19 Plato, Menon, p. 87.
Virtue is knowledge — no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge.
Sokrates proceeds to prove that virtue is knowledge, or a mode of knowledge. Virtue is good: all good things are profitable. But none of the things accounted good are profitable, unless they be rightly employed; that is, employed with knowledge or intelligence. This is true not only of health, wealth, beauty, strength, power, &c., but also of the mental attributes justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, &c. All of these are profitable, and therefore good, if brought into action under knowledge or right intelligence; none of them are profitable or good, without this condition — which is therefore the distinctive constituent of virtue.20
20 Plato, Menon, p. 89.
Virtue, therefore, being knowledge or a mode of knowledge, cannot come by nature, but must be teachable.
Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No teachers of it can be found.
Yet again there are other contrary reasons (he proceeds) which prove that it cannot be teachable. For if it were so, there would be distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt. We see that this is the case with all arts and professions. But in regard to virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor years of learning. The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are not:21 the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach it even to their own sons — as the character of those sons sufficiently proves.22
21 Plato, Menon, p. 92.
22 Plato, Menon, p. 97. Isokrates (adv. Sophistas, s. 25, p. 401) expressly declares that he does not believe ὥς ἐστι δικαιοσύνη διδακτόν. There is no τέχνη which can teach it, if a man be κακῶς πεφυκώς. But if a man be well-disposed, then education in λόγοι πολιτικοί will serve συμπαρακελεύσασθαί γε καὶ συνασκῆσαι.
For a man to announce himself as a teacher of justice or virtue, was an unpopular and invidious pretension. Isokrates is anxious to guard himself against such unpopularity.
Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue.
Here, a new speaker is introduced into the dialogue — Anytus, one of the accusers of Sokrates before the Dikastery. The conversation is carried on for some time between Sokrates and him. Anytus denies altogether that the Sophists are teachers of virtue, and even denounces them with bitter contempt and wrath. But he maintains that the leading and esteemed citizens of the state do really teach it. Anytus however presently breaks off in a tone of displeasure and menace towards Sokrates himself.23 The conversation is then renewed with Menon, and it is shown that the leading politicians cannot be considered as teachers of virtue, any more than the Sophists. There exist no teachers of it; and therefore we must conclude that it is not teachable.
23 Plato, Menon, p. 94 E.
Confused state of the discussion. No way of acquiring virtue is shown.
The state of the discussion as it stands now, is represented by two hypothetical syllogisms, as follows:
1. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is knowledge:
Therefore virtue is teachable.
2. If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable:
But virtue is not teachable:
Therefore virtue is not knowledge.
The premisses of each of these two syllogisms contradict the conclusion of the other. Both cannot be true. If virtue is not acquired by teaching and does not come by nature, how are there any virtuous men?
Sokrates modifies his premisses — knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results — right opinion will do the same.
Sokrates continues his argument: The second premiss of the first syllogism — that virtue is knowledge — is true, but not the whole truth. In proving it we assumed that there was nothing except knowledge which guided us to useful and profitable consequences. But this assumption will not hold. There is something else besides knowledge, which also guides us to the same useful results. That something is right opinion, which is quite different from knowledge. The man who holds right opinions is just as profitable to us, and guides us quite as well to right actions, as if he knew. Right opinions, so long as they stay in the mind, are as good as knowledge, for the purpose of guidance in practice. But the difference is, that they are evanescent and will not stay in the mind: while knowledge is permanent and ineffaceable. They are exalted into knowledge, when bound in the mind by a chain of causal reasoning:24 that is, by the process of reminiscence, before described.
24 Plato, Menon, pp. 97 E — 98 A. καὶ γὰρ αἱ δόξαι αἱ ἀληθεῖς, ὅσον μὲν ἂν χρόνον παραμένωσιν, καλόν τι χρῆμα καὶ πάντα τἀγαθὰ ἐργάζονται· πολὺν δὲ χρόνον οὐκ ἐθέλουσι παραμένειν, ἀλλὰ δραπετεύουσιν ἐκ τῆς ψυχῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. ὥστε οὐ πολλοῦ ἄξιαί εἰσιν, ἕως ἂν τις αὐτὰς δήσῃ αἰτίας λογισμῷ· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνάμνησις, ὡς ἐν τοῖς πρόσθεν ἡμῖν ὡμολόγηται.
Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others — good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods.
