Tag: good and evil

Meno of Thessaly

A link to a copy of Plato’s Meno can be found here: http://mat.msgsu.edu.tr/~dpierce/Dersler/Genel-Matematik/plato-meno-loeb.pdf

To properly read a Platonic dialogue is to engage in the act of thinking itself, and this is the whole purpose and reason for their form and content. His writings are not treatises and essays. This engagement in thinking makes them conducive to the thwarting of evil.

If thinking begins with the acknowledgement of ‘knowing that you do not know’, then the unique object that is the Platonic dialogue assists the reader by placing a conundrum or a riddle before the reader’s eye and begging the question from the reader: “What the heck is going on here?” The “what”, “how”, and “why” questions come before one in this unique mode of presentation in the history of philosophy and of thinking. In the dialogue of the Meno, we are shown that virtue or arête, or what “human excellence” is is the search for knowledge that is conducted through thinking. The question of the dialogue, “what is virtue arête?”, is identical with the question of “what is the principle of all value judgements?” This makes it useful for the reflection required in the Core Section of the Theory of Knowledge course.

The dialogues of Plato are more akin to drama and theatre and, therefore, there is an emphasis on the “showing forth before the eye” with them. What is it then that we are to see in a Platonic dialogue? Like Shakespeare, we cannot assume that we are getting the thoughts of the writer Plato through the words of the various characters. When Macbeth says that “Life is an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing”, we cannot presume to say that this is Shakespeare’s view of life. It is the view of life of a man or a character who has committed numerous evils, including (like Gyges in the myth) assassinating a king. This is the life of a man who has violated life’s laws (which is but another name for doing evil: doing evil is violating life’s laws). Macbeth’s fate is to have his head mounted on a stick with a sign saying “Behold the tyrant” written underneath.

The dialogues of Plato are either performative or narrative. The Meno is an example of a performed dialogue; the Republic is an example of a narrative dialogue, and in that particular case, narrated or told by Socrates himself. The dialogues also may be either compelled or freely engaged in. The Meno is an example of a “compelled” dialogue; Socrates is forced to speak even though he may not wish to do so. Because he is compelled to speak, Socrates may not say everything he knows: he will be a dissembler; he will be “ironic”. In theatre, irony is the tone of the language of tragedy; it pervades the language of how the substance of the events that take place are told. Tragedy shows us the nobility of human beings, their excellence, while comedy shows their ‘ugliness’, or their foibles.

The Meno is a dialogue that begins as a comedy and ends as a tragedy or as an “omen” or “prophecy” of the tragedy to come for both Meno and for Socrates. There is also the comic element of presenting an impossibility before one: the whole dialogue of the Meno is the impossibility that a man such as Meno would ask such a question as to what arête or virtue/human excellence is. Based on what we have heard of Meno’s ‘reputation’, we laugh at his asking this question. This impossibility of Meno’s asking the question regarding human excellence shifts into the reality of the tragedy of Socrates’ and Meno’s deaths with the arrival and presence of Anytus, who represents the polis of Athens in the dialogue.

By examining Plato’s dialogue Meno, we can see the “double” nature of learning and thinking as understood in the Greek term anamnesis or “re-collection”. “Re-collection” involves both the double nature of the Logos as well as the two-faced nature of Eros. Meno, a Greek from Thessaly history tells us, was an unscrupulous young man eager to accumulate wealth and subordinated everything else to that end. He is known to have consciously put aside all accepted norms and rules of conduct, was perfidious and treacherous, and perfectly confident in his own cunning and ability to manage things to his own profit. (Xenophon, Anabasis). Historically, Meno was considered an arch-villain for his betrayal of his Athenian mercenaries to the Persian King. For this betrayal, it is said that Meno himself was tortured for a year before he was executed by the Persian King. Meno was also notable for being extremely handsome, and it is said that he used his outward appearance to seduce others to conform to his will. The insatiable desire to pursue and accumulate wealth reveals an insatiable desire to accumulate power, for wealth is power’s master key. Its pursuit outside of any other concerns reveals the thoughtlessness of those who pursue ‘means’, those who are driven by the lower form of eros.

The dialogue Meno has four interlocutors or dramatis personae: Socrates, Meno, Meno’s slave-boy, and Anytus one of the accusers of Socrates. In coming upon Socrates in one of his visits to Athens, he asks Socrates what Socrates thinks “human excellence” or arête is. Arête is usually translated as “virtue”, but the term should be thought without the Christian overtones. “Men: Well Socrates, can you tell me if excellence can be taught? Or is it incapable of being taught but attained instead through practice? Or is it incapable of either being attained through practice or learned, and does it come to people rather by nature or by some other means?” (70a) Can “human excellence” be taught and learned (is it a mathemata, an object of thought?) or is it obtained by “habit”/practice ( through “rote learning” and the repeated exercise of certain actions such as may be observed in ‘pious’ actions much as an athlete achieves greater excellence through repetitions of actions required by their particular sport?) or does it come to people “by nature”, are they born with it i.e., is it from the genes? Responses to these three questions form the structure of the dialogue.

Notice the irony present here, the “unexpectedness” of this event. We might say that its comedy is comparable to a Donald Trump coming upon a Mahatma Gandhi or a Mother Teresa and asking them what “human excellence” or “virtue” is. Its “impossibility” borders on the “irrational”. What is Meno’s purpose in asking such a question? If we visualize what we are reading in the dialogue, we can further see the comedy of the setting. Meno who is handsome, wealthy, powerful (for he is surrounded by a great entourage of admirers) and young, is contrasted with Socrates who is “ugly”, poor, alone and old. But these are ‘outward appearances’ only, and the reality of what these characters are may be something else.

Meno is a house-guest of Anytus, an Athenian politician, who is most note-worthy for accusing Socrates of impiety and corrupting the young resulting in the death of Socrates. Anytus was one of the nouveau riche of Athens and served as a general in the Peloponnesian War. His father was wealthy from his tannery business and Anytus inherited that wealth. As a general, Anytus failed in one of his missions and was accused of treason, which was a common charge against generals who failed in their missions at the time. Rumour had it that Anytus is said to have escaped from the charge by bribing the jury, and it was later said that he also bribed the poet Meletus and other members of the jury to bring the charges against Socrates. Anytus was a ‘corrupt’ politician by ‘hearsay’. We do not have any direct evidence of the accusations made against him.

The first question that we have to ask is why Meno approaches Socrates and asks him what arête is. Why does this arch-villain (by reputation, by hearsay) ask Socrates what human excellence or virtue is? While Meno’s villainy has yet to be demonstrated, is it being suggested that Meno was already “bad” before he met Socrates? The distinction between hearsay and truth, if it cannot be determined from words, must be gathered from the actions which the written words imitate. Is Meno sincere in his asking? For what purpose is his asking? Has he been bribed by Anytus to ‘poke the bear’ that is Socrates and compel him to speak on a subject that will reveal Socrates’ impiety and corruption of the young? Is Meno just looking for some “fun” at Socrates’ expense and is he just showing his ‘meanness’ and ‘bullying’, his ‘cruelty’ in accosting Socrates, a trait shown by wanna’-be tyrants at all times throughout history?

Socrates initially responds to Meno’s question ironically: he notes that the Thessalians’ reputation for horsemanship and moneymaking has now been enhanced by their acquisition of wisdom since the arrival of Gorgias, an infamous sophist. There is the association of eros with the acquisition of wisdom but this is done ironically. Socrates claims that the followers of Gorgias are able to answer in a confident and grand manner all of the questions of which they have absolutely no knowledge.

