Meno Plato PDF Play Books

Plato's Meno is a Socratic dialogue

Meno begins the dialogue by questioning Socrates about whether virtue is learned, acquired through practise, or innate. Socrates informs Meno that before they can establish whether virtue is teachable or not, they must first determine what virtue is. When the characters talk about virtue, or rather arete, they're talking about virtue in general, not specific qualities like justice or temperance. The first half of the text exemplifies Socratic dialectical style; Meno is reduced to aporia or bewilderment because he is unable to correctly define virtue. Socrates advises that they work together to find an accurate definition of virtue.

By establishing the theory of knowledge as recollection, Socrates refutes Meno's argument, often known as "Meno's Paradox" or "Learner's Paradox" (anamnesis). The idea posits that souls are immortal and know all things in a disembodied state; learning in the embodied state is essentially a process of recollecting what the soul knew before it entered into a body, as depicted in the conversation. By posing a mathematical puzzle to one of Meno's slaves, Socrates exhibits remembrance in action. Socrates and Meno then return to the subject of whether virtue can be taught through the hypothesis method. Meno raises another renowned puzzle near the end of the discourse, dubbed "The Meno Problem" or "The Value Problem for Knowledge," which asks why knowledge is valued more highly.