Socrates cross-examines
Meno, who…

§Is a wealthy, young
Athenian.

§Has studied with the sophist, Gorgias.

§Wants to know whether virtue (good character) is taught,
comes by practice, or is inborn.

Socrates…

Professes not to know
at all, what virtue is; and
therefore claims to be unable
to say how virtue is acquired.
(71a)

Meno is then asked to
give his account of virtue.
He replies…

Each activity and age
has its own virtue. (72a)

Socrates objects.

§He asks whether there is not
some commonality (common nature) among various traits
that Meno has mentioned as
being a virtue.

§Socrates then compares virtue to health, size, and strength, which seem to be (taken individually) the same kind of thing in both men and women.

To help Meno give a
concise definition of the
essence of virtue,
Socrates uses shape
as an example:

§There are many different shapes: round, square, oblong, etc.

§All shapes are, however,
“whatever follows color”.

Meno is not satisfied
with this definition…

It will not, he says, be
understood by the person
who does not know what color is.

Meno is not satisfied
with this definition…

But note: Meno’s objection enables
Plato to implicitly make a point about learning…
It always depends upon already having some knowledge. For example, if you do not know what vigor means, then you won’t understand a definition of “decline” as a lose of vigor.

To satisfy Meno, Socrates
uses terms that Meno
agrees he knows, and then Socrates proposes that:

Shape is the limit of a solid. (76a)

Meno is satisfied with this definition, so now Meno must tell Socrates what the essence of virtue is…

§Meno says virtue is to desire and
be able to get honorable things. (77)

§Meno has given an aristocratic definition of virtue, which Socrates immediately rephrases in moral terms by substituting “good” for “honorable.” (See 77, p. 116.)

Socrates disputes Meno’s
definition in two stages.

§First, Socrates argues that
everyone desires good
things.

§Second, he argues that being virtuous requires that one justly acquire good things.

In this stage of the
argument, Socrates’
strategy is as follows…

§He encourages Meno to
agree that everyone ultimately desires to be benefited.

§He then implicitly assumes that only genuine goods benefit.

§Thus, it turns out that everyone ultimately desires good things.

To see how Socrates’ strategy actually works, we begin with Meno’s theory about what people desire….

§Socrates first considers the
group, like terrorists, who desire bad things,
when they believe that the
bad things will benefit them.

§With respect to this group, he concludes that, because they desire to be benefited, they desire good things.

§And he implies that the group of people who desire what they think is good actually desire good things because they also desire to be benefited and Socrates assumes that only good things really benefit people.

Turning next to the group of people who knowingly desire bad things, Socrates gets Meno to agree that:

1. Such people knowingly desire to be unhappy, since they believe that the bad things which they desire will harm them and ultimately make them miserable.

Meno then agrees that…

2. No one wants to be
miserable.

3. So no one desires
bad things.

Hence, Meno has to agree that no one desires bad things, knowing that they will be harmed.

§So Socrates has gotten
Meno to agree that
everyone desires good
things.

§But since not everyone is virtuous, desire for good things cannot be the defining characteristic of virtue.

Notice that…

With respect to people
who desire short term,
rather than long term benefit,
and people who act on impulse, Socrates can say that, at the time of their action, these people desire to be benefited.

Also notice that…

Socrates’ strategy
incorporates the
distinction between:

§Instrumental goods -
goods desired as a means to getting other goods.

§Final goods -
goods desired in their own right.

For example:

§Money is desired as a
means to health…

§Health is desired as a
means to succes…

§Success is desired as a
means to happiness.

To return to the 1st stage
of the argument…

§Because Meno has agreed
that everyone desires good
things, and given that not everyone is virtuous, Meno has to agree that being virtuous cannot be equated with desiring good things.

§Thus concludes the first stage of Socrates’ refutation of Meno’s first comprehensive definition of virtue.

In the 2nd stage of Socrates’
attack on Meno’s definition
(namely, the suggestion that
virtue involves the capacity
to get good things)…

§Socrates points out that being virtuous requires that one gets things, not in any fashion,
but in a just way.

§So Meno’s first comprehensive definition of virtue is now in ruins.

Meno now becomes
frustrated (80e) and
introduces the so-called
Paradox of Inquiry.

Inquiry is impossible because:

§If you know what you are investigating, then there is
no need to inquire.

§If you don’t know what you are investigating, then you won’t
know what to look for.

To solve this paradox,
Socrates introduces the
theory of recollection:

§The soul is immortal, has been reborn many times, has “seen all things”, both here & in Hades, and there is nothing that it hasn’t learned.

§So if it recalls just a single bit of knowledge, it can remember all the rest, since all nature is akin.

The part of the theory that Socrates accepts is, I think:

§That the soul is immortal,
that it has a rational
structure.

§So that from a single bit of knowledge, it can remember (recall) all the rest,
since all nature is akin
(i.e., rationally structured).

To demonstrate the theory, Socrates questions a
slave-boy on the problem
of doubling the square.

§The boy gives two wrong answers.

§Then he realizes that the double-square is based on the diagonal of the original square.

The problem for all interpreters of the dialogue is how recollection figures into the boy’s responses.