Meno on Definition

Foreword

This was the tutorial for Philosophy 430: History of Ancient Philosophy. All tutorials for 430 tended to be guided long answer questions, with a bit more speculation questions towards the end. This paper investigates Meno by Plato, and his definitions of virtue when discussing with Socrates. This paper essentially summarizes the paper, and evaluates Socrates' responses to Meno's definitions.

Body

In Meno, Meno cycles through three definitions of virtue with Socrates. Initially, he gives different definitions of virtue depending on the type of person. For a man, he says virtue is taking part in the city’s affairs and promoting the well-being of his peers and himself while hurting others (Plato, Meno, 71E). He then rotates through the definition of virtue for a woman, child, old man, slave, etc. Socrates finds this definition unhelpful. He tells Meno that this definition is essentially listing off types of virtues, and not attempting to tackle the form of virtue. Next, Meno defines virtue as one's ability to rule people (Plato, Meno, 73D). Socrates again reflects doubt on this definition for a few reasons, initially pointing out that a slave doesn’t rule over their master, nor the child over their parents, yet both can be virtuous. Furthermore, Socrates argues that ruling over someone isn’t virtuous unless that ruling is just, and that justice is only an example of virtue, not virtue in itself. Finally, Meno takes an interesting route in his third definition. He decides to quote poets and defines it as “the ability to desire and obtain beautiful things” (Plato, Meno, 77B). Socrates clarifies that by ‘beautiful things’, Meno means ‘good things’. He then argues that nobody desires bad things, rather they desire things that they think are good but are just mistaken on, and concludes that no one wants bad things. Finally, he attacks the second part of the definition with a similar point to his refutation from definition 2, by stating that getting good things (like wealth or health) is only virtuous if they are done justly and piously.

Expanding on some ideas presented earlier, Socrates is looking for what is considered the encyclopedic or real definition of F, as opposed to its dictionary definition. The dictionary definition lists common features or examples of the F things, while the encyclopedic definition defines the core characteristic that makes something F. For example, “water” may have a dictionary definition of “water is a tasteless, colorless, odorless, consumable beverage.”, while the encyclopedic definition would be “water is H20”. The latter is the type of definition that Socrates is interested in. These definitions give a concrete explanation of why some things have an attribute F, rather than a vague idea of what some examples of F things are.

To emphasize what definitions Socrates is looking for, he presents two definitions, one for shape and the other for color. After confirming with Meno that they both understand what limits and surfaces are, he defines “what a solid meets its limit in is shape” (Plato, Meno, 76A). This definition is simple, intuitive, and applicable to every item. Meno then asks Socrates to define color, Socrates reluctantly agrees but states that his definition will be in a Gorgias-fashion. "Color is an effluence from shapes that is commensurate with sight, and so perceptible” (Plato, Meno, 76D). Meno is a fan of this definition, but Socrates isn’t. Socrates describes this answer as “deep” or “poetic” which he attributes to Meno liking it. This is an example of Meno presenting himself as a fan of rhetoric, rather than worrying about the logos of the definition. Because Socrates’ first definition was so simple and universal, Socrates preferred it. On the contrary, Meno prefers the color definition because of its poetic depth.

Heraclitus would absolutely approve of Socrates’ method. Heraclitus said, “Listening not to me, but to the logos” (Heraclitus 11). The main idea that Heraclitus is pushing is that when listening to a speaker, we ought to focus on the soundness and logic of the argument, rather than being entranced by the rhetoric of the speaker. This is a necessary assertion that Heraclitus must make, he says “Although this logos holds always humans prove unable to understand it” (Heraclitus 1). This is exactly why he makes this argument, because people fall victim to others who train in rhetoric, like the Sophists (Protagoras 11). It takes an effort to focus on the logos, and not just what seems appealing initially. This is exactly what Socrates was just talking about. The second definition he gave was more poetic than his first one. This is the type of definition that pleases people like Meno, Gorgias, or the other Sophists. Meno even attempts to define virtue with a rhythmic quote. Socrates is not interested in this, he wants a concise and useful definition that is devoid of any tricky rhetorical techniques, and he is not afraid to be blunt to get such a definition. 

Socrates’ initial criticism of Meno’s first argument seems valid. When asked for a definition of something, listing off any number of examples may be helpful in an initial understanding of a word, but is not useful in getting an applicable definition, and his analogy with the bees is a good way to understand the issue. But, his argument that all virtues must “all have one identical form” may not necessarily be the case (Plato, Meno, 72D). He is essentially making the following argument using the unity principle:

1) When there are F things, then there’s one thing F-ness that makes them all F

2) Some things are virtues

∴) There is one thing, virtuousness that makes them all virtues

Even though Meno accepts this argument, I don’t think he would have to. It’s not entirely clear that premise 1 needs to be the case. Virtue is just a word, and its parent's language follows no strict structure during development, defining the word virtue to mean something is the result of hundreds of years of unguided colloquial use. It seems like Socrates should justify that assumption more.

Socrates' argument against Meno’s second definition of virtue, being able to rule over people works well. This definition doesn’t make sense, Socrates provides a counterexample of slaves and children not ruling over anything, but them still being virtuous. Expanding this a little more, “loyalty” is a virtue, yet it seems to be the opposite of ruling over people, as you are rather being ruled over. Many other examples seem to contradict Meno’s definition. Furthermore, his criticisms of not confusing examples for the definition also make complete sense.

Finally, the following argument is what Socrates presents to Meno in response to his third definition:

1) Nobody wants to be harmed (Plato, Meno, 78A)

2) Desiring bad things will cause harm to the desirer (Plato, Meno, 77E)

∴) Nobody wants bad things (Plato, Meno, 78A)

Socrates uses imprecise language in his argument, which I attribute to why Meno accepts it. He specifically says “no one wants bad things,” despite his argument being about what the person believes to be bad. Socrates even specifically says “They desire things that they think are good: though in fact they are bad” (Plato, Meno, 77E). Rather, the following argument is what he is promoting.

1) Nobody wants to be harmed (Plato, Meno, 78A)

2) Desiring things that one thinks are bad will harm them (Plato, Meno, 77E)

∴) Nobody wants something one thinks is bad (Plato, Meno, 78A)

I think there is a case to be made against premise 1, as it seems like certain people (like smokers, suicidal people, adulterers, etc.) understand the harm of their actions, yet still commit them. But, even if we accept this entire argument as sound, the Socratic is arguing from what one thinks is harmful, which is not the definition Meno gave. Meno can easily be arguing from a position of moral realism. People can still desire objectively bad things, just not things that they believe are bad. This distinction is very important, as even if you accept the revised argument, Socrates does not show an inherent issue with Meno’s definition: virtue can still be desiring good things, and even if everyone thinks they are doing good things, they could be objectively wrong.

But, I find his refutation for the achievement of good things to be sound. Achieving wealth is only virtuous if you do so justly, so justness would be a necessary condition for virtue, but as we know it is just an example. This logic is the same as his refutation of definition 1.

Finally, though Socrates never gives a clear answer of what he thinks virtue is, I think what he is implying is that he thinks virtue is the knowledge of what good is. In his refutation of Meno’s last definition, he brought up the point that no people commit actions that they think are bad (Plato, Meno, 78A). This was Socrates' only criticism of what virtue is against Meno’s last definition. As is clear throughout all of Socrates' dialogues, and especially his elenchus strategy, Socrates values knowledge and wisdom. It is probably the case that what he values is the knowledge of what good is, and that that, with revising Meno’s third definition, is virtue. However, because of Meno’s large focus on rhetorical and poetic definitions, I think the odds of him aligning with Socrates are low.