Virtue then (continues Sokrates) — that which constitutes the virtuous character and the permanent, trustworthy, useful guide — consists in knowledge. But there is also right opinion, a sort of quasi-knowledge, which produces in practice effects as good as knowledge, only that it is not deeply or permanently fixed in the mind.25 It is this right opinion, or quasi-knowledge, which esteemed and distinguished citizens possess, and by means of which they render useful service to the city. That they do not possess knowledge, is certain; for if they did, they would be able to teach it to others, and especially to their own sons: and this it has been shown that they cannot do.26 They deliver true opinions and predictions, and excellent advice, like prophets and oracular ministers, by divine inspiration and possession, without knowledge or wisdom of their own. They are divine and inspired persons, but not wise or knowing.27
25 Plato, Menon, p. 99 A. ᾧ δὲ ἄνθρωπος ἡγεμών ἐστιν ἐπὶ τὸ ὀρθόν, δύο ταῦτα, δόξα ἀληθὴς καὶ ἐπιστήμη.
26 Plato, Menon, p. 99 B. Οὐκ ἄρα σοφία τινὶ οὐδὲ σοφοὶ ὄντες οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἄνδρες ἡγοῦντο ταῖς πόλεσιν, οἱ ἀμφὶ Θεμιστοκλέα.… διὸ καὶ οὐχ οἷοί τε ἄλλους ποιεῖν τοιούτους οἷοι αὐτοί εἰσιν, ἅτε οὐ δι’ ἐπιστήμην ὄντες τοιοῦτοι.
27 Plato, Menon, p. 99 D. καὶ τοὺς πολιτικοὺς οὐχ ἥκιστα τούτων φαῖμεν, ἂν θείους τε εἶναι καὶ ἐνθουσιάζειν, ἐπίπνους ὄντας καὶ κατεχομένους ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅταν κατορθῶσι λέγοντες πολλὰ καὶ μεγάλα πράγματα, μηδὲν εἰδότες ὧν λέγουσιν.
All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods.
And thus (concludes Sokrates) the answer to the question originally started by Menon — “Whether virtue is teachable?“ — is as follows. Virtue in its highest sense, in which it is equivalent to or coincident with knowledge, is teachable: but no such virtue exists. That which exists in the most distinguished citizens under the name of virtue, — or at least producing the results of virtue in practice — is not teachable. Nor does it come by nature, but by special inspiration from the Gods. The best statesmen now existing cannot make any other person like themselves: if any one of them could do this, he would be, in comparison with the rest, like a real thing compared with a shadow.28
28 Plato, Menon, p. 100.
But what virtue itself is, remains unknown.
Nevertheless the question which we have just discussed — “How virtue arises or is generated?“ — must be regarded as secondary and dependent, not capable of being clearly understood until the primary and principal question — “What is virtue?” — has been investigated and brought to a solution.29
29 Plato, Menon, p. 100 B.
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 is32 — 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.
33 Plato, Menon, p. 77.
34 Plato, Menon, p. 78 B. τὸ μὲν βούλεσθαι πᾶσιν ὑπάρχει, καὶ ταύτῃ γε οὐδὲν ὁ ἕτερος τοῦ ἑτέρου βελτίων.
Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?
The second portion of Plato’s theory, advanced to explain what virtue is, presents nothing more satisfactory. Virtue is useful or profitable: but neither health, strength, beauty, wealth, power, &c., are profitable, unless rightly used: nor are justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, good memory, &c., profitable, unless they are accompanied and guided by knowledge or prudence.35 Now if by profitable we have reference not to the individual agent alone, but to other persons concerned also, the proposition is true, but not instructive or distinct. For what is meant by right use? To what ends are the gifts here enumerated to be turned, in order to constitute right use? What again is meant by knowledge? knowledge of what?36 This is a question put by Sokrates in many other dialogues, and necessary to be put here also. Moreover, knowledge is a term which requires to be determined, not merely to some assignable object, but also in its general import, no less than virtue. We shall come presently to an elaborate dialogue (Theætêtus) in which Plato makes many attempts to determine knowledge generally, but ends in a confessed failure. Knowledge must be knowledge possessed by some one, and must be knowledge of something. What is it, that a man must know, in order that his justice or courage may become profitable? Is it pleasures and pains, with their causes, and the comparative magnitude of each (as Sokrates declares in the Protagoras), in order that he may contribute to diminish the sum of pains, increase that of pleasures, to himself or to the society? If this be what he is required to know, Plato should have said so — or if not, what else — in order that the requirement of knowledge might be made an intelligible condition.
35 Plato, Menon, pp. 87-88.
36 See Republic, vi. p. 505 B, where this question is put, but not answered, respecting φρόνησις.
Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras — diversity of handling — Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it.
