Meno
Plato
tr. Benjamin Jowett

"SOCRATES: I should have told him the truth. And if he were a philosopher of the eristic and antagonistic sort, I should say to him: You have my answer, and if I am wrong, your business is to take up the argument and refute me. But if we were friends, and were talking as you and I are now, I should reply in a milder strain and more in the dialectician's vein; that is to say, I should not only speak the truth, but I should make use of premises which the person interrogated would be willing to admit. And this is the way in which I shall endeavour to approach you. You will acknowledge, will you not, that there is such a thing as an end, or termination, or extremity? — all which words I use in the same sense, although I am aware that Prodicus might draw distinctions about them: but still you, I am sure, would speak of a thing as ended or terminated — that is all which I am saying — not anything very difficult." (75c-e)

"SOCRATES:

Now, if there be any sort of good which is distinct from knowledge, virtue may be that good; but if knowledge embraces all good, then we shall be right in thinking that virtue is knowledge?

MENO:

True.

SOCRATES:

And virtue makes us good?

MENO:

Yes.

SOCRATES:

And if we are good, then we are profitable; for all good things are profitable?

MENO:

Yes.

SOCRATES:

Then virtue is profitable?

MENO:

That is the only inference.

SOCRATES:

Then now let us see what are the things which severally profit us. Health and strength, and beauty and wealth — these, and the like of these, we call profitable?

MENO:

True.

SOCRATES:

And yet these things may also sometimes do us harm: would you not think so?

MENO:

Yes.

SOCRATES:

And what is the guiding principle which makes them profitable or the reverse? Are they not profitable when they are rightly used, and hurtful when they are not rightly used?

MENO:

Certainly.

SOCRATES:

Next, let us consider the goods of the soul: they are temperance, justice, courage, quickness of apprehension, memory, magnanimity, and the like?

MENO:

Surely.

SOCRATES:

And such of these as are not knowledge, but of another sort, are sometimes profitable and sometimes hurtful; as, for example, courage wanting prudence, which is only a sort of confidence? When a man has no sense he is harmed by courage, but when he has sense he is profited?

MENO:

True.

SOCRATES:

And the same may be said of temperance and quickness of apprehension; whatever things are learned or done with sense are profitable, but when done without sense they are hurtful?

MENO:

Very true.

SOCRATES:

And in general, all that the soul attempts or endures, when under the guidance of wisdom, ends in happiness; but when she is under the guidance of folly, in the opposite?

MENO:

That appears to be true.

SOCRATES:

If then virtue is a quality of the soul, and is admitted to be profitable, it must be wisdom or prudence, since none of the things of the soul are either profitable or hurtful in themselves, but they are all made profitable or hurtful by the addition of wisdom or of folly; and therefore if virtue is profitable, virtue must be a sort of wisdom or prudence?

MENO:

I quite agree.

SOCRATES:

And the other goods, such as wealth and the like, of which we were just now saying that they are sometimes good and sometimes evil, do not they also become profitable or hurtful, accordingly as the soul guides and uses them rightly or wrongly; just as the things of the soul herself are benefited when under the guidance of wisdom and harmed by folly?

MENO:

True.

SOCRATES:

And the wise soul guides them rightly, and the foolish soul wrongly.

MENO:

Yes.

SOCRATES:

And is not this universally true of human nature? All other things hang upon the soul, and the things of the soul herself hang upon wisdom, if they are to be good; and so wisdom is inferred to be that which profits — and virtue, as we say, is profitable?

MENO:

Certainly.

SOCRATES:

And thus we arrive at the conclusion that virtue is either wholly or partly wisdom?

MENO:

I think that what you are saying, Socrates, is very true." (87c-89a)

END