Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.
This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end — as it had been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the continuance — of the dialogue. In fact, Sokrates seems at first resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the order.[30]
[30] Plato, Menon, p. 86.
Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.
The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You must know the essence of the subject — or those predicates which the word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its accidents and antecedents.[31] Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind. He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity — “Whether virtue is teachable“. Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions — τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν, ὀδυνᾷ.
[31] To use the phrase of Plato himself in the Euthyphron, p. 11 A, the οὐσία must be known before the πάθη are sought — κινδυνεύεις, ὦ Εὐθύφρον, ἐρωτώμενος τὸ ὅσιον, ὅ, τί ποτ’ ἐστι, τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν μοι αὐτοῦ οὐ βούλεσθαι δηλῶσαι, πάθος δέ τι περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν, ὅ, τι πέπονθε τοῦτο τὸ ὅσιον, φιλεῖσθαι ὑπὸ πάντων θεῶν· ὅ τι δὲ ὄν, οὔπω εἶπες.
Compare Lachês, p. 190 B and Gorgias, pp. 448 E, 462 C.
Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon — desire of good alleged to be universally felt — in what sense this is true.
The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in his experience knows what virtue is — that it must be made a subject of special and deliberate investigation — and that no man can know what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows what virtue as a whole is[32] — are matters to be kept in mind also, as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed (according to the received habit) as matters known and understood. The contributions which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive. The comments of Sokrates upon Menon’s first definition include the doctrine often announced in Plato — That no man by nature desires suffering or evil; every man desires good: if he seeks or pursues suffering or evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for good.[33] This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil for himself: and if by good or evil we mean (according to the doctrine enforced by Sokrates in the Protagoras) the result of items of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring Reason. Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality. But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for others: and if by good we mean (as Sokrates is made to declare in the Gorgias) something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart from pain (understanding pleasure and pain in their largest sense). A man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil for others, as the case may be. Plato’s observation therefore cannot be admitted — That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one man is no better than another.[34]
[32] Plato, Menon, p. 79 B-C. τὴν γὰρ δικαιοσύνην μόριον φῂ ἀρετῆς εἶναι καὶ ἕκαστα τούτων.… οἴει τινα εἰδέναι μόριον ἀρετῆς ὅ τι ἔστιν, αὐτὴν μὴ εἰδότα; Οὐκ ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ.