"Socrates, can virtue be taught?"1 The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates whether virtue can be taught. At the end of the Meno (86d-100b), Socrates attempts to answer the question. This question is prior to the division between opinion and knowledge and provides to unsettle both. Anytus participated in Socrates and Meno conversation about virtue. Socrates claims that if virtue is a kind of knowledge, then it can be learned. If it is something besides a kind of knowledge, it perceptibly cannot be taught.
Virtue is a particular moral excellence, a beneficial quality, or power of a thing, and masculine strength or courage. At the end of the Meno, Socrates states that the hypothesis, "if knowledge is virtue, it can be taught." 1 The method of hypothesis, I believe is if virtue is x, then it can be taught. Therefore, x = knowledge. Socrates progressively shows us that knowledge is recollection. Socrates suggests that if ones want to gain knowledge of the inspiration of virtue, there should be an educator who has an answer of what virtue is. The examination of this proposition is that "Is virtue knowledge? If so, there are teachers and pupils of it." However, it is impossible for him to find a teacher of virtue. The explanation that Socrates suddenly comes up with the idea of a teacher of virtue is that he said, "It would be reasonable to send him to those who practice the craft rather than those who do not." 1 Based on his reply, it is understandable, and logical that it is factual. There has to be a connoisseur who truthfully recognizes what virtue is. Nevertheless, at the end of Meno (89e-96c), Anytus explains that there are no teachers and learners of virtue.
As Meno mentions earlier in the text, there are many dissim...
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...elief changes. Thirdly, there is always reason behind knowledge, but not with mere belief. Lastly, knowledge is the result of instruction, whereas mere belief is not.
The dialogue between Socrates and Meno in the Meno argues about what virtue is and whether it can be taught. It seems that it is still not comprehensible about what virtue truly is. Nevertheless, it is obvious to articulate that there are no teachers or learners of virtue. Additionally, it is uneasy to recognize the concept between virtue and knowledge. If virtue is knowledge, and knowledge can be taught, why cannot virtue be taught? Is it because nobody knows exactly what virtue is? Thus, is virtue the knowledge then? From my point of view, Plato attempts to tell us the exploration of knowledge circuitously because there is no exact definition of virtue. It just depends on each human being.
Socrates put one’s quest for wisdom and the instruction of others above everything else in life. A simple man both in the way he talked and the wealth he owned, he believed that simplicity in whatever one did was the best way of acquiring knowledge and passing it unto others. He is famous for saying that “the unexplained life is not worth living.” He endeavored therefore to break down the arguments of those who talked with a flowery language and boasted of being experts in given subjects (Rhees 30). His aim was to show that the person making a claim on wisdom and knowledge was in fact a confused one whose clarity about a given subject was far from what they claimed. Socrates, in all his simplicity never advanced any theories of his own but rather aimed at bringing out the worst in his interlocutors.
As Socrates and Meno were trying to find out the essence of virtues, Socrates said: “The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and 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; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things1.” As he suggested, the soul has already known everything, and thus the acquisition of all knowledge is the process of remembrance, the process of the recalling what we have already known with the help of some hints.
As always happens in Socratic dialog, Socrates is left without an answer to his original question. Socrates wished to know what characteristic all pious actions have in common (that is to say what is both necessary and sufficient for an action to be pious), but Euthyphro, the so-called expert on piety, was shown to not know himself. This is what is common to most other Socratic dialogs. Socrates asks an expert for a practical definition of some virtue, and the supposed expert being asked is shown to not have a coherent and consistent answer.
According to Aristotle, there are two types of virtue. These are: intellectual and moral virtue. Intellectual virtue stems from growth and teaching. In order to be intellectually virtuous one must have a great amount of experience and have allocated a great amount of time in studying whatever task it is they are looking to be virtuous in. On the other hand, moral virtue is given birth through habit. It is not an object that we are just born with it. Moral virtue originates from constant repetition.
I totally agree that Socrates found it important to research about life’s morality and not just think the same way others do. That is a way of proving the knowledge of men. Ones sitting quiet in the corner usually have more knowledge than others that talk so much about what they know. Many men with a high position in life do not always have the most knowledge.
The second problem is Socrates’ answer does not give the definition of virtue nor does it answer Meno’s paradox. All Socrates is saying is that we may be able to recollect the lost knowledge. He does not mention how we can do
Right after Socrates comments how they can both look for virtue, Meno gives him these questions: “How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing you did not know (80d)?” This is Meno’s paradox which explains the discovery of knowledge is impossible and if you do not know what you are learning, and that you cannot discover it either. Meno states in his first premise that you either know what knowledge is or you don’t, and whether you do know it or not, you cannot discover what that piece of knowledge is. This,
Virtue is very tough to define, as evidenced in the difficulty that Socrates, Nicias, and Laches have with trying to define both courage and virtue. In Socrates’ arguments with Nicias, he does seem to indicate that Nicias stumbled into a possible definition of virtue. Socrates says in regards to what Nicias thought was that, “Courage is the knowledge not just of the fearful and the hopeful, but in your [Nicias’] opinion, it would be the knowledge of practically all goods and evils put together” (Laches and Charmides, 199D). However, after Nicias agrees that this is not the definition of courage that Socrates and Nicias are searching for, Socrates asks if “[Does] a man with this kind of knowledge seem to depart from virtue in any respect” (Laches and Charmides, 199D)? The simple answer to this question is no. The definition that was suggested by Socrates for the definition of courage has become the definition of virtue. “Then the thing you are now talking about, Nicias, would seem not be a part of virtue but rather virtue entire” (Laches and Charmides, 199E). To summarize, for a person to be virtuous, he or she must have knowledge of all goods and evils...
