Menon

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Plato (Roman copy of the Greek Plato portrait of Silanion , Glyptothek Munich )

The Menon ( Greek  Μένων Ménōn ) is a work of the Greek philosopher Plato written in dialogue form . The content is a fictional, literary conversation. Plato's teacher Socrates discussed with the noble Thessalian Menon of Pharsalus , who was temporarily staying in Athens , and with his host, the politician Anytos. In addition, a slave from Menon temporarily takes part in the conversation. The subject is Menon's question of whether virtue can be learned, practiced, or is innate. The Greek term aretḗ, which is usually translated as “virtue”, denotes not only a morally desirable attitude, but also efficiency and excellence in a broad sense.

First of all it would have to be clarified what virtue actually is, but this does not succeed; various proposed definitions are being examined and are found to be unsuitable. Socrates, however, believes that there is an innate but buried knowledge, which includes the knowledge of virtue, and that this knowledge can be activated through memory. The debate thus turns to the process of gaining knowledge. Socrates tries with a didactic experiment in which Menon's slave serves as a test subject to substantiate his hypothesis, according to which learning processes are to be explained as a memory of an already existing knowledge (" anamnesis hypothesis"). However, whether virtue counts as teachable knowledge seems questionable, since there is a lack of virtue teachers. There are capable personalities who have virtue but cannot impart it to others. The discussion leads to aporia (perplexity), because the question of what virtue consists of remains open.

Plato's concept of anamnesis, first discussed in the Menon , became the starting point in Western philosophy for dealing with the problem of a priori knowledge - independent of experience.

Place, time and participants

Socrates (Roman bust, 1st century, Louvre , Paris)

The debate takes place in Athens. The location is not specified in the dialog; A gymnasium is probably to be considered, but the house of Anyto is also an option. The time of the fictional plot results from the dating of Menon's stay in Athens, 403/402 BC. Is to be set. Socrates was already about 67 years old at the time.

As in other early Plato dialogues, Socrates guides the conversation by exposing the inadequacy of the ill-conceived ideas of others and then turning the discussion around. His interlocutors Menon and Anytos are well attested as notable historical figures. The conceptions that Plato puts in the mouth of his dialogue characters can, however, be literary fiction.

The historical Menon belonged to one of the leading families of Thessaly. At the time of his stay in Athens, the purpose of which was probably a diplomatic mission, he was about 21 years old. A little later, in 401 BC BC, he participated as a mercenary leader in a campaign against the Persian king Artaxerxes II. The enterprise failed, Menon was captured and was executed. The contemporary historians Xenophon and Ktesias , who also took part in the campaign, portray Menon's character very negatively. Xenophon portrays him as a greedy, unscrupulous deceiver and intriguer, Ktesias accuses him of treason.

Menon's host Anytos was a leader in the democratic direction in Athenian politics. Athens traditionally had a democratic state order , but it was 404 BC. An oligarchical group succeeded in eliminating democracy and establishing a short-lived terror regime, the " Rule of Thirty ". This resulted in a civil war in which the Democrats prevailed in 403 - shortly before Menon's arrival. After this victory, Anytos was at the height of his influence. A few years later, 399 BC He was the most prominent of the three accusers who started the trial against Socrates, which ended with the conviction and execution of the philosopher. This earned him the enmity of Plato, who fought the accusers of his revered teacher literarily.

As a dialogue figure in Plato, Menon makes a less unfavorable impression than in the reports of the historians. He seems to have a genuine interest in the question he raised. He is willing to learn and in the course of the conversation gains insight into his own ignorance. However, he appears arrogant and shows little understanding or patience for the requirements of a systematic investigation. His weaknesses become clear: He does not argue in a concentrated and persistent manner, his opinion is conventional and not well thought out, he evades a deeper discussion of the difficult problem of the definition of virtue. Obviously he's not up to the subject. His self-confidence in the philosophical discourse is based in particular on the fact that he took part in the lessons of the famous rhetoric teacher Gorgias and can appeal to his authority. However, this does not impress Socrates. By depicting Menon's failure, Plato also wants to discredit his teacher Gorgias.