Though the subject of direct debate in the Menon is the same as that in the Protagoras (whether virtue be teachable?) yet the manner of treating this subject is very different in the two. One point of difference between the two has been just noticed. Another difference is, that whereas in Menon the teachability of virtue is assumed to be disproved, because there are no recognised teachers or learners of it — in the Protagoras this argument is produced by Sokrates, but is combated at length (as we shall presently see) by a counter-argument on the part of the Sophists, without any rejoinder from Sokrates. Of this counter-argument no notice is taken in the Menon: although, if it be well-founded, it would have served Anytus no less than Protagoras, as a solution of the difficulties raised by Sokrates. Such diversity of handling and argumentative fertility, are characteristic of the Platonic procedure. I have already remarked, that the establishment of positive conclusions, capable of being severed from their premisses, registered in the memory, and used as principles for deduction — is foreign to the spirit of these Dialogues of Search. To settle a question and finish with it — to get rid of the debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity — is not what Plato desires. His purpose is, to provoke the spirit of enquiry — to stimulate responsive efforts of the mind by a painful shock of exposed ignorance — and to open before it a multiplicity of new roads with varied points of view.
Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research.
Nowhere in the Platonic writings is this provocative shock more vividly illustrated than in the Menon, by the simile of the electrical fish: a simile as striking as that of the magnet in Ion.37 Nowhere, again, is the true character of the Sokratic intellect more clearly enunciated. “You complain, Menon, that I plunge your mind into nothing but doubt, and puzzle, and conscious ignorance. If I do this, it is only because my own mind is already in that same condition.38 The only way out of it is, through joint dialectical colloquy and search; in which I invite you to accompany me, though I do not know when or where it will end.” And then, for the purpose of justifying as well as encouraging such prolonged search, Sokrates proceeds to unfold his remarkable hypothesis — eternal pre-existence, boundless past experience, and omniscience, of the mind — identity of cognition with recognition, dependent on reminiscence. “Research or enquiry (said some) is fruitless. You must search either for that which you know, or for that which you do not know. The first is superfluous — the second impossible: for if you do not know what a thing is, how are you to be satisfied that the answer which you find is that which you are looking for? How can you distinguish a true solution from another which is untrue, but plausible?”
37 Plato, Menon, p. 80 A. νάρκη θαλασσία. Compare what I have said above about the Ion, ch. XVII., p. 128.
38 Plato, Menon, p. 80 D.
Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers — criterion of truth — Wherein consists the process of verification?
Here we find explicitly raised, for the first time, that difficulty which embarrassed the different philosophical schools in Greece for the subsequent three centuries — What is the criterion of truth? Wherein consists the process called verification and proof, of that which is first presented as an hypothesis? This was one of the great problems debated between the Academics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics, until the extinction of the schools of philosophy.39
39 Sokrates here calls this problem an ἐριστικὸς λόγος. Stallbaum (in his Prolegom. to the Menon, p. 14) describes it as a “quæstiunculam, haud dubie e sophistarum disciplinâ arreptam”. If the Sophists were the first to raise this question, I think that by doing so they rendered service to the interests of philosophy. The question is among the first which ought to be thoroughly debated and sifted, if we are to have a body of “reasoned truth“ called philosophy.
I dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum (p. 20), though it is adopted both by Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 185) and by Steinhart (Einleitung zum Menon, p. 123), that the Menon was composed by Plato during the lifetime of Sokrates. Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 22; Einleitung zum Menon, pp. 329-330), Ueberweg (Aechth. Plat. Schr. p. 226), and K. F. Hermann, on the other hand, regard the Menon as composed after the death of Sokrates, and on this point I agree with them, though whether it was composed not long after that event (as K. F. Hermann thinks) or thirteen years after it (as Schleiermacher thinks), I see no sufficient grounds for deciding. I incline to the belief that its composition is considerably later than Hermann supposes; the mention of the Theban Ismenias is one among the reasons rendering such later origin probable. Plato probably borrowed from the Xenophontic Anabasis the name, country, and social position of Menon, who may have received teaching from Gorgias, as we know that Proxenus did, Xen. Anab. ii. 6, 16. The reader can compare the Einleitung of Schleiermacher (in which he professes to prove that the Menon is a corollary to the Theætêtus and Gorgias, and an immediate antecedent to the Euthydêmus, — that it solves the riddle of the Protagoras — and that it presupposes and refers back to the Phædrus) with the Einleitung of Steinhart (p. 120 seq.), who contests all these propositions, saying that the Menon is decidedly later than the Euthydêmus, and decidedly earlier than the Theætêtus, Gorgias, and Phædrus; with the opinions of Stallbaum and Hermann, who recognise an order different from that either of Steinhart or Schleiermacher; and with that of Ast, who rejects the Menon altogether as unworthy of Plato. Every one of these dissentient critics has something to say for his opinion, while none of them (in my judgment) can make out anything like a conclusive case. The mistake consists in assuming that there must have been a peremptory order and intentional interdependence among the Platonic Dialogues, and next in trying to show by internal evidence what that order was.
