This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa. He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias.[1] The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates. The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.
[1] Cicero notices Isokrates as having heard Gorgias in Thessaly (Orator. 53, 176).
The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the Hipparchus and Minos:
Question put by Menon — Is virtue teachable? Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of Menon.
Menon. — Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable — or acquirable by exercise — or whether it comes by nature — or in what other manner it comes? Sokr. — I cannot answer your question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about its attributes or accessories? A man who does not know, Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary. Menon. — Certainly not. But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?[2] Sokr. — Yes — undoubtedly: and proclaim besides that I have never yet met with any one who did know. Menon. — What! have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not he appear to you to know? Sokr. — I have met him, but I do not quite recollect what he said. We need not consider what he said, since he is not here to answer for himself.[3] But you doubtless recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what virtue is? Menon. — There is no difficulty in telling you.[4]
[2] Plato, Menon, p. 71 B-C. Ἀλλὰ σύ, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐδ’ ὅ τι ἀρετή ἐστιν οἶσθα, ἀλλὰ ταῦτα περὶ σοῦ καὶ οἴκαδε ἀπαγγέλλωμεν;
[3] Plato, Menon, p. 71 D. ἀκεῖνον μέντοι νῦν ἐῶμεν, ἐπειδὴ καὶ ἄπεστιν. Sokrates sets little value upon opinions unless where the person giving them is present to explain and defend: compare what he says about the uselessness of citation from poets, from whom you can ask no questions, Plato, Protagor. p. 347 E.
[4] Plato, Menon, p. 71 E. Ἀλλ’ οὐ χαλεπόν, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰπεῖν, &c.
Sokrates stands alone in this confession. Unpopularity entailed by it.
Many commentators here speak as if such disclaimer on the part of Sokrates had reference merely to certain impudent pretensions to universal knowledge on the part of the Sophists. But this (as I have before remarked) is a misconception of the Sokratic or Platonic point of view. The matter which Sokrates proclaims that he does not know, is, what, not Sophists alone, but every one else also, professes to know well. Sokrates stands alone in avowing that he does not know it, and that he can find no one else who knows. Menon treats the question as one of no difficulty — one on which confessed ignorance was discreditable. “What!“ says Menon, “am I really to state respecting you, that you do not know what virtue is?” The man who makes such a confession will be looked upon by his neighbours with surprise and displeasure — not to speak of probable consequences yet worse. He is one whom the multifarious agencies employed by King Nomos (which we shall find described more at length in the Protagoras) have failed to mould into perfect and uninquiring conformity, and he is still in process of examination to form a judgment for himself.