Plato paints an extremely negative picture of Anytos, who as a historical person was Socrates' most dangerous enemy. His Anytos is intolerant, shaped by prejudices and not accessible to any argument that could endanger his rigid, conservative worldview. He reacts to objective objections with a veiled threat.

content

The discussion revolves around a popular topic in Plato's day: the origin of the arete (efficiency, excellence or virtue). Since ethical aspects are in the foreground for Plato and the figure of Socrates appearing in his dialogues, the Arete discussed in his texts is usually translated as "virtue". It should always be noted, however, that in ancient Greek - unlike in German - the idea of ​​proficiency and suitability belongs to it and is not separated from virtue in the ethical sense. A non-philosopher like Menon, when he speaks of Arete, does not specifically think of virtue as a moral quality, but generally of a proficiency or suitability that leads to success, although recognized social norms such as justice must be observed.

The introductory talk

A framework is missing, the conversation starts suddenly. Initially, only Meno and Socrates are involved. Menon asks the initial question: he would like to know whether virtue is learned or practiced or is a matter of disposition. Socrates answers evasively. He confesses that he does not even know what virtue is, let alone know details of its nature - including the question of teachability. He also claims that no one in Athens knows about virtue. He ironically assumes that the Thessalians, Menon's compatriots, have such expertise. The irony is that the Thessalians are considered uncivilized and immoral, while Athens is a major center of Greek civilization. Meno, who has no idea of ​​the difficulty of the question, is amazed at Socrates' ignorance. Without further ado, he has the confidence to correctly define virtue off the cuff. He gives a point of view that his teacher Gorgias gave him.

Menon's attempts at definition

Meno does not focus on virtue, but on a multitude of virtues. What is to be regarded as a virtue, he makes dependent on the person and their life situation and task. For example, for him the virtue of a man is to prove himself in politics, to promote his friends and to harm his enemies and to protect himself from the pursuit of the opponents. The virtue of women is shown in good housekeeping and obedience to the husband. Old people and children have different age-related virtues. Furthermore, the virtues of the free are different from those of the slaves. In addition, every activity has a particular virtue associated with its exercise.

Socrates is not satisfied with that. He explains that his question is not aimed at different individual virtues, but rather at virtue itself, i.e. what is common to the various virtues and justifies the use of a common name for them. Meno understands what is meant, but now he is embarrassed when answering the question. He wants to stick to his model of gender and age-specific virtues. Socrates, on the other hand, argues that health, size and strength, for example, are uniform terms that are not defined according to gender or age. If these terms express general qualities that are the same everywhere, it is not clear why, on the contrary, virtue should be defined differently depending on factors such as gender and age. Good governance requires prudence and justice, and these are the same qualities that enable good housekeeping. Those who act prudently and justly behave in this way regardless of their age; there is no particular prudence or righteousness of the old that is different from that of other people. When it is said that a person is good, it does not mean something different depending on age and gender. So the virtue that makes people good must be the same for everyone.

After the first attempt at a definition has failed, Menon makes a second one. In doing so, he takes into account Socrates' criticism of his first proposal by looking for a generally applicable definition. He now equates virtue with the ability to exercise power; it should consist in the ability to rule. On the other hand, Socrates immediately objects that rule for slaves and children does not come into consideration, so the definition does not include everything that it should include. In addition, the question arises whether every kind of exercise of power should be meant or just a just rule. Meno agrees to the inclusion of justice because he knows that it is considered a virtue and is therefore indispensable in this context. Also bravery and other virtues play the right way to deal with the power of a role and should therefore be included in the definition. This in turn results in a multitude of virtues, the relationship between which remains unclear. The second attempt at a definition therefore leads no further than the first. Now Menon is at a loss.