None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato — that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience.
Not one of these schools was satisfied with the very peculiar answer which the Platonic Sokrates here gives to the question. When truth is presented to us (he intimates), we recognise it as an old friend after a long absence. We know it by reason of its conformity to our antecedent, pre-natal, experience (in the Phædon, such pre-natal experience is restricted to commerce with the substantial, intelligible, Ideas, which are not mentioned in the Menon): the soul or mind is immortal, has gone through an indefinite succession of temporary lives prior to the present, and will go through an indefinite succession of temporary lives posterior to the present — “longæ, canitis si cognita, vitæ Mors media est“. The mind has thus become omniscient, having seen, heard, and learnt every thing, both on earth and in Hades: but such knowledge exists as a confused and unavailable mass, having been buried and forgotten on the commencement of its actual life.
Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten omniscience.40 It is in this recall or reminiscence that search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists. Teaching and learning are words without meaning: the only process really instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within.41 So vast is the theory generated in Plato’s mind, by his worship of dialectic, respecting that process of search to which more than half of his dialogues are devoted.
40 The doctrine of communion or interdependence pervading all Nature, with one continuous cosmical soul penetrating everywhere, will be found set forth in the kosmology of the Timæus, pp. 37-42-43. It was held, with various modifications, both by the Pythagoreans and the Stoics. Compare Cicero, Divinat. ii. 14-15; Virgil, Æneid vi. 715 seqq.; Georgic. iv. 220; Sextus Empir. adv. Mathem. ix. 127; Ekphantus Pythagoreus ap. Stobæum, Tit. 48, vol. ii. p. 320, Gaisford.
The view here taken by Plato, that all nature is cognate and interdependent — ἅτε γὰρ τῆς φύσεως ἁπάσης συγγενοῦς οὔσης — is very similar to the theory of Leibnitz:— “Ubique per materiam disseminata statuo principia vitalia seu percipientia. Omnia in naturâ sunt analogica” (Leibnitz, Epist. ad Wagnerum, p. 466; Leibn. Opp. Erdmann). Farther, that the human mind by virtue of its interdependence or kindred with all nature, includes a confused omniscience, is also a Leibnitzian view. “Car comme tout est plein (ce qui rend toute la matière liée) et comme dans le plein tout mouvement fait quelqu’ effet sur les corps distans à mesure de la distance, de sorte que chaque corps est affecté non seulement par ceux qui le touchent, et se ressent en quelque façon de tout ce qui leur arrive — mais aussi par leur moyen se ressent de ceux qui touchent les premiers dont il est touché immédiatement. Il s’ensuit que cette communication va à quelque distance que ce soit. Et par consequent tout corps se ressent de tout ce qui se fait dans l’Univers: tellement que celui, qui voit tout, pourroit lire dans chacun ce qui se fait partout et même ce qui s’est fait et se fera, en remarquant dans le présent ce qui est éloigné tant selon les temps que selon les lieux: σύμπνοια πάντα, disoit Hippocrate. Mais une âme ne peut lire en elle même que ce qui y est representé distinctement: elle ne sauroit developper tout d’un coup ses règles, car elles vont à l’infini. Ainsi quoique chaque monade créée représente tout l’Univers, elle représente plus distinctement le corps qui lui est particulièrement affecté, et dont elle fait l’Entéléchie. Et comme ce corps exprime tout l’Univers par la connexion de toute la matière dans le plein, l’âme représente aussi tout l’Univers en représentant ce corps qui lui appartient d’une manière particulière” (Leibnitz, Monadologie, sect. 61-62, No. 88, p. 710; Opp. Leibn. ed. Erdmann).
Again, Leibnitz, in another Dissertation: “Comme à cause de la plénitude du monde tout est lié, et chaque corps agit sur chaque autre corps, plus ou moins, selon la distance, et en est affecté par la réaction — il s’ensuit que chaque monade est un miroir vivant, ou doué d’action interne, représentatif de l’Univers, suivant son point de vue, et aussi réglé que l’Univers même” (Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, p. 714, ed. Erdmann; also Système Nouveau, p. 128, a. 36).
