowledge…. Therefore, if it is not through knowledge, the only alternative is that it is through right opinion that statesmen follow the right course for their cities. As regards knowledge, they are no different from soothsayers and prophets…. Virtue would be neither an inborn quality nor taught, but comes to those who possess it as a gift from the gods which is not accompanied by understanding.”
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