Is Meno A Phompous Learn?

Is Meno a pompous jerk or is he actually willing to learn? That is the question on my mind at the start of Plato’s dialogue Meno. The truth of it, as it seems, appears to be both. In the dialogue, Meno could be described as rude and abrasive but then later described as inquisitive--searching himself for an answer or answers to the biggest question of his time. Socrates tries his best with his art of conversational thinking and inquiry to push Meno in the direction of self learning. He, in my opinion, falls just short of that place. The method that Socrates uses to teach Meno is both effective and ineffective as Meno begins to learn but fails to grasp the bar of knowledge that Socrates was hoping to reach and falling back into his ignorance.

Meno tries to imply that Socrates is in fact the ignorant one and threatens to tell everyone about it. (71c) This implies that Meno did not ask Socrates because he wanted to learn but that he just wanted to know in an attempt to show off at a later time. He then goes on in 71e to flourish his account of what virtue is/isn’t. He begins his statement by telling Socrates that “First, if you want the virtue of a man, it is easy to say that a man’s virtue consists of being able to manage public affairs...” The language that he uses here is pretentious and pompous. He utterly believes that he knows what virtue is and thinks that he is doing Socrates a favor by telling him

Meno confidently replies that that is so and that he would be able to explain it to Socrates. (72c) But we can tell Meno’s confusion after Socrates asks him whether or not he fully understands what the base commonality of virtues are. (72d) Meno tries to say that he does slightly understand but he’s just not grasping what it is Socrates is trying to get him to grab. This overly exaggerated answer by Meno shows that he wants to sound intelligent like he was trained, but he really has no idea what Socrates is saying. Here he’s trying to keep up his appearances while only halfheartedly admitting that he doesn’t know anything.

This begins Socrates’ rapid firing of questions that ultimately confuse Meno. (72e-74b) His answers to each question show his confusion more and more. When Socrates asks him if justice [was] a virtue or is virtue, Meno could not immediately answer. (73e) When he does answer, however, he admits that justice is in fact a virtue, he begins to list many other virtues as well. This causes Socrates to explain that Meno may know what some virtues are but he has yet to explain the meaning of what virtue is.