Synopsis "Meno (in English)"
Meno, an early Platonic dialogue, centers on virtue and illustrates the classic Socratic Method. Meno begins the dialogue by asking, "Can you tell me, Socrates, can virtue be taught?" Socrates claims that to answer such a question, a person would have to know what virtue is. An incredulous Meno asks, "Socrates, do you really not know what virtue is?" Socrates responds, "Not only that, my friend, but as I believe, I have never yet met anyone else who did know." And so Socrates and Meno engage in a question-and-answer investigation of what virtue is and if it can be taught. They explore how to define words, how people learn, whether virtue is knowledge, and the difference between true opinion and knowledge. Reading Plato answers many questions and exposes the framework of so many later writers of history, a classic that should be read and contemplated. Actually this idea of virtue has the basics of all philosophical thought, the direction of the whole or the overall purpose always direct the thoughts. Virtue acts as the driving force of the empirical observation and technical craft. Virtue is the purpose, the why, as opposed to the what. And so, it has been determined from the conversation of Socrates and Meno, that virtue is not knowledge, it is not the "what" but rather it is that which moves the direction behind knowledge and therefore cannot be taught. And if it is not knowledge then it can be observed by example, yet Socrates determined that virtue is from a divine source, the inspiration that is behind all knowledge.