Socrates uses the term “figure” to explain what is important when defining a term: not individual figures, but “what is the same for all of them”. He initially defines figure as “that which alone under all things always accompanies color”. Meno calls this definition simple-minded because someone who does not know what color is cannot understand it. However, Menon shortened the proposed definition of the figure to “whatever follows the color”, so by omitting the words “alone among all things” he made the definition a merely necessary condition for the figure. Socrates conceded to Menon that it would have been better, more dialectical, to first have the terms required in the definition as known by the dialogue partner, and now gives three terms for a second definition, which Menon confirms as known to him: limit, even and Body. Socrates then to Meno: “I would say that figure is the limit of a body.” So here too, Socrates only specified one necessary condition for figure, because not every limit of a body is a figure. But this mistake could easily be corrected if the third concept introduced earlier is included in the definition of figure: A figure is the plane boundary of a body. Each figure can be understood as a section through a body. Apparently Meno was supposed to notice and correct this deficiency. Meno does not comment on the new definition of figure and instead demands that Socrates explain the word color. Since this word does not appear at all in the new definition, Menon's desire is completely unfounded, and Socrates characterizes Menon's behavior as arrogant and as an evasive maneuver, but finally also gives a definition of color - with reference to a theory advocated by Gorgias of Empedocles - as a visually perceptible outflow that emanates from the figures. In contrast to Socrates, Meno is full of praise for this definition. Now that Socrates asks him to keep the given promise of a definition of virtue and to orientate himself on the given examples, Meno defines virtue in a third attempt, quoting a poet's saying, as the ability to enjoy and to enjoy beauty procure. When asked by Socrates, he equates the beautiful with the good. But here the question arises as to whether there are also people who strive not for the good but for the bad. Socrates shows that this cannot be the case: if someone desires what is bad, although he recognizes it as bad and therefore harmful, he wants to harm himself and make miserable, which is absurd. Nobody behaves like that. Anyone who desires the bad because he does not see through its badness, but mistakenly thinks it is good and hopes for a benefit - something good - strives for the good. So everyone only appreciates the good and tries to get it. According to Menon's definition, everyone would be virtuous as far as will is concerned.

There are only differences between people with regard to the second part of the definition: the ability to procure what is beautiful and good. Accordingly, only this ability constitutes the criterion of virtue. Menon understands “good” to mean goods such as prestige, power and wealth. The question of whether someone is virtuous even if he obtains goods in an unjust way, however, he must answer in the negative, because he shares the general belief that justice is part of virtue. So virtue can also consist of not getting a good for oneself, although one would be able to do so if one got involved in an injustice. However, this contradicts Menon's definition. If, however, the definition is supplemented by defining only the just striving for goods as virtuous, then it becomes unsuitable because justice, which is part of the concept to be defined, then appears in the definition. This attempt at definition thus also proves to be a failure. The now completely confused Menon does not dare to try again. He feels frozen, as it were, and compares Socrates to the electric ray , a fish that paralyzes its victims. In addition, Socrates remarks that he only resembles a electric ray when it paralyzes not only others but also himself, because he is just as perplexed as the others.

The hypothesis of learning through memory

Meno now asks how it is at all possible to determine something completely unknown. The problem he points out is that you have no clue if you cannot fall back on anything already known when searching. In addition, if you find what you are looking for, there is no way of identifying what you have found as what you are looking for. Socrates takes up the idea and formulates it in such a way that the conclusion arises that the unknown is fundamentally unknowable. Meno agrees that he likes it. This train of thought, which leads to an epistemological pessimism, is called "Menon's Paradox".

Socrates countered epistemological pessimism with his hypothesis of remembrance, the anamnesis. According to his concept, the soul is immortal and existed before the body was formed . All knowledge is already present in it. It is a knowledge of nature that forms a unity, and the soul is familiar with this whole unified natural context. Accordingly, there is nothing really foreign and unknown to the soul. Her knowledge and thus also the knowledge of virtue is potentially available to her at any time . However, it has been forgotten and must therefore be searched for and found step by step. Thus every knowledge consists in the discovery of a buried knowledge. Learning is the memory process through which the soul gains access to its usually hidden knowledge potential. Strictly speaking, there is therefore no instruction, but the apparently teacher only helps the learner to remember.

To make his hypothesis plausible, Socrates conducts an experiment. One of Menon's many slaves is summoned to demonstrate the anamnesis. The slave, who has no mathematical knowledge at school, is supposed to solve a geometric problem as a pupil: Find the side length of a square that is twice the area of ​​a known square. Socrates helps him to find a solution by stimulating him with questions to consider, which ultimately lead to an understanding of the geometrical facts. The philosopher attaches great importance to not teaching, because he wants to show that the student can work out the solution himself.

Menon

The square chosen is two feet on a side , which is - as the student determines when questioned - an area of ​​four square feet. The task is to get to a square twice that size, that is, to find the length of the side given an area of ​​eight square feet. The pupil initially believes that twice the area corresponds to a side that is twice as long. However, through inquiries, Socrates leads him to the insight that by doubling the length of the side one quadruples the area; four feet on a side equals sixteen square feet. The side you are looking for must therefore be longer than two feet but shorter than four feet. The student then guesses that the mean - three feet - is the answer. But that adds up to nine instead of eight square feet. Now he doesn't know what to do next. Socrates draws Meno's attention to the fact that the disciple's insight into error and into his ignorance represents an essential step forward from the initial apparent certainty.