Leibnitz expresses more than once how much his own metaphysical views agreed with those of Plato. Lettre à M. Bourguet, pp. 723-725. He expresses his belief in the pre-existence of the soul: “Tout ce que je crois pouvoir assurer, est, que l’âme de tout animal a préexisté, et a été dans un corps organique: qui enfin, par beaucoup de changemens, involutions, et évolutions, est devenu l’animal présent” (Lettre à M. Bourguet, p. 731). And in the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence to a certain point: “II y a quelque chose de solide dans ce que dit Platon de la réminiscence” (p. 137, b. 10). Also Leibnitz’s Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement Humain, p. 196, b. 28; and Epistol. ad Hanschium, p. 446, a. 12.
See the elaborate account of the philosophy of Leibnitz by Dr. Kuno Fischer — Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 226-232.
41 Plato, Menon, p. 81 D. ἐάν τις ἀνδρεῖος ᾖ, καὶ μὴ ἀποκάμνῃ ζητῶν. Compare also p. 86 B.
Plato’s view of the immortality of the soul — difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon.
In various other dialogues of Plato, the same hypothesis is found repeated. His conception of the immortality of the soul or mind, includes pre-existence as well as post-existence: a perpetual succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body, each terminated by death, and each followed by renewed life for a time in another body. In fact, the pre-existence of the mind formed the most important part of Plato’s theory about immortality: for he employed it as the means of explaining how the mind became possessed of general notions. As the doctrine is stated in the Menon, it is made applicable to all minds (instead of being confined, as in Phædrus, Phædon, and elsewhere, to a few highly gifted minds, and to commerce with the intelligible substances called Ideas). This appears from the person chosen to illustrate the alleged possibility of stimulating artificial reminiscence: that person is an unlettered youth, taken at hazard from among the numerous slaves of Menon.42
42 Plato, Menon, pp. 82 A, 85 E. προσκάλεσον τῶν πολλῶν ἀκολούθων τουτωνὶ τῶν σαυτοῦ ἕνα, ὅντινα βούλει, ἵνα ἐν τούτῳ σοι ἐπιδείξωμαι. Stallbaum says that this allusion to the numerous slaves in attendance is intended to illustrate conspicuously the wealth and nobility of Menon. In my judgment, it is rather intended to illustrate the operation of pure accident — the perfectly ordinary character of the mind worked upon — “one among many, which you please”.
Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind — how far correct?
It is true, indeed (as Schleiermacher observes), that the questions put by Sokrates to this youth are in great proportion leading questions, suggesting their own answers. They would not have served their purpose unless they had been such. The illustration here furnished, of the Sokratic interrogatory process, is highly interesting, and his theory is in a great degree true.43 Not all learning, but an important part of learning, consists in reminiscence — not indeed of acquisitions made in an antecedent life, but of past experience and judgments in this life. Of such experience and judgments every one has travelled through a large course; which has disappeared from his memory, yet not irrevocably. Portions of it may be revived, if new matter be presented to the mind, fitted to excite the recollection of them by the laws of association. By suitable interrogations, a teacher may thus recall to the memory of his pupils many facts and judgments which have been hitherto forgotten: he may bring into juxtaposition those which have never before been put together in the mind: and he may thus make them elicit instructive comparisons and inferences. He may provoke the pupils to strike out new results for themselves, or to follow, by means of their own stock of knowledge, in the path suggested by the questions. He may farther lead them to perceive the fallacy of erroneous analogies which at first presented themselves as plausible; and to become painfully sensible of embarrassment and perplexing ignorance, before he puts those questions which indicate the way of escape from it. Upon the necessity of producing such painful consciousness of ignorance Plato insists emphatically, as is his custom.44
43 Plutarch (Fragment. Περὶ ψυχῆς). Εἰ ἀφ’ ἑτέρου ἕτερον ἐννοοῦμεν; οὐκ ἄν, εἰ μὴ προέγνωστο. Τὸ ἐπιχείρημα Πλατωνικόν. Εἰ προστίθεμεν τὸ ἔλλειπον τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς; — καὶ αὐτὸ Πλατωνικόν.
