Socrates re‑asserts his methodological requirement that virtue must be defined as a unified whole and cannot be explained by appeal to an undefined part of virtue, paralleling his earlier insistence in the case of ‘figure’.

By Plato, from Meno

Key Arguments

  • Socrates complains that Meno is ‘mocking’ him because, having been asked to “deliver virtue to me whole and sound, and not broken into a number of pieces,” he has instead returned to defining actions done with a part of virtue.
  • He shows that Meno’s latest formula—virtue as the power of attaining good justly—amounts to saying that “virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue,” since justice is acknowledged to be a part.
  • Socrates presses the logical point: if one does not know what virtue is, one cannot genuinely know what a part of virtue is; therefore, definitional appeals to a part are illegitimate.
  • He recalls their earlier procedure with ‘figure’, where they “rejected any answer given in terms which were as yet unexplained or unadmitted,” and insists they must proceed analogously with virtue.
  • Meno agrees that “we were quite right in doing so” and that one cannot know a part of virtue without knowing virtue itself.

Source Quotes

MENO: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Why, because I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole and unbroken, and I gave you a pattern according to which you were to frame your answer; and you have forgotten already, and tell me that virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue. MENO: Yes.
MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue; for justice and the like are said by you to be parts of virtue. MENO: What of that?
And, therefore, my dear Meno, I fear that I must begin again and repeat the same question: What is virtue? for otherwise, I can only say, that every action done with a part of virtue is virtue; what else is the meaning of saying that every action done with justice is virtue? Ought I not to ask the question over again; for can any one who does not know virtue know a part of virtue? MENO: No; I do not say that he can.
MENO: Yes, Socrates; and we were quite right in doing so. SOCRATES: But then, my friend, do not suppose that we can explain to any one the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of virtue, or anything at all in that fashion; we should only have to ask over again the old question, What is virtue? Am I not right?

Key Concepts

  • I asked you to deliver virtue into my hands whole and unbroken
  • you have forgotten already, and tell me that virtue is the power of attaining good justly, or with justice; and justice you acknowledge to be a part of virtue.
  • Then it follows from your own admissions, that virtue is doing what you do with a part of virtue;
  • for can any one who does not know virtue know a part of virtue?
  • do not suppose that we can explain to any one the nature of virtue as a whole through some unexplained portion of virtue

Context

Immediately after refuting Meno’s ‘power of attaining good’ account, Socrates explicitly restates his demand for a definition of virtue as a whole and connects this to the methodological norms established earlier when defining ‘figure’.