The search continues, with Socrates reiterating that he only asks and does not teach. The starting point is the drawing of the quadrupled sixteen square foot square, which is made up of four four square feet each. By asking further questions, Socrates uses the sketch to lead the student to the realization that the diagonal of the given four square foot square is one side of the eight square foot sought. The philosopher interprets this learning process as a memory process: despite his initial ignorance, the student was able to get correct ideas out of himself. With appropriate suggestions, everyone can be made to find their own access to a knowledge hidden in them that demonstrably does not come from previous instruction. However , Socrates does not want to vouch for the correctness of the hypothesis that the soul brings with it knowledge from experiences that it made in the course of the transmigration of souls in previous lives and in the underworld . He has heard this explanation from priests and priestesses and has found it in the works of poets like Pindar and finds it plausible, but there is no philosophical justification.

The question of the teachability of virtue

Menon would now like to return to his initial question about the acquisition of virtue. Socrates thinks it absurd to want to examine teachability if one has not yet defined virtue, but he gives in to Menon's urges. His starting point is that teachability is given when virtue is knowledge. In doing so, he brings the discussion back to the heart of the problem, the nature of virtue. The question now is whether virtue is knowledge. This procedure is called the "hypothesis method" or "hypothesis procedure". It consists in the fact that the truth content of a statement (A) that is difficult to test is determined indirectly by finding and examining another, more testable statement (B) which is related to A in such a way that A must be true if B is true. When testing B, regardless of the relationship between A and B, the question is asked what consequences arise when B is true or not. If B turns out to be true, this result can be carried over to A. According to his statements, Socrates adopts this method from geometry.

The starting point is the indisputable statement that virtue is necessarily good and, like all good, useful. Goods like strength, beauty, or wealth tend to be useful, but are not necessarily so; if they are used unreasonably, they can also be harmful and then do not belong to the useful and good. The same is true of individual virtues such as bravery; even they are not necessarily beneficial in themselves, but can be harmful if they are not combined with reason. Reason is the factor that must always be involved if something can be called useful. So if virtue is necessarily something good and useful, it must either be identical with reason, or at least always have it as an indispensable component. Thus it is inseparable from knowledge and insight. It follows that good people are not inherently good, but only when they have acquired the necessary knowledge. So virtue is an acquired quality. It is gained by learning it. Meno agrees with these lines of thought of Socrates.

But Socrates raises an empirical objection to the correctness of the theoretical conclusion . If virtue is teachable, there must be teachers and students in that area. Despite intensive efforts, Socrates has not yet found a competent virtuoso teacher anywhere, and others are also looking in vain. Hence, it seems doubtful whether there is any. At this point in the investigation, Socrates includes Menon's host, Anytus, who has joined the discussion. He directs the conversation to those who pretend to be teachers of arete, virtue or ability: the sophists , who move about as traveling teachers and give lessons for a fee. Socrates asks Anytos whether the sophists are the specialists with whom one can learn virtue, just as one learns medicine from a doctor or the shoemaker's trade from a shoemaker. Anytos emphatically denies this. He considers the sophists to be serious evildoers and believes that their activities are exclusively pernicious and should be banned. However, he does not start from his own observations and experiences, because he would never get involved with a sophist or allow one of his relatives to do so. Rather, his opinion is, as he openly admits, a prejudice to which he unconditionally acknowledges. He is so convinced of its correctness that he considers a justification superfluous.

Socrates, who is himself a sharp critic of sophistry, considers it irrational to pass judgment and to forego a reason without his own expertise. He mockingly remarks that Anytos must be a fortune teller if he knew about something without ever having dealt with it. But he lets this rest and returns to his question of virtue teachers. Anytos should say who he thinks is a virtue teacher. The answer of the conservative politician is amazingly simple: Any good, righteous Athenian citizen can make a learner a better person. For Anytos it goes without saying that everyone who is virtuous can transmit his or her virtue to others and that virtue is passed on from one generation to the next. Socrates, on the other hand, gives counterexamples. He recalls that famous Athenians such as Themistocles , Aristeides or Pericles , whose virtue is widely recognized, gave their sons excellent instruction but were unable to guide them to virtue. They certainly had the good will to do so, but they did not succeed. This seems to suggest that virtue is not teachable after all. Anytos cannot deny the facts. But he shares the general admiration of the statesmen mentioned and is outraged that they are accused of failure as educators. For him this is bad gossip regardless of the truthfulness. He utters a sinister warning: Socrates should be careful not to make himself unpopular with disparaging remarks; in Athens one could easily get into trouble. Anytos is withdrawing from the discussion.

