Meno and the Socratic Method

Meno was one of Plato’s earliest of dialogues, written in depth the book is founded around a central question: If virtue can be taught, then how? And if not, then how does virtue come to man, either by nature or some other way? Socrates addresses this inquiry by questioning a person who claims to understand the term’s meaning (Plato's Meno). The purpose of this essay is to relate the Socratic method performed by Socrates in Plato’s dialogue The Apology, to Meno, by illustrating its effect on the character Meno himself.

After questioning Meno about virtue, Socrates comes to the conclusion that neither he nor Meno truly know the meaning of the word; he then notes that finding a thorough definition for the term is first necessary in order for them to continue with his inquiry. Thus, together the two of them examine many possible definitions of the word, each suggested by Meno and negated by Socrates. Socrates never claims to know the answer to his question of virtue, but he does however claim to know the basic form that such an answer would take. His intentions upon questioning the meaning of virtue was to signify to the people that what they so confidently thought they knew to be true, is in fact uncertain and therefore untrue. Moreover, that the world cannot even begin to know how to know.

In Plato’s The Apology Socrates is tried for practicing his philosophy on wisdom and ignorance. He concluded that by recognizing his own ignorance he must be wiser than other men, in that he knows that he really does not know anything. For this sake, Socrates felt obligated to prove to the men who thought themselves wise, that they were in fact ignorant.

Socrates argued that actively seeking out knowledge is what gives man the ability to moder...

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...how the foundation of our knowledge was laid, like the proverbial chicken and egg enigma--what came first, the question or the answer? Socrates would most likely revert to his theory of recollection, in that the answer would already be within. Thus, arriving at the answer would really just be to recover it from within our souls. Whereas, Meno might be likely to have no inquiry at all, for he would not argue about something that he knows nothing of. And if he already knows that a chicken lays an egg, and the egg comes from a chicken, then why would he bother to inquire about it in the first place?

Works Cited

Plato, George Anastaplo, and Laurence Berns. Plato's Meno. Newburyport, MA: Focus Pub./R. Pullins Co, 2004. Print

Wikipedia contributors. "Socratic method." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.