The connection between the two faces of Eros is established in this introduction. The eros that is sexuality is contrasted to the Eros that is love of the whole, or wisdom, and both are connected to learning and thinking. Gorgias is the rhetorician who speaks to the many, the public; the speech among the few or friends/companions is the private or the dialectic, what we might call ‘talk therapy’. The eros that is sexuality is of the private realm. The public speech looks for victory in eristic discussion; it does not care whether truth is revealed or not. It is the speech of politics par excellence. The private speech between lovers is “useless” to the city or to politics. Socrates tells Meno that if there are any who do know what virtue is, they are ‘specially favoured mortals’. (71b)

We are told that Meno, too, is a student of Gorgias, the famous rhetorician and sophist. Meno claims to have made many speeches to large gatherings on the subject of virtue prior to his discussion with Socrates. Meno’s speeches mimic Gorgias: his thought is ‘imitative’ and he is shown to be incapable of thinking for himself. Socrates claims to have a poor memory and asks Meno to remind him of what Gorgias said on the subject of virtue. Meno’s imitative thinking is shown to be thoughtlessness. An ‘imitative’ thought is not a thought; it is the shadow of a thought.

Meno’s First Response

Meno’s first response is to show that one’s understanding of virtue is based upon one’s social circumstances, the context in which one finds oneself: “MEN: ….for it is according to each activity and age that every one of us, in whatever we do, has his virtue ; and the same, I take it, Socrates, will hold also of vice.” (71e – 72a) Meno’s answer is what we call “common sense”. We may compare Meno’s answer to our response to the question “What do you do?” and we usually respond with the job that we are engaged in: “I am a teacher”, “I am a used-car salesman”, etc. It is the second question following “Who are you?” or “What’s your name?” In both answers we are applying distinctions between ourselves and others and identifying those characteristics that make us the unique being that we are.

The thinking that gathers and assembles a many into a ‘one’ is called dianoia by the Greeks. The gathering and assembling is done through the logos or speech/word or number and it is driven by ‘imitative thought’. This is what artificial intelligence does: it gathers and assembles in speech or number based on a pre-conceived framework or algorithm. While we are capable of identifying and giving a name to the parts of virtue/excellence, we are unable to name that which gives a ‘oneness’ to arête or virtue. The ‘common sense’ understanding does not give us knowledge of what virtue itself is i.e., it provides us with the many eide of the ‘outward appearances’ of virtue but does not give us the idea or oneness of, and thus knowledge of, virtue itself. Meno is unable to answer Socrates’ question. The problem of the one and the many has come to the fore.

Gorgias taught that the actions of human beings lend themselves to genuine imitation in life and in words: “It is not what you say; it is what you do”. This learning and acquisition is what we call ‘habit’ and is the result of habit; we act ‘virtuously’ out of the habit that we have learned through the training given by the society of which we are a member. It is what we call “education”; but instead of being ‘a leading out’, (the word education derives from the Latin educare ‘to lead out’) it is the consolidation of the individual to the collective within. This learning and training is based on the ‘opinion’ of what the society holds most dear and it is reflected in its laws. We are driven to obey these laws by coercion and fear.

Meno’s Second Response

Socrates asks Meno to try again and to give him a response as to what arête is in its singularity. Meno responds that it is “the power to rule over other human beings”, the dynamis politike. Because Meno is the man that he is, Socrates must ask: “To rule justly, or not?” Meno’s response is one of ‘political convenience’: to rule justly, of course, for justice is virtue. Socrates reminds Meno that justice is ‘a virtue’, not virtue itself.

Socrates introduces the example of the schema or figure and suggests “roundness” or the sphere. A schema is a closed, a visible thing i.e., its ‘shape’, its ‘outward appearance’ eidos indicates what it is. Shapes are many, as the geometrical forms are many. But the ‘one’ behind the many outward shapes (eidos) is the idea. A sphere is capable of containing all the many geometrical forms. A shaped surface always accompanies colour. We are aware of shapes only by seeing colours: they are co-extensive and “identical” i.e. they are not the Same. Chroma (colour) and schema (figure) are complementary. Schema needs “body” (res extensa) and body needs colour (chroma). A schema is that which is bounded, limited and is contained by these boundaries and limits. (If we think of our word “information”, we can say that it is the “form” that “informs”.)

“Knowledge” always accompanies “human excellence”; they are complementary. Just as the sphere is capable of containing all shapes and figures within it, white is capable of containing all other colours (light). The knowledge that arises from the knowledge of terms or concepts is based on ‘habit’, the collection and assemblage of data within the form that informs. The ‘habit’ identifies the way of knowing of the technicians or technites who proceed as if they knew what the entities are with which they start with as obvious and end up—when everyone agrees on the terms—with what they set out to investigate. This is the essence of artificial intelligence. It is the application of knowing and making i.e. technology (logos + techne).

Being taught by Gorgias, Meno is searching for a ‘verbal victory’ in his discussions with others without caring the slightest for the matter under discussion. Socrates tells Meno that he will try to speak with him as a ‘friend’ (dialectic) and not as one of those who search for verbal victories. Are we to presume that somehow this discussion is being carried on privately? Are there not around listening to the conversations between Socrates and Meno? Dialectic is ‘friendship’, serious conversation. Socrates will not use any unknown terms with Meno homologia “the same logoi“, but will try to use the terms that Meno is familiar with so that their conversation can proceed.

We are shown that Meno’s memory is faulty. Gorgias’ teaching is memory or the “re-collection” of the opinions of others. It is ‘historical knowledge’ and a ‘repeating’, rooted in a technē developed by the rhetoricians. Memory itself is two-fold and is tied to the two-faced nature of Eros. Its contribution to knowledge and thought can lead one downwards or upwards. There is no memory without experience, and there is no experience without memory. When memory is tied to the images and shadows of the opinions regarding the things that are, it will remain bound to or limited by the surface or outward appearances of things. These things manifest themselves to us as beautiful and we are urged to take possession of them for we believe we have a need of them and, indeed, the soul does have a need for them. But just as Eros is a two-faced being so, too, is the soul a ‘two-faced’ being, being an ‘embodied soul’. Psyche is wedded to Eros.

When trying to get Meno to tell him what arête or human excellence is, Socrates is aware that doing so is not going to be done by “reasoned discourse”. Meno, because of his outward handsomeness and beauty, loves flattery, and to convince him, he must be flattered. He tyrannizes those who follow him. His outward beauty hides the ugliness that is the depth of his ‘shallow’ soul. Meno’s thinking is always ‘coloured’ by what other people say and by what has some standing or reputation in the eyes of the collective. Memories provide the horizons or boundaries in which we live and memory and its contents are complementary. The memories of the collective are the doxa of the collective.

At (77b) in the dialogue, Meno says “excellence is what the poet says it is, “to delight in beauties and to have power”. The delight in ‘beauties’ is sexuality, but also having possession and control over those ‘beautiful things’. What are the grounds for attributing goodness or badness to things? The longing for something is the desire to take possession of it, to make it one’s own. The desire for good things can sometimes turn into an obsession regarding their possession. People sometimes choose bad things because they believe that they will do them some good and bring about their happiness. Socrates says elsewhere that “what else is misery but the desiring of evil and obtaining it”. Knowledge is what makes people choose the good things; ignorance enables or is responsible for their choosing the ‘bad’ things. Knowledge enables eudaimonia or happiness, while ignorance results in misery.