Socrates attributes the anger of Anytos to a misunderstanding and continues the investigation with Menon. Menon also knows capable, virtuous men, but no virtue teachers, and whether virtue can be learned at all is unclear to him and those around him. This finding speaks against the teachability. This raises the question of how good, virtuous people came to be virtuous.

To clarify this question, Socrates introduces the concept of "right imagination". Anyone who has the right idea of ​​a path without ever having walked it will reach the goal and can lead others there. In practice, a correct idea is just as useful as well-established knowledge. However, in contrast to knowledge and knowledge, it is not based on an irrefutable justification. Therefore it is inconsistent, it can evaporate and is therefore unsuitable for subject matter. After all, it is basically possible to convert such a correct idea into knowledge by “tying it down”. “Tying” means that you have grasped the matter in question in such a way that you can explain it and that you have a sound justification for what you say about it. Efficient, virtuous people owe their competence to their correct imagination. They act virtuously even though they have no knowledge of virtue. However, they cannot teach others about it, because knowledge would be required for this. The bottom line is: virtue is obviously not to be defined as knowledge, because a correct idea is enough to produce it. Since neither the correct idea nor the knowledge is given by nature and virtue is apparently not learned, only one explanation remains: divine inspiration, which is bestowed on some people and not on others. Menon agrees with these considerations. Socrates points out, however, that the result of the investigation is only correct if it was carried out correctly. Menon ignores this crucial reservation.

The outcome of the discussion

The investigation has led to a provisional, albeit questionable result from Socrates' point of view. Socrates asks Menon to make Anytos understand the result in order to appease the angry politician. The main question, however, remains open: It could not be clarified what constitutes virtue. Thus the dialogue ends aporetically, the perplexity with the key point remains. Socrates reminds us that there is no point in thinking further about how to attain virtue while it is still unclear what it is. In conclusion, he again asserts his fundamental methodological objection to the procedure enforced by Menon and thus also to the result.

In reality, Socrates is not of the opinion that the presence or absence of virtue in humans is only the result of divine counsel and that the initial question is thus answered satisfactorily. Rather, only at the end of the investigation, which was incorrectly carried out at Menon's urging, was this solution the seemingly only possible solution. With ironic remarks, Socrates distances himself from the finding, although he takes divine influence seriously. It is left to the reader to lead the philosophical inquiry to a more satisfactory result.

Philosophical and didactic balance

At the center of many modern debates about the philosophical content of the Menon is the question of the epistemological interpretation of the anamnesis concept, which Plato also discusses in the dialogues Phaedo and Phaedrus . In research, opinions differ widely about understanding learning as remembrance. It is also controversial to what extent and in what sense Plato made a claim to truth for the consequences of the anamnesis thesis.

According to one line of research, for Plato the tracing back of the cognitive ability to an independent prenatal existence of the soul is only an aid to argumentation, which he does not necessarily need and whose truthfulness he leaves open, or it can only be understood metaphorically and not metaphysically at all . Other researchers oppose such “demythologizing” interpretations, pointing out, among other things, that remembrance is expressly linked to the doctrine of the body-free existence of the soul, a metaphysical position that corresponds to Plato's own conviction. If the anamnesis were understood as a mere metaphor or didactic aid, this connection would make no sense. In any case, Plato's Socrates clearly differentiates between what he thinks he has shown with his didactic experiment - the existence of latent, activatable knowledge - and the metaphysical interpretation of this fact in the sense of the doctrine of immortality, which he does not treat as a proven fact. The latent knowledge is not to be understood in an objective sense; it does not consist of individual "things" like the correct solutions to mathematical problems, but shows itself in the understanding of connections.

It is usually assumed that the anamnesis to be demonstrated by the didactic experiment relates to a priori (independent of experience) knowledge, but this is not clear from the text. One problem is that the slave arrives at the knowledge that is supposed to demonstrate his knowledge with the aid of drawn figures, i.e. with the help of sensory perceptions. If this is understood as a priori, it must be independent of sensory perception. One possible explanation is that the slave can understand the meaning of the drawings only because he knows a priori the principles that enable him to understand the evidence.

