Summary
Meno asks Socrates whether virtue comes through teaching, practice, nature or some other means. Socrates replies that he cannot know a quality of virtue before knowing what virtue is. He claims that Athens is so poor in wisdom that he has never found anyone who could define it.
Meno is surprised because Gorgias has confidently discussed the subject. Invited to answer, Meno lists different virtues for men, women, children, older people, free citizens and enslaved people. Socrates replies that the question seeks the one character shared by them all, just as different bees share the nature of being a bee.
Meno next suggests that virtue is the ability to rule people. Socrates observes that this would not suit the virtue of a child or an enslaved person under Meno’s own classification. Ruling must also be just, but adding justice merely identifies one virtue or part of virtue without defining the whole.
To clarify the kind of answer required, Socrates discusses shape and colour. A definition should not simply point to examples; it should state the common nature under investigation. Socrates offers provisional formulations while showing how answers can be examined for circularity and unsupported assumptions.
Meno defines virtue as desiring beautiful things and having the power to acquire them. Socrates argues that no one knowingly desires what is genuinely bad as bad, since people who pursue harmful things mistake them for benefits. The real distinction therefore lies not in desire but in the ability to obtain goods.
Acquisition cannot be virtuous when carried out unjustly. If justice, moderation and other qualities must guide acquisition, then refraining from gain may sometimes be virtuous. Meno’s definition again relies upon parts of virtue without identifying virtue itself.
Meno becomes frustrated and compares Socrates to a torpedo fish that numbs those who approach it. He has delivered many speeches on virtue but now feels unable to say what it is. Socrates answers that he creates perplexity because he shares it; he does not confuse others from a position of secret certainty.
Meno presents a paradox. A person cannot search for what is known because there is no need, but cannot search for what is unknown because there is no way to recognise it. Inquiry appears impossible.
Socrates introduces the theory of recollection. The immortal soul has encountered truth before birth, so learning can be understood as recovering what is latent. Because truths are connected, persistent inquiry can awaken further understanding.
To demonstrate, Socrates questions one of Meno’s enslaved boys about a square. The original square has sides of two feet and an area of four square feet. Socrates asks what length of side would produce a square with twice that area.
The boy initially says the side should be doubled. Questions lead him to see that a four-foot side creates sixteen square feet, four times the original. He then proposes a three-foot side, which produces nine square feet rather than eight.
Socrates draws attention to the boy’s change. He began with confidence despite being wrong; now he recognises a problem. This perplexity improves his position because he has become willing to investigate rather than merely assert.
Through further questions about the diagonal dividing squares into equal triangles, the boy recognises that a square constructed on the diagonal of the original has an area of eight square feet. Socrates claims not to have stated the answer but to have elicited opinions through inquiry.
The opinions are not yet knowledge. Repeated questioning could make them stable and accurate. Socrates treats this movement as evidence that the boy can recover understanding and that confidence in inquiry makes people more active and courageous than the belief that learning is impossible.
Meno wants to resume the original question about whether virtue is teachable. Socrates agrees to use a hypothesis. If virtue is knowledge, then it can be taught. They therefore ask whether virtue is a kind of knowledge.
Virtue is good and beneficial. Qualities commonly regarded as good—wealth, health, beauty, strength and courage—can harm when used without wisdom. Even qualities of the soul become beneficial or harmful according to whether wisdom or folly guides them. This suggests that virtue is wisdom, wholly or partly.
If virtue is knowledge, people are not virtuous merely by nature. It should also have teachers and learners. Socrates and Meno struggle to identify them. The Sophists claim to teach virtue, but their reputation is disputed.
Anytus joins the discussion. He is offended by the suggestion that Sophists might teach excellence and insists that any respectable Athenian gentleman can do so. Socrates asks about admired statesmen such as Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles and Thucydides. They educated their sons in many skills but did not reliably make them equally virtuous statesmen.
Anytus interprets the questioning as slander and warns Socrates to be careful. His reaction foreshadows his later role in the prosecution represented in the Apology. He leaves without resolving who teaches virtue.
Socrates argues that disagreement among supposed teachers and the lack of recognised pupils make it difficult to classify virtue as teachable knowledge. Yet good people undeniably guide cities successfully, so another explanation is required.
True opinion can direct action as effectively as knowledge. Someone who correctly believes the road to Larisa can guide a traveller even without possessing a reasoned understanding. Correct belief is useful while it remains correct.
The difference is stability. True opinions resemble the statues of Daedalus, which are valuable only when tied down because otherwise they run away. Knowledge is true opinion secured by an account of the cause or reason.
Statesmen may govern through correct opinions that are not grounded in teachable understanding. Socrates compares them with prophets and poets who sometimes speak truth without knowing the principles of what they say. Their excellence may therefore appear to arise through divine inspiration.
The dialogue closes with a conditional conclusion: virtue comes by divine dispensation unless a statesman can make another person a statesman. Socrates asks Meno to calm Anytus. He then reminds readers that the origin of virtue cannot finally be settled until virtue itself has been defined.