Meno

Meno contains many thought-provoking ideas, and much of its dialog has multiple meanings. It’s best understood on two main levels: as a philosophical discussion about virtue, and as a political discussion about the best path for the city-state of Athens in 402 BCE. The philosophical dialog is overt and explicit, but within it lies Socrates’s implicit critique of the current leadership of Athens.

Socrates manages this double meaning in his responses to Meno’s questions. Meno is just starting out on a career as a Greek political and military leader, but his queries about virtue suggest he’s more interested in appearing virtuous than actually being virtuous. Socrates’s questions and comments contain veiled criticisms, not only of Meno’s attitudes, but of those of local politicians.

The virtue that Socrates and Meno discuss is, in ancient Greek, “arete” (pronounced “ah-reh-TEY” or “ah-reh-TEE”), which means excellence—or, in the case of morality, good conduct. Thus, they’re talking about excellence in behavior, which has a slightly different meaning than simply being morally good. Virtue, in this sense, includes its public evidence, such as the wealth and social prominence that might accrue to someone whose behavior is considered by his fellow citizens to be virtuous. Socrates argues that those externalities are mere attributes of virtue, and that virtue itself is something deeper—something more akin, perhaps, to what Western people today think of as virtue.

He claims that “I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself” (23). This comment contains an element of false modesty—Socrates possessed carefully thought-out beliefs on many topics, and he often employed his Socratic Method to lead students toward those conclusions—but his willingness to be unsure, and to assert that he only knew that he knew nothing, sets a standard that still haunts thinkers today.

Socrates was considered by some to be a Sophist, a category of instruction that included philosophy alongside other fields of knowledge, especially the art of political rhetoric. Over time, however, Socrates and his student Plato distanced themselves from the Sophists and thereby distinguished philosophy as a separate topic. Socrates might appear to compliment Meno on his Sophist education, but he also might be taking a sly jab at those instructors, who teach political aspirants more about winning arguments than finding the truth.

Meno studied mainly with the Sophist philosopher Gorgias. Unlike the Sophists, who taught how to master public debates, Socrates and his followers Plato and Aristotle engaged in conversation to discover deeper truths.

Meno insists “that virtue is the power of governing mankind” (7). He confuses the act of governance with the way in which it is carried out, as if merely to govern is to be virtuous. Long accustomed to being obeyed and praised, Meno—a wealthy rising star among Athenian leaders—seems to be fishing for compliments from Socrates. It becomes clear from the dialog that Meno’s interest in philosophy is practical: He wants the power of knowledge rather than its wisdom, and he expects Socrates to be similar to the Sophists and teach him how to win political battles.

Instead, Socrates teases Meno for his imperious manner. The old philosopher knows perfectly well how powerful Meno is becoming, yet he has no fear of the young man. Socrates has made a career out of badgering politicians he dislikes; he has made many enemies; he knows he’s always at risk.

In ancient Greece, men often took male lovers. Socrates goes out of his way to compliment Meno’s looks; at one point, he says, “I have weakness for the fair, and therefore to humour you I must answer” (13). It’s likely, though, that Socrates, famous for his irony, is really saying, “You’re pretty arrogant, Meno, but I’ll excuse you on account of your looks and answer you anyway.”

Meno’s politically prominent Athenian friend Anytus enters the conversation. A general who lost a major battle during the disastrous war with Sparta, Anytus repaired his reputation by helping to overthrow an Athenian military dictatorship and reinstate the city-state’s famous democracy. He and Socrates discuss the Sophists, who offer instruction in virtue but who, Anytus believes, have a corrupting influence on their students. Philosophy and Sophism overlapped in the minds of Athenians, and many of them assumed Socrates was one of them. Though Socrates demonstrates, with his Sophistic explanation of color, that he can think and speak as they do, in Meno he explicitly excludes himself from their number.

Socrates wonders aloud why so many great men produce sons of lesser distinction. He mentions several prominent Athenian leaders, including the great statesman-general Pericles, whose son was executed a few years earlier for failing to save the survivors of a naval battle; Socrates was one of the judges in that case. Anytus takes offense, as Socrates’s comment suggests that the Athenian leadership, Anytus included, is in some respects incompetent. Socrates insists he’s merely trying to show that virtue can’t be taught, but he’s well known as a critic of the Athenian leadership, and he’s also known for his ironic speaking style. His words likely do serve as a subtle rebuke.

The dialog veers off onto a new topic when Meno asks his famous question about whether anyone can ever know for sure that they’ve found the knowledge they seek. To his credit, Meno’s question inscribes him forever in the annals of philosophy—it’s now called Meno’s paradox. It’s a good question that’s hard to answer.

Meno’s Paradox echoes in the works of Aristotle, the most famous student of Socrates’s pupil Plato. Aristotle pointed out that it’s possible to arrive at the conclusion that something is true, but that it’s not necessarily possible to prove that it’s true that it’s true, or that it’s true that it’s true that it’s true, and so forth. In 1931, logician Kurt Gödel likewise showed that mathematics, the most rigorously logical of the sciences, can never validate itself, and that always there will exist statements within any given logical system that are both true and unprovable. In effect, no one can ever know anything for sure.