Further theses in the Menon , which have received special attention in the discourse of philosophical historians, are the principles that no one knowingly strives for something bad and that reliable statements about something are only possible if one knows what it is, i.e. clarifying the question of definition in advance ( Principle of priority of definition). Plato also addresses these principles in other works. The question of whether or to what extent Plato's theory of ideas is already present in the menon and forms the background of the anamnesis concept is controversially discussed in research , although it is not explicitly discussed. The prevailing view is that the anamnesis presupposes the theory of ideas. Another discussion revolves around the question of what Plato was aiming at with his Socrates' argument against the teachability of virtue. He himself assumed that there was a fundamentally communicable virtue knowledge, although he was of the opinion that the empirically given virtue was normally only based on correct imagination and therefore could not be passed on due to a lack of real understanding. The lack of virtue teachers, with whom his Socrates argues in a dialogue, he considered to be an important issue, but not a conclusive refutation of communicability.

Another research discussion revolves around the relationship between correct imagination and knowledge and the conversion of a correct imagination into knowledge through “tying up”. In particular, the question is whether Plato understands knowledge to be a justified true belief, i.e. a correct idea that has become knowledge through the addition of something. In this case the knowledge for Plato is an opinion expanded by an additional factor. According to the opposite interpretation, knowledge is fundamentally different from an accurate opinion. According to the strong variant of this position, knowing and meaning are even mutually exclusive. An opinion ceases to be an opinion when it is converted into knowledge, just as a child is no longer a child after it has grown up.

From a didactic point of view, Socrates' remarks on the method are of particular interest. According to his presentation, he did not instruct the slave, but rather brought him through appropriate questions to eliminate existing misconceptions and to discover the actual facts himself. This didactic conversation steering, which plays an important role in other dialogues Plato is called maieutics , or referred maieutics ( "midwifery") since Socrates as it assumes the role of the midwife in the "birth" of an insight. Some of the questions that Socrates asks the slave, however, have a suggestive effect and can therefore appear as violations of his claim to consistently forego instruction. Nevertheless, it is a successful demonstration of maeutics, because the slave thinks about it himself and does not try to give the answers that Socrates would like to hear. The connections that are required to understand the context must be established in a process of reflection. In the research literature, however, the opinion is also expressed that the geometric demonstration was not meant seriously by Plato and his Socrates, but should be understood as a farce.

Norbert Blößner emphasizes that not only the relationship between the dialogue characters Socrates and Menon, but also the relationship between Plato as the author of Menon and his readers should be understood as maeutic. The dialogue does not offer the reader Plato's answers to the questions raised, but suggestions for finding solutions that are not contained in the text.

The drafting time

It is considered plausible that the Menon belongs to Plato's early creative period and is to be assigned to a later phase within it, which is also referred to as the time of transition to the middle creative period. A more precise classification hardly seems to be possible. Attempts to deduce the position of the Menon in the order in which the dialogues were created from presumed relationships to other scriptures or from a hypothetical development of Plato's teaching have not yielded any reliable results. There is evidence that the Meno and the Apology were written at roughly the same time , the defensive speech of Socrates in court, which was made literary by Plato. In recent research, the assumption has prevailed that Plato wrote the Menon around the mid-380s - after the Gorgias - after he had returned from his first trip to Sicily and founded his school of philosophy, the Platonic Academy .

reception

Antiquity

Nothing has survived from an ancient commentary on the Menon , but the aftermath of the dialogue was considerable. Plato's pupil Aristotle repeatedly referred to him by name. In his work Analytica posteriora he discussed the actualization of general potential knowledge and dealt with the paradoxical thesis put forward by Plato's Menon that knowledge of the unknown cannot in principle be obtained. In the Analytica priora he dealt with the interpretation of learning as memory. In his politics he turned against the view of Plato's Socrates that there are no specific virtues depending on gender, age and social position, but that virtue is the same for all people. Another student of Plato, Xenocrates , wrote a book in which he dealt with the subject of the Menon ; apart from the title That virtue can be taught, nothing has come down to us about this lost work.

