Meno
to rule, and of which the grounds cannot always be given in words. A
person may have some skill or latent experience which he is able to use
himself and is yet unable to teach others, because he has no principles,
and is incapable of collecting or arranging his ideas. He has practice,
but not theory; art, but not science. This is a true fact of psychology,
which is recognized by Plato in this passage. But he is far from
saying, as some have imagined, that inspiration or divine grace is to be
regarded as higher than knowledge. He would not have preferred the poet
or man of action to the philosopher, or the virtue of custom to the
virtue based upon ideas.
Also here, as in the Ion and Phaedrus, Plato appears to acknowledge an
unreasoning element in the higher nature of man. The philosopher only
has knowledge, and yet the statesman and the poet are inspired. There
may be a sort of irony in regarding in this way the gifts of genius. But
there is no reason to suppose that he is deriding them, any more than he
is deriding the phenomena of love or of enthusiasm in the Symposium, or
of oracles in the Apology, or of divine intimations when he is speaking
of the daemonium of Socrates. He recognizes the lower form of right
opinion, as well as the higher one of science, in the spirit of one who
desires to include in his philosophy every aspect of human life; just
as he recognizes the existence of popular opinion as a fact, and the
Sophists as the expression of it.
This Dialogue contains the first intimation of the doctrine of
reminiscence and of the immortality of the soul. The proof is very
slight, even slighter than in the Phaedo and Republic. Because men had
abstract ideas in a previous state, they must have always had them, and
their souls therefore must have always existed. For they must always
have been either men or not men. The fallacy of the latter words is
transparent. And Socrates himself appears to be conscious of their
weakness; for he adds immediately afterwards, 'I have said some things
of which I am not altogether confident.' (Compare Phaedo.) It may be
observed, however, that the fanciful notion of pre-existence is combined
with a true but partial view of the origin and unity of knowledge,
and of the association of ideas. Knowledge is prior to any particular
knowledge, and exists not in the previous state of the individual, but
of the race. It is potential, not actual, and can only be appropriated
by strenuous exertion.
The idealism of Plato is here presented in a less developed form than in
the Phaedo and Phaedrus. Nothing is said of the pre-existence of ideas
of justice, temperance, and the like. Nor is Socrates positive of
anything but the duty of enquiry. The doctrine of reminiscence too is
explained more in accordance with fact and experience as arising out of
the affinities of nature (ate tes thuseos oles suggenous ouses). Modern
philosophy says that all things in nature are dependent on one another;
the ancient philosopher had the same truth latent in his mind when
he affirmed that out of one thing all the rest may be recovered. The
subjective was converted by him into an objective; the mental phenomenon
of the association of ideas (compare Phaedo) became a real chain of
existences. The germs of two valuable principles of education may also
be gathered from the 'words of priests and priestesses:' (1) that
true knowledge is a knowledge of causes (compare Aristotle's theory of
episteme); and (2) that the process of learning consists not in what is
brought to the learner, but in what is drawn out of him.
Some lesser points of the dialogue may be noted, such as (1) the
acute observation that Meno prefers the familiar definition, which is
embellished with poetical language, to the better and truer one; or (2)
the shrewd reflection, which may admit of an application to modern
as well as to ancient teachers, that the Sophists having made large
fortunes; this must surely be a criterion of their powers of teaching,
for that no man could get a living by shoemaking who was not a good
shoemaker; or (3) the remark conveyed, almost in a word, that the verbal
sceptic is saved the labour of thought and enquiry (ouden dei to toiouto
zeteseos). Characteristic also of the temper of the Socratic enquiry
is, (4) the proposal to discuss the teachableness of virtue under
an hypothesis, after the manner of the mathematicians; and (5) the
repetition of the favourite doctrine which occurs so frequently in
the earlier and more Socratic Dialogues, and gives a colour to all
of them--that mankind only desire evil through ignorance; (6) the
experiment of eliciting from the slave-boy the mathematical truth which
is latent in him, and (7) the remark that he is all the better for
knowing his ignorance.