Socrates’s solution to this dilemma establishes one of his own great principles, that reality contains essential truths that are understood by the souls of all humans. Socrates demonstrates his conjecture by instructing an enslaved man, who grasps immediately some simple geometric concepts presented to him by the philosopher. The enslaved man’s intuitive understanding shows that all people, free or enslaved, share the same ability to recollect the knowledge of reality that is hidden in the human soul.

This explains, in part, Socrates’s extensive use of questions in his pedagogical system, the Socratic Method, which relies on the student’s natural understanding of basic principles. The Method’s many questions are designed to evoke the recollection of knowledge that, according to Socrates, already exists within people’s souls and simply waits to be uncovered as needed.

Author Plato elsewhere expands on the concept of eternal verities with his Theory of Form, which states that all things in the world are mere imitations of ideal or perfect forms. Thus, every circle is a rough copy of the perfect circle that can be imagined by reason; likewise, colors, trees, animals, people, and moral virtues all exist imperfectly in the real world as pale simulations of timeless ideals.

The enslaved man may thus be “recollecting” the mathematical and geometrical ideal of a perfect square as he observes the figures drawn by Socrates. Whether there exist ideal forms in reality remains to this day a philosophical bone of contention; for example, cosmologist Max Tegmark argues that, at the highest level of reality, the universe is made of mathematics. (Max Tegmark. Our Mathematical Universe. Alfred A Knopf, 2014.)

There are other ways of resolving Meno’s Paradox. Through simple trial and error, people get better at judging the value of ideas and conclusions they make about the world. Though no one can ever perfect this process—Aristotle’s “Is it true that it’s true?” dilemma and Gödel’s Theorem stand in the way—the ability to navigate new topics does get better. The enduring value of Meno’s Paradox, though, is that it humbles us: It’s a reminder that, no matter how smart we become, we can never be absolutely sure that we have the right answers.

Whether or not Socrates is correct about the soul knowing everything, he definitely is right about the power of human intuition to grasp new concepts—especially if they’re explained clearly and simply. The enslaved man, who has little or no education, quickly understands principles of geometry which can stump students even today. That the enslaved man does so well is as much a testament to Socrates’s skills as a teacher as it is an example of everyone’s ability to learn. Nobel physicist Richard Feynman declared that, if you can’t explain a principle of physics to a fourth grader, you don’t really understand the principle yourself. Socrates might nod in agreement.

Meno wants to know whether virtue can be taught; Socrates replies that virtue can only be transmitted to others if it’s a form of knowledge. He and Meno decide that virtue has the quality of being “profitable”—that is, constructively useful—but they differ on whether it’s teachable.

Athens had, only a few years earlier, concluded a disastrous conflict with Sparta, the Peloponnesian War, during which they sacrificed their empire and nearly lost their vaunted system of democratic government. The current leaders, including Anytus, want to stabilize the situation, but Socrates keeps carping about mistakes he thinks they’re making.

With his comments about great leaders and their failed sons, and his notion that virtuous leadership seems to come from divine intervention, Socrates might also be implying that Athenian democracy itself—which Anytus so recently helped to rescue from a post-war dictatorship—may be no more virtuous than any other form of government. Anytus becomes irate and warns Socrates: “I would recommend you to be careful” (54).

The threat is real: An angry Anytus would help lead a campaign to punish Socrates for his outspokenness in a trial that led to Socrates’s conviction on charges of impiety and corrupting the morals of Athenian youth. The penalty was execution.

Meno thus serves as a preamble to the most dramatic event in Socrates’s life—and, indeed, one of the most charged moments in the history of Western philosophy. Socrates’s heroism and martyrdom during that event showed that philosophy isn’t simply an intellectual playground for wealthy dilettantes but a vitally important field whose principles can have life-and-death consequences.

Socrates’s instincts about Meno proved correct. A year later, the young man would lead Greek mercenaries in battle against the Persian king; they lose, and Meno sells out his own men to save himself; most of them died. (Meno was at first spared by the Persians as a useful turncoat, but later they tortured and executed him.) The virtues of loyalty and concern for one’s troops were lost on Meno.

The main takeaway from Meno, as with the other Socratic dialogs, isn’t so much what Socrates believes as it is the way he thinks about topics. His carefully worded questions help him, and his students, analyze information and progressively discard ideas that make no sense. This frees them to focus in on useful conjectures about the world. Socrates then further investigates these hypotheses, applying the same rigorous thought process until he arrives at powerful conclusions. His system prioritizes truth over belief, accuracy over bias.

Meno and the other dialogs lay the foundations for what eventually will become the Scientific Method, the modern system of analysis and experimentation that has provided modern societies with a vast and growing storehouse of knowledge and technological power. Whether humanity can manage wisely all of that power remains to be seen. Meno suggests that such wisdom must come, not from knowledge, but from the soul.