89c-95a Counter-argument: if virtue were knowledge, there should be teachers of it, and students. But there do not appear to be any. Anytus appears and is questioned: who should Meno go to, to learn virtue? The sophists? No. Rather, any Athenian gentleman. But why, then, have so many of these gentlemen failed to teach their sons virtue? Therefore, virtue cannot be taught.

89c

S: Perhaps, by Zeus, but mightn’t it turn out we were wrong to agree to this?

M: Yet it seemed right at the time.

S: We should not only think it right at the time. We should think so now, and in the future, if it is indeed sound.

M: What is the trouble? Something is making you doubt virtue is knowledge?

S: I will tell you, Meno. I am not saying it is wrong to say virtue is teachable if it is knowledge, but see whether it isn’t reasonable of me to doubt whether it is knowledge. Tell me this: if you take virtue, or any sort of teachable thing, won’t there necessarily be those who teach it and others who learn it?

M: I think so.

S: On the other hand, if there are no teachers or learners of a given something, won’t we be right to assume the subject cannot be taught?

M: Quite so, but do you think that there are no teachers of virtue?

90

S: I have often tried to find out whether there are any teachers of it, but in spite of my best efforts I cannot find any. This in spite of the fact that I have searched for them with the help of many people, in particular many whom I believed to be most qualified in this matter. And now, Meno, Anytus has by great good fortune wandered over to sit by us. Let us include him in our search party. Doing so makes perfect sense, for Anytus is, in the first place, the son of Anthemion, a man both wealthy and wise – and who did not become rich by sitting on his hands, nor by being handed a gift like Ismenias the Theban, who recently acquired the possessions of Polycrates. No, he rose up thanks to his own wisdom and hard work. What’s more, he did not become offensive, or get a swelled head – get too big for his britches. He was a well-mannered and well-behaved man. Also he raised our friend here well – gave him a good education; so the majority here in Athenians believe, for they are electing him to the highest offices. It is right then to look for teachers of virtue – to see whether there are any and, if so, who – in the company of such a man as this. Therefore, Anytus, please join me and your guest-friend Meno here in our inquiry into the identities of teachers of virtue. Look at it in this way: if we wanted Meno to become a good doctor, to what teachers would we send him? Wouldn’t we send him to the doctors?

Anytus: Certainly.

S: And if we wanted him to be a good shoemaker, to shoemakers?

A: Yes.

S: And so with other professions?

A: Certainly.

S: Let’s go around the same point again, like so: we say that we would be right to send him to the doctors if we want to make a doctor of him; whenever we say this sort of thing, we mean that it would be reasonable to send him to those who practice the discipline in question rather than to those who do not, and to those who charge fees for this very discipline, and who have shown themselves to be teachers of those who wish to come to them and study. Isn’t this what we would think, in sending him off, and wouldn’t we be right?

A: Yes.

S: And the same goes for flute-playing and the other disciplines? It wouldn’t make a lot of sense if those who wanted to make someone a flute-player refused to send him to those who teach the instrument, and make their living that way, and instead sent our would-be flautist to pester with requests for instruction those who neither teach the thing in question, nor have a single pupil studying it? Now don’t you think this would be an unreasonable way to go about it?

A: By Zeus, that’s right; a stupid thing to do.

91

S: Quite right. However, you can now enter into a little argument with me about our guest-friend Meno here. He has been telling me for some time, Anytus, that he longs to acquire the understanding and virtue that enables men to manage well their households and their cities – to care for parents, to know how and when to welcome and send away strangers and citizens alike, as a worthy man should. Now consider to whom we should send him to learn this virtue. Or maybe it is obvious, in light of what has just been said, that we should send him to those who profess to teach virtue, and have made themselves available to any Greek who wishes to learn – for a fixed fee?

A: Who exactly do you have in mind, Socrates?

S: I am sure you know yourself; all those men people call ‘sophists’.

A: By Heracles, don’t even say such things, Socrates! May no member of my household – may none of my friends, be they citizens or strangers – be crazy enough to ruin themselves by running after these people, who patently plague and corrupt those who follow them.

92

S: How do you mean, Anytus? Of all the people who set themselves up as professional practitioners of beneficial knowledge, are only this lot so different from the rest that they not only fail to improve the things they are given to work on, but they actually corrupt them – and they plainly think they’ll make money in the process? I can’t believe it is true, because I know that one man, Protagoras, made more money off his wisdom than Pheidias, who crafted such remarkably fine works, or any other ten sculptors put together. Surely what you say is bizzarre, given that anyone who set up to repair old shoes, or old clothes, and returned all items in a more tattered state than when received, would be out of business in a month. Anyone who did business like that would starve to death, and yet you would have me believe all of Greece has neglected to notice – for lo these forty years – that Protagoras corrupts those who follow him, and sends them back out into the world in a worse moral condition than when he took them into his care. I think the man was seventy when he died, and he had plied his craft for forty years. During all that time, down to this very day, his reputation has stood very high. And it isn’t just Protagoras; there are lots of others, some born before him, some still alive today. Are we to say that you say they deceive and harm the young knowingly, or that they themselves are not aware of it? Are we to consider those whom some people the wisest of men to be so crazy as that?

