Can virtue be taught, or is it something we already know?
In short: Plato’s Meno begins with a simple question about virtue, but quickly spirals into a profound paradox: how can we search for something we do not know? Socrates responds with the radical theory of anamnesis, suggesting that all learning is actually the soul recollecting knowledge it possessed before birth.
Written around 385 BC and set in 402 BC, the dialogue features Meno, a young student of the sophist Gorgias, visiting Athens. Meno initially struggles to define virtue, offering only a list of specific roles—such as a man’s duty to help friends or a woman’s duty to manage a household. Socrates rejects these as insufficient, insisting that virtue must be a single, unitary concept applicable to all people regardless of age or status.
When Meno challenges Socrates with the 'paradox of inquiry'—arguing that one cannot search for what they do not know because they would not recognize it if found—Socrates counters with a geometric demonstration. By questioning an uneducated slave from Meno’s entourage, Socrates leads him to solve a complex problem regarding the area of a square. Socrates claims this proves the slave 'recollected' innate knowledge, rather than being taught it, supporting the idea that souls are immortal and retain truth from a disembodied state.
The dialogue concludes without a definitive answer on whether virtue is teachable. Socrates explores the distinction between 'true belief' and 'knowledge,' noting that while both are useful, true beliefs are fleeting unless 'tethered' by reasoned explanation. He tentatively suggests that virtue might be a form of divine inspiration, though many scholars view this ending as ironic. The work remains a foundational text for the 'Value Problem for Knowledge,' questioning why knowledge is prized more than mere true belief.
The conversation is complicated by the presence of Anytus, an Athenian politician who later becomes one of Socrates's accusers. Anytus is offended when Socrates questions why great leaders like Pericles and Themistocles failed to produce sons as virtuous as themselves. This tension highlights the broader struggle in the text: if virtue is knowledge, why are there no clear teachers of it, and why does it seem so difficult to pass on?
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Meno
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