For Meno, human excellence is the ability to take possession of the good things which, for Meno, is the ‘getting’ of gold and silver, not the ability, the ‘know how’ (dynamis) to do so. Socrates finds that having to ask and add to Meno’s second attempt to define arête “according to what is just in the eyes of men and the gods” illustrates what kind of human being Meno is. The getting of wealth requires the addition of “justice” or “moderation” or “piety” or some other part of human excellence, which requires knowledge of some kind, but this is superfluous to Meno.

Meno’s second attempt to define arête has still not resolved the problem of the ‘one and the many’ that arose in the first part of the discussion and was depicted by Socrates as ‘a swarm of bees.’ As with the Good and the ‘good things’ that are such because they participate in the Good, the distinction between the eidos and the idea is that with the eidos of the ‘outward appearances of things’, their forms or shapes, one has a many while with the idea we are dealing with ‘ones’. The eide are the many goods or the many virtues that are not the good or virtue itself. Is there a ‘bad’ itself? An answer to this question is what is being attempted in this writing.

The theme of searching and learning is central to the Meno. Meno’s argument is: “It is not given to man to search for anything, neither for what he knows nor for what he does not know: he would not search for what he knows for he already knows it and there is no need for any search; nor would he search for what he does not know for he would not know what to search for.” (80 d-e) Socrates strongly disagrees with Meno and says “…I have heard (and heard of) men as well as women with an expert knowledge of the highest things…” Meno cuts Socrates off; he wants to know who they are. Socrates says he has heard from others who are ‘priests’, and ‘priestesses’, and ‘poets’ regarding the highest things i.e. he has heard from others about these things. One first hears from others whom one has come to ‘trust’ before one proceeds to question and to ‘know for one’s self’ and to take possession of such knowledge.

In order to have a discussion and exchange opinions, to hear from others, we must agree on some starting points. (This is why there is no conversing with the ‘alternative facts’ people in America and why conversations with them are simply a ‘talking past’ each other. If the ‘showing forth’ of the truth of something is not the goal of the logos then there is no point in engaging with people who are not motivated by ‘a good will’ to search for the truth of the thing under discussion.)

We constantly talk around ‘unknowns’ (X) since this allows us to talk about the ‘properties’ of something, even though we do not know what the thing itself is. “Knowledge”, although “one” in itself, appears to be in many parts i.e. the arts and the sciences. “Knowledge” appears to be one of the ultimate archai or “beginnings” of all being, and this is its association with Eros, the Logos, and the soul. In the modern age, we have come to conclude that what gives us this knowledge is “reason”. The “Other”, the oneness of which is nothing but its being divided throughout into parts (for an “other” is always an “other” of an “other” i.e. the sphere and other figures) is the beginning on which the differences between one thing and any other thing depend and from which all duality and plurality stem: it makes a “world” possible. In the modern, it is “reason” which makes this world possible.

The tripartite soul of the individual human being mirrors the tripartite nature of the Divine Soul. In Greek myth Psyche, the most beautiful of mortal beings, is wed to Eros, the child of Aphrodite (Beauty itself, desire itself), and Ares (“spiritedness”, “will”, courage, anger), although some versions of the myth have Aphrodite wed to Hephaestus, the artisan or technite of the gods. Still other versions of the myth have Eros as the most primordial of the gods. It is through Eros’ doing, his love for Psyche, that Psyche gains her immortality. The Latins began the great denigration of the figure of Eros by turning him into the modern day Cupid.

The immortal soul through “re-collection” is capable of learning the “whole” since it already knows the whole but has forgotten it. Learning is a “seeing”, but not the seeing that we are familiar with as a sense perception. There is a discrepancy and a distinction between knowing something and knowing what somebody else has said about that something, and about seeing something for one’s self and seeing it as someone else has seen it. To see it as someone else has seen it is like looking at a photograph or painting or image of the thing.

The logoi are given to us as either number or word. Human beings are distinguishable from all other beings because they possess the logoi. The pre-existence of the soul depends on the existence of intelligible objects. The proper condition of the soul is phronesis or wise judgement which arises from the knowledge or ‘experience’ of these intelligible objects. The knowledge that the soul possesses is acquired at some moment in time. The soul which lasts forever never ceases to exist in time. Nature never ceases to exist in time. The question “why” comes to the fore when we are unable to understand what presents itself to our immediate experience. The things we see are images of the intelligible originals (ideai) in spite of the widespread opinion that “mere” words and their meanings do nothing but reflect and possibly distort their “reality” before us.

There is something by itself that is ‘beautiful’, ‘good’, ‘big’, and so on, and there is a connection between these intelligible objects and Being itself. Something is beautiful because it partakes in Beauty itself. This partaking is what the Greeks understood as parousia, the ‘being-alongside-of-something-in-its-presence’. In the dialogue Meno , what is understood as arête or excellence comes to presence with the parousia of knowledge (phronesis) and prudence (sophrosyne). With this partaking, the “seeing” is doubled: there is both the eide or the outward appearances of things that is grasped through sense perception, and the ideai or the things as they are comprehended by the intelligence or the sight of the invisible. Each of the eide is something that has being; and by sharing in those eide, things come to derive their names. It is through the sharing or participating in the eide that everything comes to be as it is.

At the very centre or peak of the dialogue of Plato’s Meno, Socrates attempts to show how learning is “re-collection” (anamnesis) by using one of Meno’s slave boys as an illustration of how learning can come about.  Being at the centre, the section of the dialogue with the slave-boy is the peak of the action of either the comedy or the tragedy that is the dialogue. Given that the solution to the mathematical problem posed to the slave-boy is an “impossibility”, we can say that the dialogue is, overall, a comedy in its nature. On the other hand, given that the solution to the mathematical problem is an “irrational number”, an “unspeakable entity”, the aura of tragedy also appears to pervade the whole of the action of the dialogue. Again, it should be remembered that the Greek word mathemata means “what can be learned and what can be taught”. The main theme or question of the dialogue Meno is whether arête or virtue is something that can be learned or can be taught or if it is acquired through the dispensation of the gods, and the purpose of both tragedy and comedy is to show that arête (or lack thereof) in action.

The two-faced nature of Eros is present throughout the “double” appearance that is the dialogue of the Meno. How we answer a question is not a “yes” or “no” choice but the choice between two possible ways of arriving at an answer. How we answer may not be related to what the question is about. We, like Meno, may be moved by our desire to please or to harm other people, or the urge to satisfy our vanity, or the pursuit of some plan that may be important for us or, as is most often the case, on what we have heard other people say, persuasively or casually. Or again, we can respond directly to what the question is about and try to give a ‘truthful account’. If asked our opinion, what we “think” about a given subject, we can try to find and state what seems necessarily inherent in or connected to the subject. We must submit ourselves to the necessity revealed by our thinking. It is the only necessity that is in our power to submit or not to submit to. To do so, we must look “inside” ourselves. This is the essence of what we call our “freedom”. Meno’s inability to submit to the questioning shows his lack of freedom.

The “looking inside ourselves” can make us understand and “learn” as to whether or not the response is necessarily true or false and respond “yes” or “no”. The two ways of responding are the two ways of arriving at an “opinion”. The teacher is not “responsible” (aitios > from aitia “the cause of…”) for the pupil’s learning: the “responsibility” is the pupil’s own. “One thing is what is truly responsible (for something), another thing is that without which what is responsible could not possibly become effectively responsible.” If there is “teaching” and “learning”, their relationship is not simply a “causal” one. (This relates to Eros’ or Love’s penetrating the soul and is the reason why Eros is depicted as shooting arrows. The soul has to assent to the penetration or the arrows will simply bounce off of the soul that has hardened itself against penetration. The virtue of courage, for example, is derived from Love but first that Love must penetrate the soul.)

Socrates and the Slave-boy: Part three

In the mathematical example, Socrates’ question to the young slave boy is: “Given the length of the side of a square, how long is the side of a square the area of which is double the area of the given square?” (85d13 – e6) As we know (and Meno does not), the given side and the side sought are “incommensurable magnitudes” and the answer in terms of the length of the given side is “impossible” (if post-Cartesian notions and notations are barred). The side can only be drawn and seen as “shown”:

Stage One (82b9 – a3): The “visible” lines are drawn by Socrates in the dust emphasizing their temporality, their being images. Images, whether constructed with numbers or words i.e. the logoi, are ‘imitative’ thoughts.There are two feet to the side of the “square space”. The square contains 4 square feet. What is the side of the “double square”? The slave boy’s answer: “Double that length.” The boy’s answer is misled by the aspect of “doubleness”. He sees “doubleness” (as we do) as an “expansion” of the initial square rather than a “withdrawal” of that square to allow the “double” to be. We need to keep this “double” aspect in mind when we are considering the seeing and meaning of the Divided Line as it was presented in Part I of this writing.

Stage Two: When the figure is drawn using the boy’s response (“double that length”), the size of the space is 4 times the size when only the double was wanted. The side wanted will be longer than that of the side in the first square and shorter than that of the one shown in the second square. In this second stage, the boy is perplexed and does not think he knows the right answer of which he is ignorant. Being aware of his own ignorance, the boy gladly takes on the burden of the search since successful completion of the quest will aid in ridding him of his perplexity.

Socrates contrasts the slave boy and Meno: when Meno’s second attempt at finding the essence of “human excellence” (arête) failed earlier in the dialogue when he claimed that “human excellence” was in having and retaining power, Meno’s own words are said to him; but Meno, knowing “no shame” in his “forgetfulness” of himself, resorts to mocking and threatening Socrates. (This resort to violence is characteristic of those lacking in “self-knowledge”.)  One cannot begin the quest to know when one thinks one already knows, when one thinks that one is in possession of the truth. The “conversion” of our thinking occurs when one reaches an aporia or “a dead end” and falls into a state of perplexity, becomes aware of one’s own ignorance, and experiences an erotic need for knowledge to be rid of the perplexity. The quest for knowledge results in an “opinion”: a “justified true belief”. The human condition is to dwell within and between the realm of thought and opinion.

Stage Three: The boy remains in his perplexity and his next answer is “The length will be three feet”. The size then becomes 9 square feet when the boy’s answer is shown to him by Socrates as he draws the figure shown on the left.

The number sequence is significant. We have gone from a 1 to a 4 to a 9 to a 16 (or 16 to a 9) in the expanding sequence.

Stage Four: Socrates draws the diagonals inside the four squares. Each diagonal cuts each of the squares in half and each diagonal is equal. The space (4 halves of the small squares) is the correct answer. It is the diagonal of the squares that gives the correct answer. The diagonals are “inexpressible lengths” since they are what we call “irrational numbers”. (We note that the square drawn by Socrates is the same square that is present in the intersection of two cones of the gyres that were shown previously in Part I of this writing and will be later shown again in this writing.) We who are modern are no longer perplexed by the mystery of the One and what a “one” is and, therefore, give it no further thought, although the recent discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope are bringing the question back to forefront again.

The diagonal in the illustration at Stage Four is the hypotenuse of the right-angled triangle that is formed: a^{2 +} b^{2 =} c². Pythagoras is said to have offered a sacrifice to the gods upon this discovery, for to him it showed the possibility of true, direct encounters with the divine, and true possibilities for redemption for human beings from the human condition, the movement from thought and opinion to gnosis. But 1² + 1² does not equal the hypotenuse given in the result, and 2² results in the slave-boy’s first response. Some silly modern mathematicians see this as a refutation of Pythagoras and his geometry rather than as the origin of that geometry, the point where thinking and contemplation begins, not where it ends. To achieve the result arrived at by Socrates requires the intervention of a third: the crossing lines that partition the initial square from a one to a four. These crossing lines are Time and Space themselves.

For the Pythagoreans, human beings were considered “irrational numbers”. They believed that this best described that ‘perfect imperfection’ that is human being, that “work” that was “perfect” in its incompleteness. This view contrasts the Sophist Protagoras’ statement that “Man is the measure of all things”, for how could something incomplete be the measure of anything. The irrational number (1 + √5) /2 approximately equal to 1.618 was, for the Pythagoreans, a mathematical statement illustrating the relation of the human to the divine. It is the ratio of a line segment cut into two pieces of different lengths such that the ratio of the whole segment to that of the longer segment is equal to the ratio of the longer segment to that of the shorter segment. This is the principle of harmonics on stringed musical instruments, but this principle operated, the Pythagoreans believed, on the moral/ethical level as well. “The music of the spheres” which is the world of these harmonic vibrations and relations provided for the Pythagoreans principles for human action or what the Greeks called sophrosyne, what we understand as ‘moderation’, since any of the relations which were not precise would be ‘out of tune’.)

A statement attributed to Pythagoras is: “The soul is a number which moves of itself and contains the number 4.” One could also add that the human soul contains the number 3 which was the principle of self-movement (Time) for it consists of three parts (past, present, and future), thus giving us 4 + 3 = 7, the 4 being the res extensa of material in space, i.e., the body. 7 was a sacred number for the Pythagoreans for it was both the ’embodied soul’ of the human being as well as the ‘Embodied Soul’ of the Divine which is the physical world before us.

In terms of present day algebra, the divine ratio can be constructed by letting the length of the shorter segment be one unit and the length of the longer segment be x units. This gives rise to the equation (x + 1)/x = x/1; this may be rearranged to form the quadratic equation  x² – x – 1 = 0, for which the positive solution is x = 1 + √5)/2 or the golden ratio.

If we conceive of the 0 as non-Being, we can conceive of the distinction between modern day algebra and the Greek understanding of number. For the Pythagoreans, the whole is the 1 and the part is some other number than the 1 (x). It should be noted that the Greeks rejected Babylonian (Indian) algebra and algebra in general as being ‘unnatural’ due to its abstractness, and they had a much different conception of number than we have today. (The German philosopher Heidegger in his critique of Plato’s doctrine of the truth and of the Good shown in Bk VII of Republic, for example, deals with the Good as an abstract concept thus performing an exsanguination on the political life and the justice that is shown in the concrete details of Bk VI as well as the rest of the dialogue of Republic. Heidegger’s text on Plato was written in 1933, the year he became a member of the Nazi party. Is this the reason that Heidegger failed to recognize the Great Beast that was Nazi Germany in 1933? And was it this unwillingness to recognize this fact that allowed this philosopher to tragically succumb to that Beast?)

The Pythagoreans and their geometry are not how we look upon mathematics and number today. Our view of number is dominated by algebraic calculation. The Pythagoreans were viewed as a religious cult even in their own day. For them, the practice of geometry was no different than a form of prayer or piety, of contemplation, attention, and reflection. The Greek philosopher Aristotle called his former teacher, the Greek philosopher Plato, a “pure Pythagorean”.

This “pure Pythagoreanism” is demonstrated in Plato’s illustration of the Divided Line which is none other than an application of the golden mean or ratio to all the things that are and how we apprehend or behold them. The detailed example from Plato’s Republic is given in the first part of this writing.  The demonstration of the slave-boy’s anamnesis or recollection is a further example of the same principles contained in the Divided Line and demonstrates Plato’s Pythagoreanism.

The importance of Pythagorean ideas to Plato’s work cannot be underestimated. Examples of the doctrines of the Pythagoreans such as rebirth, initiation, “purification”, the spherical earth, ethical themes related to “magnitudes” and their relations, musical harmony, Orphic rituals and the mysteries are to be found in abundance throughout his dialogues. The geometry of the Greeks revealed to them that the earth was spherical and not flat.

In Plato’s work, “re-collection” is distinguished from “rote learning”. The teaching of Gorgias is an example of rote learning. Rote learning is the sequencing of things not resembling each other which are perceived through the senses; they lack clarity and meaning. “Images” of things are such that they are an image of an image. These are the things belonging to eikasia or the “imagination”.

The world as “image” reminds us of the original through the image. The outward appearance of the beauty of the world reminds us of the original Beauty in which that outward beauty participates. This remembrance of the original is called anamnesis or “re-collection”. For example, if we speak of equal things the equal itself is not confined within the domain of the visible, although we can only acquire knowledge of the equal itself from the visible. The quality of the equality of things on a visible level is a flawed one: two visible things are not quite equal (B = C in the Divided Line). Perfect equality can never be found in the visible things since they would be identical and would then be a one . We can perceive the “approximately equal” because we know of the “equal itself”. Because we know the equal itself, we are able to “recollect” this knowledge and relate the visible to an “intelligible original” which is not visible. The act of relating is done through the logos present in dianoia eikasia, “the thoughtful imagination”. We liken properties of visible things to the more precise invisible objects of thought, the nearly equal to the equal itself. “Re-collection” is the gathering together into a ‘one’ of the eidenai or knowledge of the outward appearances of things and taking possession of it, making it our own. What we call learning is the recovering of the knowledge that we already have.

The soul’s pre-existence depends on the existence of intelligible objects. Its state is phronesis, the “wise judgement” that comes from “experience”. The soul exists in time: the knowledge that the soul possesses is acquired at some moment in time. The soul exists after Death due to its unchanging nature and the timeless order of being. The soul which lasts forever never ceases to exist in Time. The soul assimilated into the One or the Good Itself exists outside of Time.

There are two ways of being engaged in thought. Dianoia (thought) can be a comparing or separating: it distinguishes those who make illusions from those who make images, those who are propagandists and gaslighters from those who are myth-makers. In the Divided Line this is the realm of AB, the realm of the Visible. The Divided Line begins with diaeresis, the thinking that separates, and culminates with noesis or gnosis. Diaeresis attempts to define what something is by separating it into distinctive “ones” or “species”. Dianoia brings the multiple qualities or the categories  of a thing into a “oneness” again, a genus. This leads to our development of taxonomies.

Arithmos is a “counting” and a “counting on”. We use our fingers to count. Diaeretic thinking (“one” finger) gives us enough clarity about things that we are not urged to raise any questions about them. Other perceptions are perplexing and confusing (a finger appears big or small, hard or soft, thick or thin) because “opposite qualities” have been “mixed” up in them. That we are perplexed about such things manifests the dianoia or the thought in them. To apprehend “contradiction” or “opposition” is dianoia and shows that dianoia is in the things and not in the senses. Things can be “good” or “evil” in different respects. “Good” and “evil” are each a “one” but together are “two”. Our sense of sight without the help of dianoia (thought) cannot distinguish between the two. Dianoia does so. Diaeretic thinking is deductive in nature; dianoic is inductive. Diaeresis leads downward; dianoia leads upward and gives “depth” to things. The looking “inwards” provides a depth to things that cannot be achieved by looking at their surfaces only.

Counting and numbering done with the fingers (arithmos) is a discriminating and a relating. We separate and combine the things we count i.e., three chairs. Counting is logismos and underlies any act of diaeresis. In counting, we substitute “pure invisible ones/units” which do not differ from each other. In counting three chairs, we overlook their particularity as separate, distinct chairs. By measuring through arithmos and logistic, the technai, we acquire a more precise meaning with regard to the “bigger than…”, “harder than…”, “thinner than…”. The physical, visible things of the Divided Line (AB) are used as “images” becoming transformed in thought into invisible objects, numbers, geometrical entities or what we term the “mathematical” or that which can be learned and that which can be taught and thought. When we do so, we can do so because the structure or schema can be precisely investigated, understood, learned and easily remembered. These objects of thought give greater clarity or “unconcealment” (aletheia) than that which is present in visible things and the rays of the Sun cannot remove this lack of clarity or unconcealment or its “precision”. Precision and correctness come to the fore. There is some unconcealing of things in ‘true opinion’ but it, nevertheless, remains opinion.

Knowledge understood as epistemological is dependent on, and in relation to, the higher section of the Divided Line (CD). Socrates at 534a4-5 of Republic, shows that episteme (theoretical thought) is to pistis (trust, faith, belief) as natural and technical thought is to imagination. The natural thought exercised in the visible world is changed into the unconcealing power of dialectical insight with the conversion or turn about of the entire soul. It marks the beginning of a new life of philosophia tolerable only to a few. It is constantly in conflict with our natural and technical thinking which is turned toward the visible world and immersed in it. Socrates, through the images of the Cave and the Divided Line as well as the demonstration with the slave-boy in the Meno, takes us on an ascending path.

Because we are “embodied souls”, it is Memory that is associated with our understanding of need, or the urge that is behind the eros of our needs. Need is the essential condition of our human being. Need is not evil itself, but the deprivation of good. Our memory retains our immediate experience based on sense perceptions. It is the repository of the knowledge acquired in one’s lifetime and of what was learned during the journey with the god prior to one’s life (Phaedrus). It is the source of our desires which depend on previous fulfillment and insight.

Learning is the removal of forgetfulness and is a quest. The journey toward the light cannot be undertaken by “rote learning” i.e. memorization or by the techniques of rhetoric as taught by Gorgias. This merely results in the learning of the opinions of others that results in the recitation of stock phrases, cliches, the language of the meme. It results in oppression, not freedom. The acquisition of skills, the gathering of information of all kinds, the convictions and practices which govern the conduct of our lives all depend on the medium of accepted opinions. Our memory is the repository of those opinions. The action of learning conveys the truth about those opinions. It is not a “theory of knowledge” or “epistemology” but the very effort to learn.

Modern science, through Newton and Galileo, made the principle of unlimited straight movement (Time and being) its understanding of the schema or structure of things rather than the principle of circular movement. This is why, for Plato, science cannot think since it is constantly directed toward the ‘shadows’ of things rather than to the things themselves. Rather than the physical objects themselves being the symbols of the higher things of thought, the symbols of thought (the numbers and signs of algebraic calculation) determine the nature of the physical things. The things no longer become objects of perplexity but rather objects that can be manipulated and “used” through the application of the forces identified within the schema.

This long digression from the height of the dialogue of the Meno is an attempt to clarify the nature of thought and thinking and to illustrate why evil as a surface phenomenon has its roots in the power that manifests itself in the manipulation of ready-to-hand objects that are understood only as “shadows”. This “knowing” and “making” manipulation shall become clearer in Parts III and IV of this writing.

If “thought” is present within the physical things themselves and is not placed there by human beings, then thoughtlessness, too, must also be a possibility for human beings and things when viewing and understanding the nature of physical objects. Being has need of human beings. In the demonstration with the slave-boy, the object that is the original square drawn in the dust “withdraws” to allow the “double” square to be by its coming to appearance. The double square can only be by the seeing of an object of an “unspeakable length”, the irrational number. In our ”natural” manner of thinking, this irrationality is “skipped over”, and with this skipping over, so too our perplexity regarding the natures of things.

This benumbing perplexity of giving thought to things is captured by Meno’s calling Socrates a “stingray” or a “torpedo fish” that causes its victims to be unable to act. In his Apology, Socrates compares himself to a gadfly, a pest that keeps one awake. The arousal of the gadfly can have a number of consequences: the arousal can lead to license and cynicism due to the lack of content together with being taught how to think, changing the non-results or “uselessness” of thought into negative results: since we can’t define what piety or evil is, let’s be impious or act as we wish. Nihilism is an ever-present danger with thinking. It is, partially, the attempt to find results where further thinking is no longer necessary. Nihilism is at the heart of what we commonly understand as thinking today.

The quest for knowledge is a love, desiring for what is not there. Since it is a “love” and “desire”, the objects of thought can only be lovable things – beauty, wisdom, justice – the Good. Ugliness and evil are excluded by definition from thinking’s concern. Evil and ugliness are deficiencies or deprivations of good. They have no roots of their own, no essence of which thought can get hold. They are shadows and are akin to the “statues of Daedalus” which run away because they have no “knowledge” to yoke them in place. They are subject to revolution and change because they are subject to the corruption of time.

“Re-collection” is the key to self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is the key to freedom and to “human excellence”. In responding to Socrates’ questions, the slave-boy demonstrates that what we think we know gives us an “illusory” empowerment and confidence, whereas when we know that we do not know, we are in a state of perplexity. (84b) The slave-boy’s willingness to learn shows him to have a higher arête than the wealthy, handsome Meno. Even in his slavishness, he is free whereas Meno, due to his unwillingness to learn, is not. To be in a state of perplexity is higher than being in a state of certainty that derives from “opinion”. This is ironically alluded to by Socrates in wishing to return to the question of virtue following the demonstration. (86e)

Socrates makes clear that Meno lives by his belief in his second response that virtue is command over other human beings and being in control of the dynamis or potential for obtaining what are perceived as the “good things” i.e. money and reputation, the gratification that comes from the possession of ‘beauties’. Meno’s understanding of “freedom” is “license” i.e. acting on one’s whims. Such a view of freedom comes from lack of self-knowledge. That thinking and acting which is dominated by the urge to control does not first seek to ask what the thing is but, dealing with the surface of the phenomenon, attempts to determine how best to reach the end or completion of the thing so that the thing will become “useful” to the individual. (86e) The truth of Meno’s character and the nature of his soul is coming more to the light.

Socrates ironically alludes to himself as Meno’s “slave” and thus establishes a connection between himself and the slave-boy who both have higher dignity or arête because they are willing to enquire and learn whereas Meno (and Anytus who follows after him) have no desire to do so, believing that they are already in possession of the truth. In this section of the dialogue, it is clear that it is eros that tempts the soul to succumb to the beauty of the outward appearances of things including the beauty of other human beings. These things are of the realm of Necessity and are subject to the same laws. The power of our “natural” thinking stems from our interpretation and under-standing of Necessity, and it is this understanding that leads to the conclusions that are arrived at. It involves our determination of what a thing is before we understand the nature of the thing.

In section (87a-b) of the dialogue, Socrates proposes that he and Meno proceed in their inquiry through the use of an “hypothesis”. He will follow the technai of the geometrician when attempting to solve the problem of whether a triangle can be inscribed in a circle (sphere) containing a rectangle where the triangle (the soul) is equal in area to the given rectangle (square? the body?). The question of what is arête is conceived as a triangle. Socrates will approach the question using what is considered to be the “natural” direction of thought.

If virtue is knowledge, then it must be teachable; but error, too, is also teachable as well as “opinion” and the providing of misinformation. The triangle that is virtue arête is composed of knowledge, sophrosyne (moderation), and phronesis (“wise judgement). The errors that occur within the action that is arête or human excellence are due to the lack of moderation and the lack of judgement regarding what the goodness of those actions might be. (Below are two attempts to illustrate Socrates’ rectangle within the circle. Which is correct?)

In looking at Socrates approach in this section of the dialogue, we have to distinguish between the two different types of thinking. Going back to Plato’s Divided Line will aid us here. We have a different kind of eikasia (Imagination) in our  thought than in the visible world. The domains of eikasia and pistis (faith, trust, belief) are together called the domain of “opinion”. The object of “opinion” lies between what is and what is not and exhibits the character of an “image” or “shadow”. Thought (dianoia) instead of ascending from the foundations upwards towards its source (the Good) moves downwards towards a final completion, result or “work” i.e. the visible things, the artifacts of human making. One aspect of our thought is always engaged in supplying “foundations” for what has to be clarified or revealed i.e. our under-standing. Visible things depend on, or are “obliged to”, “intelligible originals”; “intelligible originals” depend on the Good. With each stage in thinking comes greater clarity or unconcealment. The downward path, the paths of hypothesis and supposition, lead away from the source of the Good, repeating the pattern of all “technical” as well as “natural” thinking; and this is illustrated in the downward movement of the gyres in the illustration provided.

The “suppositions” and “hypotheses” of thought are turned into “sources” or archai, laws and principles. The various technai remain concerned with the visible and do not deal with the obscurity of their own “beginnings” and so, according to Plato, do not deserve the name of “knowledge”. They cannot account for their own sources and so their clarity or unconcealment is between “knowledge” and “opinion”. The power to account for their sources is not given to mortal human beings. As is shown in the allegory of the Cave, we need to reverse our direction of our search and turn our attention to the source(s) from which our thinking achieves its clarifying or unconcealing function in revealing truth.

The counting and numbering, the “natural” activity we undertake with regard to the visible things of our familiar, trusted world is an “imitating” of what Plato refers to as the “dialectical” dividing and collecting which thinking undertakes on the higher level. The objects on the higher level are collections or assemblages of intelligible units which are not “indifferent mathematical monads”, such as 8 “ones” counted up to the sum of 8 such as can be thrown together, but are invisible and uncountable eide, so that the 8 itself is an uncountable eide. The assemblages of the eide are the domain of the intelligible. Their “shadows” are the numbers used in the technai of arithmetic and logistic which are our basic manner of “natural” thought which provide the foundations for our basic understanding of thought.

The movement of thinking follows from a better understanding of the part to a better understanding of the whole as is shown in the illustration of the gyres. The part is enclosed within the whole. We cannot know the part without knowing the whole, and we cannot know the whole without knowing the part. The elusiveness of truth cannot be overcome and we are only capable of striving for knowledge. “Analytic” deals with “unknowns” and proceeds “inductively” in its method to make them “knowns”. The parts are known while the whole is unknown. Our opinions and the things themselves have this characteristic.

The question of “what is virtue arête?” is identical with the question of “what is the principle of all value judgements?”. We moderns distinguish judgements of “fact” from judgements of “value”. This “fact – value” distinction results in the lack of a “moral compass” so prevalent today. Judgements of value require a greater attention, contemplation and thought than those judgements that derive regarding judgements of fact. Meno has a low understanding of virtue arête which adheres to the most common understanding of virtue arête. Adherence to the most common understanding results in the tyrant as was shown in the myth of Er of Bk X of Republic.

“Excellent men” are “good” men by virtue of their excellence i.e., by their possession of virtue or excellence. Being “good men”, they are “beneficial”, for everything that is good does us some good. The things that do us some good can also bring us harm depending on how we use them. The “right use” is key. Phronesis wise judgement and sophrosyne “self-control, docility” or “prudence” aid the soul in its engagement with being-in-the-world and in our being-with-others so that the soul is led to happiness. When the soul is misled by lack of judgement, misery is the result.

The “beneficial” and the “good” are used interchangeably in the dialogue. Phronesis, although not identical with knowledge always appears linked with knowledge “as knowledge of some kind”. Phronesis is “like” sophrosyne although not identical to it. Whenever something beneficial comes into being, this may be said to be phronesis. For Socrates, the domain of knowledge encompasses the domain of goodness. The domain of phronesis completely encompasses the domain of the beneficial. The exercise of wise judgement is a part of arête virtue, excellence. This is to be understood as parousia.

Beauty, when it is seen by us as the beauty of the world, has lost its “wholeness” but not its “splendour”. This “splendour” urges us to find its wholeness once again, and it is the root of sexual attraction and love. Both phronesis and beauty can be found among us as parousia. Phronesis may have lost its “splendour” but not its “wholeness”. Phronesis is what makes human beings excel, but it is inconspicuous. Its “splendour” is the “beauty within”, and it is rooted in self-knowledge. Wise judgement through experience or action is not “forgotten”. “Good men” are not born good “by birth”.

The Arrival of Anytus: Part IV

The arrival of Anytus into the dialogue is that point where the dialogue turns from a comedy into a tragedy, although tragic undertones and possibilities have been present throughout as with any comedy. Anytus is the representative of the city of Athens in all its glory and wealth, as well as all its pettiness, depravity and corruption. His replies to Socrates questions are brief, reluctant and condescending. Anytus’ presence comes to the fore when Socrates expresses his doubts about whether arête is teachable or not since he himself has found no teachers of it in his journey. Anytus is the outward appearance of what Athens has taken as its notion of arête virtue and is the model or paradigm upon which the opinions and interpretations of virtue are based.

The conversation with Anytus has the main theme of the search for the “teachers of virtue” and begins with a discussion of excellence as a technai or a “competence” in some skill whether it be medicine or shoemaking or flute playing. (90 b) The learning of excellence or competence is a product of memory since those who are skilled must have learned their skills from someone or somewhere at some point in time. If you want your child to learn medicine or cobbling or flute-playing, you would send them to an appropriate technite for them to learn the skill. The teacher would accept payment for teaching their skill. It would be folly anoia or absurd alogia to send a child who wants to learn a certain art to someone who does not want to teach for a fee (here it should be remembered that Socrates did not teach for a fee) or to someone who has no desire to teach. Anytus adds that “It would be stupidity to boot”.

With the question of excellence or virtue, however, things are different. Who are the teachers of virtue? Gorgias, the sophist, is a teacher of rhetoric: “the ability to speak to and for the many, the multitude”. To persuade the many involves “bewitching” them to a degree, gaslighting them. Anytus condemns the sophists, although he has not met any. He condemns by “hearsay”. This is in contrast to Socrates who knows of Meno’s reputation but wishes to discover for himself the nature of the man before him. While “hearsay” opinion may be “true opinion”, it is distinguished from the knowledge that comes from direct experience gnosis. To “know thyself” involves both self-knowledge as well as the knowledge that comes from the possession of the experience of the thing for one’s self, the knowledge which rises above opinion.

“The best men”, “the perfect gentlemen” are not able to teach virtue to the young: is this the fault of the “gentlemen” or the young? Or the regime? The “good citizen” of the Nazi regime is not the “good citizen” of a liberal democracy. The virtue of Nazi Germany is not the virtue of a liberal democracy which seeks tolerance and openness. The Aryan “blond beast” is not the model of excellence put forward by liberals.

With regard to the common understanding of virtue, Socrates implies that it is Protagoras who is responsible for the current situation in Athens. Anytus, however, has never met Protagoras nor any other sophist. To those who listen to the sophists, Anytus says “Any: No, they are very far from madness, Socrates. In fact it is much more the case that the young people who give them money are mad, and those who let them do so, their relatives, are even more mad, and by far the maddest of all are the cities that allow them free entry, and do not drive away any stranger who even attempts to engage in anything of this kind or any citizen either.” (92b) Socrates tells Anytus that Meno is desirous of “becoming a good man”. He is longing for wisdom and excellence, behaving properly with regard to one’s own house and city, one’s parents, fellow citizens, and strangers i.e., the acquisition of a techne which makes “a good man.” Socrates ironically suggests the sophists. Anytus disagrees; he does not want anyone near to him to be disgraced by frequenting such fellows. Anytus appears to overlook the fact that Meno has been a frequent student of Gorgias.

Socrates uses the example of Protagoras who amassed a fortune through such teaching and contrasts him with Phidias, the best of the sculptors of the time. How is it possible that Protagoras’ reputation still stands while any cobbler would be out of business in 30 days? Those sophists either deceive and corrupt the young deliberately or are completely unaware of what they are doing. Anytus says that it is not they who are mad but anyone who pays them money who is so, as well as the families and the cities that are mad.

Socrates is willing to grant that the Sophists are not the teachers of excellence that Meno needs. He agrees with Anytus that they would convert Meno into a knave. (Do we assume here that Meno is already a knave through his contact with Gorgias?) This seems to suggest that Meno is a knave before Socrates meets him and that his “reputation has proceeded him”. One does not ask why Anytus chooses to house him while he is in Athens. This, presumably, is what one does with the wealthy and powerful in spite of their reputations. We may see parallels in Roy Cohn, the lawyer of the Trump family, and of Heinrich Heydrich, the mentor of Adolf Eichmann, in the modern pantomimes. Who should Meno turn to in Athens?

Were the distinguished men of Athens who possessed excellence also good teachers of their own excellence? (93 b) The issue is whether excellence is teachable. Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, and Thucydides were not able to teach their own sons “human excellence”. The four historical examples were all politicians of Athens. Three of them were generals in her armies. Thucydides, son of Melesias, was an Athenian politician and rival of Pericles. He is not to be confused with the famous historian of the Peloponnesian War.

Anytus agrees that Themistocles was the Athenian most representative of arete. The oldest is the best, much like in America where the founding Fathers were/are considered the best. Themistocles was a politician who lead the Athenian army to two victories over the Persian invaders and later became a politician. He is the model whom Anytus believes is most representative of Athenian virtue. Themistocles was unable to pass on his “excellence” to his son. In fact, all four of the historical examples mentioned were unable to teach their sons about human excellence. Given Socrates’ criticism of the older generations, Anytus replies to Socrates: “Any: Socrates, you seem all too ready to speak ill of people, so I would like to give you some advice, if you are prepared to heed me. Be careful, because in any city it is probably easier to do a person harm rather than do them good, but this is especially so in this city. But I think you know this yourself.” (95a) Following this threat, Anytus quickly departs.

Why is Anytus so angry? Anytus thinks he himself is one of those men i.e., Anytus regards himself not only as one of the distinguished men of Athens, but also as one of its foremost leaders. Anytus’ own son may be an example of the failure to teach human excellence. His anger is based on his own high opinion of himself, his amathia (“stupid ignorance”). We must repeat that “stupid ignorance” is a moral failure not an intellectual one. Diotima’s words (Symposium 204 a-b) warn us that “stupid ignorance” strikes us when a person who is neither distinguished nor capable of the exercise of wise judgement phronesis thinks of himself as quite self-sufficient. We see such “stupid ignorance” on display in many of our politicians today. Anytus lacks his father’s qualities of moderation. Anytus considers himself a man of worth on the level with Athens’ greatest (similar to Donald Trump when comparing himself to former Presidents). This lack of sophrosyne as well as phronesis is his amathia, his ‘stupid ignorance’. But Anytus has an important thing to fall back on to bolster his self-appreciation: his fellow citizens hold him in high esteem. (Donald Trump has his MAGA followers.) Is his anger due to the “contempt” Socrates’ appears to show towards these figures that made Athens the great city that it was in the eyes of the world?

A human community lives by “memories” (historical knowledge). The “great men” are part of this memory. To hold them in contempt is to deny the ultimate authority of the polis. Anytus’ anger is rooted in “prevailing opinion” concerning the respectability or unworthiness of people, based on the “reputation” of those people. The “opinions” of the polis, where it is easier to do evil than to do citizens good, is the role Anytus plays in the dialogue. Anytus’ anger parallels Meno’s earlier warning and threat to Socrates that he should not leave Athens and travel to another city. Anytus can rely on Athens’ powerful popular support. This unveiling of Anytus’ character is an indictment of the entire polis. The soul of Anytus is Athens’ soul. The essence of the Great Beast that is the human collective makes the question of what human excellence is a political one.

The ability to learn “human excellence” like all other things depends on the quality of the learner’s soul. Aristotle spoke of arete as “competence” and the “completion” or goal of this “competence” was directed towards the acquiring and making of the “good things”. It is clear that for Socrates/Plato, arete is not mere “competency” i.e. skills as technai. It is something beyond these i.e. “excellence” rather than mere “competence”. “Excellence” is the measure of competence. If it is merely competence, then it is a techne or skill that can be taught and Protagoras is correct in that “Man is the measure of all things”.

Meno returns to the conversation upon Anytus’ departure and says Gorgias never tried to teach “human excellence” but rather he tried to make “expert orators” i.e., he was attempting to teach a techne. At 96d he wonders whether good men can exist at all, and if they did how could they have possibly come to exist. Excellence appears to be not teachable and no one possesses excellence from birth, ‘by nature’. If excellence is not teachable, excellence cannot be knowledge of any kind, neither technai nor episteme. Anytus believes that opinion and reputation are the keys to statesmanship. Men seem to conduct their affairs under the leadership of knowledge, so Socrates says that he and Meno must be “no good” themselves and must look for a teacher of excellence. Socrates believes that good men must do us good so men who know the right way must be sought.

Socrates ironically uses the example of knowing the way to Larissa which, as we remember from the introduction to the dialogue, is the city which has become ‘wise’ since Gorgias’ presence among them and is the locale of Aristippus, Meno’s lover. Larissa is one possible destination for the journey towards knowledge. Knowledge and “right opinion” are compared and contrasted. Someone who, from experience, knew the road to Larissa would be able to guide others who did not know the way themselves. Also, those who had a “right opinion” or knowledge from hearsay would also be able to guide others correctly. With regards to human affairs, the second individual would not be a worse leader than the first as long as he retained his “right opinion”. While the first man knows “the truth” through experience, the second believes something which happens to be true without the certainty that it is true. “True opinion” is not a worse leader when conducting our affairs than is the exercise of wise judgement phronesis but the man who has the right opinion about the road without having traversed it will have it because someone else has instructed him correctly on the matter or he has gained his knowledge from a map. He must have committed the knowledge to “memory”.

“Orthodoxy” is the combination of the two Greek words orthos and doxa meaning “attunement to human affairs”, to the right way of conducting them, to the right way of acting. An ortha-doxa is an ‘opinion’ which is responsible for right action, for an action beneficial to us, to others, and to the community. Its “rightness” is in its truth, its relation to justice as “fittingness”. The exercise of wise judgement phronesis is a state of knowing, of eidenai or episteme: the man who exercises wise judgement is knowledgeable about the affairs of the world. Phronesis provides the “right lead” in the human soul. It is the moral compass. The person who possesses phronesis “opines rightly”. Right opinion does us no less good than knowledge. The man who possesses knowledge will always “hit the mark” while the man with “right opinion” will sometimes hit, sometimes miss the mark. “Right opinion” is not the knowledge that comes from direct experience (gnosis) which teaches wisdom regarding matters.

A right opinion can be either true or false. In the dialogue, no mention is made of false opinion. “Right” opinions are a matter of hearsay (“historical knowledge”) and it is a matter of chance whether they be true or false. If one happens upon the right road by chance, “right opinions” are subject to change and become false opinions. Socrates says that Meno has not paid enough attention to “Daedalus’ statuary”. (97d) They have to be chained in place or else they will run away. To own a work of Daedalus in its unchained state is not worth very much for it does not stay put; but if it is chained, it is worth a great deal. They can provide all that is good and beneficial. But they don’t stay put. One must “bind” them: find reasons for them in one’s own thinking. Knowledge is held in higher esteem than right opinion by being “bound fast”.

The “right opinions” Socrates is talking about determine the praiseworthy actions of men. The “right opinions’ are those we entertain with regard to men responsible for human affairs. Our opinion determines their reputation, and if our opinion is correct their good reputation, the doxa, is deserved. Their good reputation persists only if our opinion about them remains stable. “Right opinion” indicates instability; knowledge indicates “permanence” and stability. Knowledge is the counter-balance to right opinion. But knowledge can be lost. Phronesis appears to be immune to forgetfulness for it is based on experience. But does not the man who recognizes the wisdom of others have the ability to possess phronesis? And so be able to guide our actions?

The “binding” or “yoking” of right reasons is done through the logos in one’s own thinking. It is the logos which binds the statues of Daedalus just as it is the logos which binds us to our mortal being. The finding of reasons for something (logoi) is what we mean by understanding and learning. The goal is knowledge (gnosis). Does this not embody all the excellence human beings can attain? A statue is a monument to honour a god or a man. It is a memorial, a visible manifestation of somebody’s glory or “reputation”. The inconstancy of human opinion and reputation is demonstrated by our relation to the statuary that we erect. The effort required of the journey and the learning within the journey is meaningful only if there is a state of knowledge different from the state of “right opinion” for “rightness” presupposes the existence of truth which only episteme and phronesis can unveil. That state of truth is gnosis. Socrates states at 98b: “Soc: And yet, I too am speaking as someone who does not know, someone who is making conjectures. But I do not think I am merely conjecturing that right opinion and knowledge are different, rather, if indeed I were to claim to know anything, and there is little I would claim, this is one thing I would include among things that I know.” Socrates knows the difference between right opinion and knowledge as gnosis.

The logos of the dialogue collapses at this point. Knowledge and “true opinion” can be acquired by human being by being ‘told’ about them. In the dialogue, the term orthodoxa is replaced by eudoxa which means “good opinion”. “Good opinion” is not the same as “true opinion”. Good opinion deals with repute, and the “trust” and “belief” in which we live (and in which Meno and Anytus live). Human beings who are “politicians” are comparable to soothsayers and diviners: they speak “true” but they do not know what they say. If soothsayers or prophets happen to predict the truth, a “divinity” may speak through them or they may be told by a divinity what to say. They may also be bribed or told what to say by clever men. Socrates equates Anytus to a diviner (92c), but this is not a compliment. Socrates, ironically, becomes a seer by saying that he will converse again with Anytus at a future time for Anytus will be one of the chief accusers at his trial. The conclusion reached is that even though we do not know what human excellence is, it seems to come to human beings by “divine allotment”. As the dialogue concludes, Socrates quotes Homer who said: “Among the dead, Teiresias alone is in his senses.” Teiresias, the blind prophet famous in many works of Greek literature, is alone able to ‘see’ among the ‘dead’ who, so it happens, are those we call the living.