A: They are far from being crazy, Socrates. It is more a question of crazy young people being willing to pay their fees, and – even more so – parents entrusting children to such company; most of all it is a matter of cities not driving out any citizen or stranger who tries to conduct himself in this manner.

S: Some sophist has done you wrong, Anytus. Otherwise, why would you be so hard on them?

A: No, by Zeus, I have never met a single one of them, nor would I allow any member of my household to do so.

S: So then you are wholly unacquainted with these people?

A: And may I remain so.

S: How then, my good sir, can you know whether there is any good in what they teach or not, if you are altogether without experience of it?

A: Easily, for I know who they are, whether I have made their acquaintance or not.

S: You must be psychic, Anytus, for I wonder how else you can know about these things, given what you say. However, let’s set aside the question of where to send Meno to make him wicked; let us grant it would be to the sophists. But tell us – and benefit your family friend here in the telling – to whom a stranger should go in such a large city as this to acquire, to some degree, that quality of virtue I was just talking about.

93

A: Why give him the name of one individual? Any Athenian gentleman he may meet – any good man and true – could make a better man out of him than any sophist, if persuaded to do so.

S: And have these good men – and true – become virtuous automatically, without taking instruction from anyone, and are they able to instruct others in this thing they themselves never studied?

A: I believe these men have learned at the feet of other good men before them; or don’t you think that there are many good men to be found in our city?

S: I believe, Anytus, that there are many men here who are good and handling public affairs, and that there have been many more just like them in the past. But have they been good teachers of this virtue of theirs? That is the point under consideration, not whether or not there are good men here, nor whether there have been in the past. Instead, we have been investigating for some time whether virtue can be taught. Pursuing that investigation we now inquire whether the good men of today, and of the past, knew how to pass on their virtue to others, or, on the other hand, whether a man cannot impart virtue or get it from someone else. This is what Meno and I have been investigating for some time. Look at it this way, from what you yourself have said. Would you not say that Themistocles was a good man?

A: Yes. One of the very best.

S: He would have been a good teacher of his virtue, if anyone was?

A: I think so, if he wanted to be.

S: But do you think he did not want other citizens to be good men and true, especially his own son? Can you seriously think he begrudged this to his son, deliberately not passing on his own virtue? Haven’t you heard that Themistocles taught his son, Cleophantus, to be a good horseman? He could stand upright on horseback and shoot javelins from there and do many other remarkable things – all skills his father had taught to him, all requiring good teachers. Haven’t you heard about this from your elders?

A: I have.

S: So you couldn’t say the son lacked virtue because he lacked natural aptitude altogether?

A: Perhaps not.

S: But have you ever heard anyone, young or old, say that Cleophantus, the son of Themistocles, was accomplished and good at the same pursuits as his father?

A: Never.

S: Are we supposed to believe he wanted to educate his son well, except when it came to that wisdom he himself posessed, in which his son was to be no better than his neighbors – still assuming that virtue can be taught?

A: Perhaps not, by Zeus.

94

S: Yet he was – you yourself have said so – among the best teachers of virtue in the past. Let us consider another man, Aristides, son of Lysimachus. You will agree he was a good man?

A: I very definitely do.

S: He too gave his own son Lysimachus the best Athenian education in all subjects that have teachers, but do you think he made him a better man than anyone else? You have been in his company and seen the kind of man he is. Or take Pericles, whose consummate skills befit his towering accomplishments. You know that he brought up two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus?

A: I know.

S: You also know that he taught them to ride horses as well as any Athenian; he educated them in the arts, in gymnastics, and generally raised them up to be – in matters of skill – inferior to none; but didn’t he want to make good men of them? I think he did, but this could not be taught. And lest you think that only a few most inferior Athenians are incapable in this respect, I remind you that Thucydides too brought up two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, whom he educated well in all other things. They became the best wrestlers in Athens. He entrusted the one to Xanthias and the other to Eudorus, who were thought to be the best wrestlers of the time, or don’t you remember?

A: I remember I have heard that said.

S: It is surely clear that he would not have had his boys taught what it takes money to learn, but have failed to teach them what costs nothing – turning them into good men - if that could be taught? But perhaps Thucydides was an inferior person, who had not many friends among the Athenians and their allies? No, he belonged to a great house; he had great influence in the city and among the Greeks. So if virtue could be taught he would have found the man to make his sons good men, be that man a citizen or a foreigner – if he himself could not spare the time due to his public commitments. But, friend Anytus, virtue can certainly not be taught.

95

A: I think, Socrates, that you are too quick to speak ill of people. I would advise you – if you will take my advice – to take care. Perhaps it works this way in other cities; certainly it does here: it is easier to injure people than to benefit them. But I think you knew that already.

back to Meno mainpage

back to Plato mainpage