In “Apology” by Plato, Socrates stated, “… there are plenty of persons, as soon as enough discover, who think that they know anything, but really know little or nothing” (Plato 32). In other words, humans are imperfect and this explains the limited nature of human knowing. Even when we consider things for a while and in our best operation, we can still make mistakes because we are imperfect. At the same time, the student must know his/her purpose for doing something. “God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men….” (Plato 35), stated Socrates. He knows that his job was to teach the young men to follow his footsteps and live a good and virtuous life. Just like Socrates, our modern education system should be concerned with making sure that students are learning what is truly important. There will be different levels of education as one goes through his or her life cycle. The modern model represents the way of growing through education and continues to change. If one is motivated, he or she will be successful in his or her life and become a better educated person. In the “Apology,” Socrates visited the politicians, poets and artisans to see which group was wiser than him. He realized that all three groups lacked knowledge in some type of way. Socrates stated that the politician “knows nothing, and thinks that he knows” (Plato 31). Both the
When discussing specific knowledge, it is often hard to pin down an exact definition of what it is you are discussing. Often a concept or word will get thrown around so often that it will begin to be taken for granted and when pressed, a person may struggle to pin down specifically what it is they mean. Realizing this, Socrates often went out and attempted to fix these kinds of problems and find out what people actually knew, compared to what they just thought they knew. In the dialogues Euthyphro and Meno, Socrates attempts to pin down definitions for piety and virtue, respectively. In doing so, we are shown that the thinkers in question struggle to define these terms, and attempt to do so in vague terms that may vary heavily under different circumstances. What Socrates is attempting to find is one definitive definition of piety and virtue, what is called his One Form Requirement. Rather than defining something by classifying different parts that make it up, Socrates maintains the belief that piety and virtue both can be simplified into one specific form that describes exactly what makes all F actions F.
Socrates attempts to make other people reason well and therefore be virtuous by performing their human function; I believe that this action inwardly reflects Socrates’s own virtue. For example, if a professor can effectively teach mathematics to his students, then he most likely holds knowledge of the subject within himself. In a similar way, Socrates instills virtue in other people, which shows that he himself is a virtuous being. Although some people criticize him, evidence of his positive impact is reinforced by the approval and support of his friends in the Apology. While promoting virtue when alive, Socrates wishes to continue to encourage virtue even after death. For example, at the onset of his death, Socrates asks the jurors to ensure that his sons are given grief if they care for anything else more than virtue (Plato and Grube 44). While Socrates could have been thinking about himself or other things at that moment, he is thinking of how to guide people towards living virtuously. Both his actions while living and his intentions after death reveal that Socrates wished to aid people in living virtuous lives, which highlight his own state of
Socrates challenges Protagoras if virtue is really something that can be taught and he continues to argue with Protagoras because he simply wants to understand the truth about virtue. He knows that Protagoras has the reputation as being the best and he wants to know the answer. Socrates wants to know if all parts of virtue are separate and distinct or all one and the same. As the argument progresses Protagoras does not give Socrates clear answers to his questions, and the conversation is not going where Socrates wished it would. Socrates continued to ask Protagoras questions, that was until Protagoras could no longer answer the questions, he gave up and realized that in the argument he turned into the answerer. This is probably due to the fact that Socrates wanted the answers, and who else go to for those answers than
In my opinion, Plato’s idea that virtue can’t be taught is correct. But can one learn to be virtuous? One can know what virtuousness is comprised of but that doesn’t necessarily mean that one will be virtuous. This indicates
According to Socrates, a virtue must be consistent and has to be universal to all people. One of the definitions that Meno provided wasn’t for everyone. He named virtues for genders, age, and social status. Different cultures have different types of virtues that may be universal to them. For example Americans believe in tolerance as a virtue. Virtues are universal in cultures. Virtues cannot be universal internationally because factors like nature and nurture come into play. Socrates also believes that a virtue has to be good. The problem with this is that what may be good to someone be may be bad to someone else. Even great philosophers like Socrates can be contradicted using his
He claims that virtue of thought is taught and that virtue of character is habitually learnt. Either way, virtues do not “arise in us naturally” (216, 1103a20). He argues that humans have the capacities for virtues, but they must act on them (216, 1103a30). Thus, a person must learn to use the capability of being virtuous, meaning someone needs to teach them those virtues (217, 1103a10). To be virtuous, it is not just the action that matters, but the reason behind the action too. Aristotle says that a person should be consciously acting virtuous because this would result in him living a happy life (221, 1105a30). This takes time and a person must constantly repeat these actions to achieve the end goal of being virtuous (221,