The character of Meno, like that of Critias, has no relation to the
actual circumstances of his life. Plato is silent about his treachery
to the ten thousand Greeks, which Xenophon has recorded, as he is also
silent about the crimes of Critias. He is a Thessalian Alcibiades,
rich and luxurious--a spoilt child of fortune, and is described as the
hereditary friend of the great king. Like Alcibiades he is inspired
with an ardent desire of knowledge, and is equally willing to learn of
Socrates and of the Sophists. He may be regarded as standing in the same
relation to Gorgias as Hippocrates in the Protagoras to the other
great Sophist. He is the sophisticated youth on whom Socrates tries his
cross-examining powers, just as in the Charmides, the Lysis, and
the Euthydemus, ingenuous boyhood is made the subject of a similar
experiment. He is treated by Socrates in a half-playful manner suited to
his character; at the same time he appears not quite to understand the
process to which he is being subjected. For he is exhibited as ignorant
of the very elements of dialectics, in which the Sophists have failed
to instruct their disciple. His definition of virtue as 'the power and
desire of attaining things honourable,' like the first definition
of justice in the Republic, is taken from a poet. His answers have a
sophistical ring, and at the same time show the sophistical incapacity
to grasp a general notion.
Anytus is the type of the narrow-minded man of the world, who is
indignant at innovation, and equally detests the popular teacher and
the true philosopher. He seems, like Aristophanes, to regard the new
opinions, whether of Socrates or the Sophists, as fatal to Athenian
greatness. He is of the same class as Callicles in the Gorgias, but of
a different variety; the immoral and sophistical doctrines of Callicles
are not attributed to him. The moderation with which he is described is
remarkable, if he be the accuser of Socrates, as is apparently indicated
by his parting words. Perhaps Plato may have been desirous of showing
that the accusation of Socrates was not to be attributed to badness or
malevolence, but rather to a tendency in men's minds. Or he may have
been regardless of the historical truth of the characters of his
dialogue, as in the case of Meno and Critias. Like Chaerephon (Apol.)
the real Anytus was a democrat, and had joined Thrasybulus in the
conflict with the thirty.
The Protagoras arrived at a sort of hypothetical conclusion, that if
'virtue is knowledge, it can be taught.' In the Euthydemus, Socrates
himself offered an example of the manner in which the true teacher
may draw out the mind of youth; this was in contrast to the quibbling
follies of the Sophists. In the Meno the subject is more developed; the
foundations of the enquiry are laid deeper, and the nature of knowledge
is more distinctly explained. There is a progression by antagonism of
two opposite aspects of philosophy. But at the moment when we approach
nearest, the truth doubles upon us and passes out of our reach. We seem
to find that the ideal of knowledge is irreconcilable with experience.
In human life there is indeed the profession of knowledge, but right
opinion is our actual guide. There is another sort of progress from the
general notions of Socrates, who asked simply, 'what is friendship?'
'what is temperance?' 'what is courage?' as in the Lysis, Charmides,
Laches, to the transcendentalism of Plato, who, in the second stage of
his philosophy, sought to find the nature of knowledge in a prior and
future state of existence.
The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and
in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the Gorgias and Theaetetus as
well as in the Republic. In the Gorgias too the statesmen reappear, but
in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to
have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men
and good speakers, are denounced as 'blind leaders of the blind.' The
doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being
made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine
of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge
to virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern
distinctions. The existence of the virtues without the possession
of knowledge in the higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be
possible. Right opinion is again introduced in the Theaetetus as
an account of knowledge, but is rejected on the ground that it is
irrational (as here, because it is not bound by the tie of the cause),
and also because the conception of false opinion is given up as
hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily different at different
times of his life, as new distinctions are realized, or new stages of
thought attained by him. We are not therefore justified, in order to
take away the appearance of inconsistency, in attributing to him hidden
meanings or remote allusions.
There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the
Meno. There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato
were written before the death of Socrates; the Meno, which appears to be
one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by
the allusion of Anytus.
We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has
done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already
seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in
Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The
repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon,
where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus 'and a fair youth
having lovers,' has no other trait of likeness to the Meno of Plato.
The place of the Meno in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal
evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the
'general definitions' of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of
reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed
in the Lysis, Laches, Charmides, and Protagoras; the puzzle about
knowing and learning has already appeared in the Euthydemus. The
doctrines of immortality and pre-existence are carried further in the
Phaedrus and Phaedo; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is
more fully developed in the Theaetetus. The lessons of Prodicus, whom he
facetiously calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates.
Unlike the later Platonic Dialogues, the Meno arrives at no conclusion.
Hence we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than
the Protagoras, and earlier than the Phaedrus and Gorgias. The place
which is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to
bring together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain
allusions to the trial and death of Socrates.
*****
ON THE IDEAS OF PLATO.
Plato's doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and