The beginning of the dialogue on virtue in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Gr. 1807 (9th century)

The unknown author of the pseudoplatonic (wrongly attributed to Plato) dialogue on virtue dealt with the question of how virtue arises in his work. He leaned close to the menon . He was convinced that a rationally predictable transmission of virtue to others was impossible. According to his argument, nobody possesses a transferable knowledge of virtues, because a real teacher of virtues would have to be a good person and as such would not hold back his knowledge; so he must have come out with it and practiced his ability. But this did not happen. The author of Über die Virtue also ruled out an inherent virtue , since otherwise there would be a technique for its early detection. He also did not leave open the middle path between knowing and not knowing, the “correct idea” proposed in the Menon . Apparently he belonged to the academy and lived no later than the 3rd century BC. It is possible that his writing was directed against the view of the Stoics , who emphatically advocated the teachability of virtue and also assumed a natural disposition. Almost half of the text of On Virtue consists of quotations from the menon and paraphrases of statements in this dialogue. Instead of Menon and Anytos, an unnamed friend of Socrates takes on the role of the philosopher's interlocutor.

Cicero made various references to the anamnesis concept. In his Tusculanae disputationes he cited the experiment with Menon's slaves as an argument for the eternity of the soul. In the De divinatione dialogue he mentioned the extensive knowledge that the soul has acquired in the past part of its eternal existence according to the remembrance hypothesis. This explains true dreams , because in sleep, while the body is at rest, the soul can gain access to its universal knowledge concealed during the day.

In the tetralogical order of the works of Plato, which apparently in the 1st century BC Was introduced, the Menon belongs to the sixth tetralogy. The history writer of philosophy, Diogenes Laertios , counted him among the “testing” - that is, unmasking ignorance - writings and gave as an alternative title about virtue . In doing so, he referred to a now-lost script by the Middle Platonist Thrasyllos .

In his polemic against Plato, the anti-philosophical scholar Athenaios stated, among other things, that Menon was wrongly praised in the dialogue named after him, that his character was misrepresented there; the truth can be found in Xenophon's report.

The Menon was also noticed by Christian authors . The church writer Clemens of Alexandria commented approvingly on the hypothesis put forward in the dialogue that virtue must be declared as a gift from God. The late antique church writer Arnobius the Elder fought against the theory of anamnesis in his work Adversus nationes ("Against the Gentiles"), in which he put forward an argument against the evidential value of the geometric experiment. The church father Augustine also turned against the hypothesis that the soul brings with it a knowledge that it already possessed before the body was formed. His objection was that in this case not everyone could bring geometrical knowledge with them, only the few who were mathematicians in a previous life. This contradicts the generalization of the result of the experiment in the menon .

The ancient text tradition is limited to a papyrus fragment from the beginning of the Roman Empire and short quotations in other scriptures that have been handed down in fragments on papyrus.

The beginning of the Menon in the oldest surviving medieval manuscript, the Codex Clarkianus written in 895

middle Ages

The oldest surviving medieval Menon manuscript was made in the year 895 in the Byzantine Empire . The handwritten tradition consists of around fifty codices that contain the text in full or in part.

Construction drawings on the problem of doubling the square in the scholias to Menon 82b ff. In the manuscript Vienna, Austrian National Library , suppl. Graec. 7, fol. 418r (10th century)

In the 10th century, the influential Muslim philosopher al-Fārābī wrote an overview of Plato's writings entitled The Philosophy of Plato, Its Parts and the Order of Its Parts from Beginning to End . In it he summarized the philosophical content of the Menon briefly from the perspective of a pronounced epistemological optimism. Al-Farabi, who drew from an ancient Middle Platonic source, stated that Plato had rejected Menon's epistemological pessimism in this dialogue, because he had recognized that one could very well penetrate the truth through investigation.

The Latin- speaking scholars of the West had known the Menon since the scholar Henricus Aristippus, who lived in Sicily, translated it into Latin between 1154 and 1160. The Latin translation is literal. In the preface, Henricus Aristippus stated that it was most important to him not to falsify the meaning and that he therefore accepted stylistic deficiencies. The text has come down to us in five late medieval manuscripts.

The Beginning of the Menon in the first edition, Venice 1513

Early modern age

The first modern translation into Latin comes from the famous humanist Marsilio Ficino . He published it in Florence in 1484 in the complete edition of his Plato translations. In the introduction (argumentum) to his Latin menon he stated that the anamnesis was a secondary topic and not the essence of the dialogue, the subject of which was virtue. The first edition of the Greek text was published in Venice by Aldo Manuzio in September 1513 as part of the complete edition of Plato's works published by Markos Musuros .

In 1643, René Descartes expressed the opinion that knowledge of God was of the same kind as geometrical knowledge, the latent presence of which was demonstrated in the Menon ; both belong to the "truths innate in us". In 1686 Leibniz praised the “beautiful experiment”. He considered the evidence of a priori knowledge to be provided; the anamnesis concept is solid, if you understand it correctly. However , he rejected the hypothesis of a pre-existence of the soul before the emergence of the body.

