Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2

This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias.1 The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.

Menon. — Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable — or acquirable by exercise — or whether it comes by nature — or in what other manner it comes? Sokr. — I cannot answer your question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about its attributes or accessories? A man who does not know, Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary. Menon. — Certainly not. But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?2 Sokr. — Yes — undoubtedly: and proclaim besides that I have never yet met with any one who did know. Menon. — What! have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not he appear to you to know? Sokr. — I have met him, but I do not quite recollect what he said. We need not consider what he said, since he is not here to answer for himself.3 But you doubtless recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what virtue is? Menon. — There is no difficulty in telling you.4

Many commentators here speak as if such disclaimer on the part of Sokrates had reference merely to certain impudent pretensions to universal knowledge on the part of the Sophists. But this (as I have before remarked) is a misconception of the Sokratic or Platonic point of view. The matter which Sokrates proclaims that he does not know, is, what, not Sophists alone, but every one else also, professes to know well. Sokrates stands alone in avowing that he does not know it, and that he can find no one else who knows. Menon treats the question as one of no difficulty — one on which confessed ignorance was discreditable. “What!“ says Menon, “am I really to state respecting you, that you do not know what virtue is?” The man who makes such a confession will be looked upon by his neighbours with surprise and displeasure — not to speak of probable consequences yet worse. He is one whom the multifarious agencies employed by King Nomos (which we shall find described more at length in the Protagoras) have failed to mould into perfect and uninquiring conformity, and he is still in process of examination to form a judgment for himself.

Menon proceeds to answer that there are many virtues: the virtue of a man — competence to transact the business of the city, and in such business to benefit his friends and injure his enemies: the virtue of a woman — to administer the house well, preserving every thing within it and obeying her husband: the virtue of a child, of an old man, a slave, &c. There is in short a virtue — and its contrary, a vice — belonging to each of us in every work, profession, and age.5

But (replies Sokrates) are they not all the same, quatenus virtue? Health, quatenus Health, is the same in a man or a woman: is not the case similar with virtue? Menon. — Not exactly similar. Sokr. — How so? Though there are many diverse virtues, have not all of them one and the same form in common, through the communion of which they are virtues? In answer to my question, you ought to declare what this common form is. Thus, both the man who administers the city, and the woman who administers the house, must act both of them with justice and moderation. Through the same qualities, both the one and the other are good. There is thus some common constituent: tell me what it is, according to you and Gorgias? Menon. — It is to be competent to exercise command over men.6 Sokr. — But that will not suit for the virtue of a child or a slave. Moreover, must we not superadd the condition, to command justly, and not unjustly? Menon. — I think so: justice is virtue. Sokr. — Is it virtue — or is it one particular variety of virtue?7 Menon. — How do you mean? Sokr. — Just as if I were to say about roundness, that it is not figure, but a particular variety of figure: because there are other figures besides roundness. Menon. — Very true: I say too, that there are other virtues besides justice — namely, courage, moderation, wisdom, magnanimity, and several others also. Sokr. — We are thus still in the same predicament. In looking for one virtue, we have found many; but we cannot find that one form which runs through them all. Menon. — I cannot at present tell what that one is.8

Sokrates proceeds to illustrate his meaning by the analogies of figure and colour. You call round a figure, and square a figure: you call white and black both colour, the one as much as the other, though they are unlike and even opposite.9 Tell me, What is this same common figure and property in both, which makes you call both of them figure — both of them colour? Take this as a preliminary exercise, in order to help you in answering my enquiry about virtue.10 Menon cannot answer, and Sokrates answers his own question. He gives a general definition, first of figure, next of colour. He first defines figure in a way which implies colour to be known. This is pointed out; and he then admits that in a good definition, suitable to genuine dialectical investigation, nothing should be implied as known, except what the respondent admits himself to know. Figure and colour are both defined suitably to this condition.11

All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of getting the question clearly conceived as a general question — of exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that which ought to be conceived as a generic whole — and of clearing up what is required in a good definition. A generic whole, including various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at that time little understood by any one. There existed no grammar, nor any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes. To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species — to predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true of the whole genus in which it is contained — to lose the integrity of the genus in its separate parcels or fragments12 — these were errors which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid. To assign the one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term, had never yet been put before them as a problem. Such preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to arrive at a full conception of any general question.13

Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet — “To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable — and to have the power of getting them“. But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition — in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.14 But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is.15 Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.

Menon. — Your conversation, Sokrates, produces the effect of the shock of the torpedo: you stun and confound me: you throw me into inextricable perplexity, so that I can make no answer. I have often discoursed copiously — and, as I thought, effectively — upon virtue; but now you have shown that I do not even know what virtue is. Sokr. — If I throw you into perplexity, it is only because I am myself in the like perplexity and ignorance. I do not know what virtue is, any more than you: and I shall be glad to continue the search for finding it, if you will assist me.

Menon. — But how are you to search for that of which you are altogether ignorant? Even if you do find it, how can you ever know that you have found it? Sokr. — You are now introducing a troublesome doctrine, laid down by those who are averse to the labour of thought. They tell us that a man cannot search either for what he knows, or for what he does not know. For the former, research is superfluous: for the latter it is unprofitable and purposeless, since the searcher does not know what he is looking for.