Virtue and knowledge in philosophy

Meno

Virtue and Knowledge in Plato's Meno

Plato's examination of those subjects of intrigue and centrality to human affairs would most typically take the form of the Socratic dialogue. Here, using his mentor as the primary channel through which to explore such ideas, Plato leaves behind a canon of philosophical and practical exchanges in which Socrates is the voice of reason and knowledge. Most typically, these exchanges find Socrates in the position of teacher, responding to the inquiries of his students and friends. In the case of this discussion, this refers to the young, wealthy Meno, who is troubled by his incapacity to fully define and understand the concept of virtue. The titular character of Meno is driven to discourse with Socrates in the search for some satisfactory definition of virtue, which the teacher indicates at the outset he does not believe necessarily possible.

In typically humble but simultaneously cagey form, Socrates elicits from Meno his perceived definition of virtue. In response, Meno identifies this as a set of appropriate and right behaviors or duties based on one's gender, station, age and personage. To Meno, when prompted to answer his own question, there is cause to find that virtue is largely variable according to its beholder. He denotes that "every age, every condition of life, young or old, male or female, bond or free, has a different virtue: there are virtues numberless, and no lack of definitions of them; for virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do. And the same may be said of vice, Socrates."

This is a perspective that draws Socrates' sarcasm. He remarks gently to his friend how fortunate he is to have asked for a single definition of virtue and to have received many, one for each gender, age and station. This points to the primary conception which Socrates arrives at in the search for a definition of virtue, indicating that the flaw in Meno's perspective is the fact that there must be some unifying force making each of these virtues exactly that. To Socrates, it is faulty to understand virtue simply as a product of an individual orientation, as this tends to undermine such universally accepted themes of virtue as self-control and the ability to withhold for harming or acting injuriously toward others.

Instead, Socrates pushes the discourse away from this idea of virtue as being mutable according to one's biographical characteristics. Instead, he begins to draw a close correlation between one's proclivity toward virtue and one's being possessed in the knowledge to behave thusly. To the point, Socrates balks at Meno's demand to be educated on the subject of virtue, indicating that this is relatively an impossible concept. In the "learning" requested by this exchange, Meno's has demanded for Socrates to provide him with able and applicable definitions of virtue. However, proceeding from his initiating statement that he neither truly knows the definition of virtue nor has he ever known somebody who does, Socrates warns Meno's of the impossibility of his request. Virtue, instead, becomes something more affiliated with knowledge and experience than instruction, helping to reveal the reason for its elusiveness where applying definition is concerned. To Socrates, virtue pertains to the knowledge accumulated in one's pursuits. Therefore, "the soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, rand having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything."

However, he warns that this capacity for recollection is not in an of itself sufficient to apply as a definition of knowledge. This induces in our discussion a practical point of consideration with clear relevance to our own proclivities in education. The applicable nature of virtue, which only becomes thus when acted out in one's affairs as opposed to simply examined as in the exchange between Menos and Socrates, means that mere "education" on the subject is more than likely to fall well short of instilling true virtue.

To Socrates, the key distinction between virtue based on recollection and virtue based on knowledge is the absence of any real challenge to the sense in the former and the core dilemmas or decisions often demanded in the latter. The recollection of virtuous concept does not in and of itself implicate the ability for application or the insight to truly understand those key unifying forces rendering behavior and orientation as definable as virtuous. To this point, Socrates makes the important resolution that "for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things; there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection -all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection"