Page:The Meno of Plato (Anon, 1880).pdf/8



takes its name from the principal interlocutor of Socrates, a Thessalian adventurer, living in close intimacy with Aristippus of Larissa, by whom he was sent with troops to aid the younger Cyrus in his expedition against Babylon, 401. On the failure of the expedition Meno was put to death after a year's tortures.

The Dialogue opens with a question from Meno as to whether Virtue can be taught, or how men can become virtuous; and its apparent purpose is to find an answer to this. But its real purpose seems to be to insist on the importance of accurately defining the terms employed on the opening of a discussion; thus Socrates makes several attempts to withdraw from the examination of the means to acquire virtue, and to substitute for it the question 'What is virtue?' (e.g. chpp. 2, 22, 42),

The Dialogue seems to fall into three divisions :— Ch. 1–13 consisting of various attempts made by Socrates to draw a satisfactory definition of virtue from