The difficulty in framing general notions which has appeared in this and in all the previous Dialogues recurs in the “Gorgias” and “Theaetetus” as well as in the Republic. In the “Gorgias” too the statesmen reappear, but in stronger opposition to the philosopher. They are no longer allowed to have a divine insight, but, though acknowledged to have been clever men and good speakers, are denounced as “blind leaders of the blind.” The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is also carried further, being made the foundation not only of a theory of knowledge, but of a doctrine of rewards and punishments. In the Republic the relation of knowledge to virtue is described in a manner more consistent with modern distinctions. The existence of the virtues without the possession of knowledge in the higher or philosophical sense is admitted to be possible. Right opinion is again introduced in the “Theaetetus” as an account of knowledge, but is rejected on the ground that it is irrational (as here, because it is not bound by the tie of the cause), and also because the conception of false opinion is given up as hopeless. The doctrines of Plato are necessarily different at different times of his life, as new distinctions are realized, or new stages of thought attained by him. We are not therefore justified, in order to take away the appearance of inconsistency, in attributing to him hidden meanings or remote allusions.
There are no external criteria by which we can determine the date of the “Meno.” There is no reason to suppose that any of the Dialogues of Plato were written before the death of Socrates; the “Meno,” which appears to be one of the earliest of them, is proved to have been of a later date by the allusion of Anytus (94 E, 95 A. Compare also 80 B, 100 B).
We cannot argue that Plato was more likely to have written, as he has done, of Meno before than after his miserable death; for we have already seen, in the examples of Charmides and Critias, that the characters in Plato are very far from resembling the same characters in history. The repulsive picture which is given of him in the Anabasis of Xenophon (II 6), where he also appears as the friend of Aristippus “and a fair youth having lovers,” has no other trait of likeness to the “Meno” of Plato.
The place of the “Meno” in the series is doubtfully indicated by internal evidence. The main character of the Dialogue is Socrates; but to the “general definitions” of Socrates is added the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence. The problems of virtue and knowledge have been discussed in the “Lysis,” “Laches,” “Charmides,” and “Protagoras”; the puzzle about knowing and learning has already appeared in the “Euthydemus.” The doctrines of immortality and preexistence are carried further in the “Phaedrus” and “Phaedo”; the distinction between opinion and knowledge is more fully developed in the “Theaetetus.” The lessons of Prodicus, whom he facetiously calls his master, are still running in the mind of Socrates. Unlike the later Platonic Dialogues, the “Meno” arrives at no conclusion. Hence we are led to place the Dialogue at some point of time later than the “Protagoras,” and earlier than the “Phaedrus” and “Gorgias.” The place which is assigned to it in this work is due mainly to the desire to bring together in a single volume all the Dialogues which contain allusions to the trial and death of Socrates.
On the Ideas of Plato
Plato’s doctrine of ideas has attained an imaginary clearness and definiteness which is not to be found in his own writings. The popular account of them is partly derived from one or two passages in his Dialogues interpreted without regard to their poetical environment. It is due also to the misunderstanding of him by the Aristotelian school; and the erroneous notion has been further narrowed and has become fixed by the realism of the schoolmen. This popular view of the Platonic ideas may be summed up in some such formula as the following: “Truth consists not in particulars, but in universals, which have a place in the mind of God, or in some far-off heaven. These were revealed to men in a former state of existence, and are recovered by reminiscence (ἀνάμνησις) or association from sensible things. The sensible things are not realities, but shadows only, in relation to the truth.” These unmeaning propositions are hardly suspected to be a caricature of a great theory of knowledge, which Plato in various ways and under many figures of speech is seeking to unfold. Poetry has been converted into dogma; and it is not remarked that the Platonic ideas are to be found only in about a third of Plato’s writings and are not confined to him. The forms which they assume are numerous, and if taken literally, inconsistent with one another. At one time we are in the clouds of mythology, at another among the abstractions of mathematics or metaphysics; we pass imperceptibly from one to the other. Reason and fancy are mingled in the same passage. The ideas are sometimes described as many, coextensive with the universals of sense and also with the