Plutarch, in the same fragment, indicates some of the objections made by Bion and Straton against the doctrine of ἀνάμνησις. How (they asked) does it happen that this reminiscence brings up often what is false or absurd? (asked Bion). If such reminiscence exists (asked Straton) how comes it that we require demonstrations to conduct us to knowledge? and how is it that no man can play on the flute or the harp without practice?
Ὅτι Βίων ἠπόρει περὶ τοῦ ψεύδους, εἰ καὶ αὐτὸ κατ’ ἀνάμνησιν, ὡς τὸ ἐναντίον γε, ἢ οὔ; καὶ τί ἡ ἀλογία; Ὅτι Στράτων ἠπόρει, εἰ ἔστιν ἀναμνησις, πῶς ἄνευ ἀποδείξεων οὐ γιγνόμεθα ἐπιστήμονες; πῶς δὲ οὐδεὶς αὐλητὴς ἢ κιθαριστὴς γέγονεν ἄνευ μελέτης;
44 Plato, Menon, p. 84. The sixteenth Dissertation of Maximus Tyrius presents a rhetorical amplification of this doctrine — πᾶσα μάθησις, ἀνάμνησις — in which he enters fully into the spirit of the Menon and the Phædon — αὐτοδίδακτόν τι χρῆμα ἡ ψυχή — ἡ ψυχῆς εὕρεσις, αὐτογενής τις οὖσα, καὶ αὐτοφυὴς, καὶ ξύμφυτος, τί ἄλλο ἔστιν ἢ δόξαι ἀληθεῖς ἐγειρόμεναι, ὧν τῇ ἐπεγέρσει τε καὶ ξυντάξει ἐπιστήμη ὄνομα; (c. 6). Compare also Cicero, Tusc. D. i. 24. The doctrine has furnished a theme for very elegant poetry: both in the Consolatio Philosophiæ of Boethius — the piece which ends with
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“Ac si Platonis Musa personat verum,
Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur” — |
and in Wordsworth — “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,” &c.
On the other hand Aristotle alludes also to the same doctrine and criticises it; but he does not seem (so far as I can understand this brief allusion) to seize exactly Plato’s meaning. This is the remark of the Scholiast on Aristotle: and I think it just. It is curious to compare the way in which ἀνάμνησις is handled by Plato in the Menon and Phædon, and by Aristotle in the valuable little tract — Περὶ μνήνης καὶ ἀναμνήσεως (p. 451, b.). Aristotle has his own way of replying to the difficulty raised in the question of Menon, and tries to show that sometimes we know in one sense and do not know in another. See Aristotel. Anal. Prior., ii. p. 67, a. 22; Anal. Poster. i. p. 71, a. 27; and the Scholia on the former passage, p. 193, b. 21, ed. Brandis.
Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Appendixes to his edition of Reid’s Works (Append. D. p. 890 seq.), has given a learned and valuable translation and illustration of the treatise of Aristotle Περὶ Ἀναμνήσεως. I note, however, with some surprise, that while collecting many interesting comments from writers who lived after Aristotle, he has not adverted to what was said upon this same subject by Plato, before Aristotle. It was the more to be expected that he would do this, since he insists so emphatically upon the complete originality of Aristotle.
Plato’s doctrine about à priori reasonings — Different from the modern doctrine.
Plato does not intend here to distinguish (as many modern writers distinguish) geometry from other sciences, as if geometry were known à priori, and other sciences known à posteriori or from experience. He does not suppose that geometrical truths are such that no man can possibly believe the contrary of them; or that they are different in this respect from the truths of any other science. He here maintains that all the sciences lie equally in the untaught mind,45 but buried, forgotten, and confused: so as to require the skill of the questioner not merely to recall them into consciousness, but to disentangle truth from error. Far from supposing that the untaught mind has a natural tendency to answer correctly geometrical questions, he treats erroneous answers as springing up more naturally than true answers, and as requiring a process of painful exposure before the mind can be put upon the right track. The questioner, without possessing any knowledge himself, (so Plato thinks,) can nevertheless exercise an influence at once stimulating, corrective, and directive. He stimulates the action of the associative process, to call up facts, comparisons, and analogies, bearing on the question: he arrests the respondent on a wrong answer, creating within him a painful sense of ignorance and embarrassment: he directs him by his subsequent questions into the path of right answers. His obstetric aid (to use the simile in Plato’s Theætetus), though presupposing the pregnancy of the respondent mind, is indispensable both to forward the childbirth, and to throw away any offspring which may happen to be deformed. In the Theætetus, the main stress is laid on that part of the dialogue which is performed by the questioner: in the Menon, upon the latent competence and large dead stock of an untaught respondent.