Modern

Literary aspects

The influential Plato translator Friedrich Schleiermacher did not consider the Menon to be an outstanding achievement; In 1805 he wrote in the introduction to the first edition of his translation of the dialogue that it was "one of the looser, incompletely worked out representations of Plato". However, later judgments of literary quality have usually been laudatory, despite criticism of details such as the abrupt introduction of the anytos. John Stuart Mill observed in an essay published in 1866 that the Menon was a jewel; in no other dialogue is so much that is characteristic of Plato presented so compactly. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff judged that the Menon did not shine through artistic adornment, that it lacked strong pathos, but that the structure was artistic, the method of representation taut. Alfred Croiset found great literary charm in the dialogue. Franz von Kutschera called it “well composed”.

Philosophical and didactic aspects

Research in the history of philosophy classifies the Menon as an important work and assigns it an important role in the context of Plato's work and in the history of Western epistemology. The didactic topic of dialogue also receives a lot of attention in research, the experiment with the slave is one of the classic texts in the history of didactics. The Neo-Kantian Paul Natorp (1854–1924) referred to the "richly interspersed, highly valuable methodological discussions" in the dialogue. With the Menon , Plato "finally overcome the exclusive negativity of the Socratic criticism of knowledge". Natorp praised the "extraordinarily fine and well thought-out structure" of the dialogue. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff wrote in 1919 that the Menon was not only the program of Plato's school, the academy , but also contained the program of his life. Nicolai Hartmann discussed the experiment as part of his study of Plato's apriorism published in 1935. The slave found knowledge of the matter through "reflection in himself". Plato was able to demonstrate this particularly well with the aid of a mathematical example, because in mathematics one cannot teach anything “without bringing him to his own inner grasp of the matter”. Gregory Vlastos praised the mastery of the logical technique and terminology. William KC Guthrie paid tribute to the pioneering role of Plato, who first distinguished between empirical and a priori knowledge in the history of philosophy in the Menon . Jonathan Barnes emphasized the importance of Menon's question whether virtue can be taught: It is about the status of ethics as a possible science.

Karl Popper connected the experiment in the Menon with the historical Socrates, in whom he saw a democrat and a champion of legal equality. He believed that the geometric demonstration with the slave illustrates the anti-authoritarian and egalitarian character of Socratic intellectualism. Socrates believed that everyone was accessible to instruction and wanted to use the experiment to prove that every uneducated slave had the ability to understand abstract facts. The anamnesis doctrine says that truth becomes manifest through the act of memory. This optimistic epistemology is expressed in the “beautiful passage” in the Menon where the slave is led to knowledge. Such optimism spurs learning, research and discovery, but is unrealistic, since in reality there is no criterion of truth. The theory presented in the Menon contained the seeds of the Aristotelian theory of induction , the induction theory of Francis Bacon and the epistemology of René Descartes.

Elizabeth Anscombe wrote a sequel to the discussion between Socrates and Menon about the experiment with the slave. In it, she lets the two interlocutors go deeper into the act of understanding a line of evidence and recognizing its validity and the justification for the assumption of a knowledge of the soul that existed before the body was formed.

Editions and translations

Critical editions, some with translations

  • Richard S. Bluck (Ed.): Plato's Meno . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1961 (edition with introduction and commentary).
  • Gunther Eigler (Ed.): Plato: Works in eight volumes . Volume 2. 5th edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-19095-5 , pp. 505-599 (reprint of the edition by Maurice Croiset, 13th edition, Paris 1968, with the German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher after the 2nd, improved edition of 1818).
  • Reinhold Merkelbach (Ed.): Plato's Menon . Athenaeum, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-610-09217-3 (edition with translation and explanations).
  • Klaus Reich (Ed.): Plato: Menon . Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1972, ISBN 3-7873-0279-4 (Greek text based on the edition by John Burnet [1903], slightly changed; German translation by Otto Apelt, revised).

German translations

  • Otto Apelt (translator): Plato: Menon or about virtue . In: Otto Apelt (Ed.): Platon: Complete Dialogues , Vol. 2, Meiner, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-7873-1156-4 (translation with introduction and explanations; reprint of the 2nd, revised edition from 1922).
  • Theodor Ebert (translator): Plato: Menon. Translation and commentary. De Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-057617-7
  • Ludwig Georgii (translator): Menon . In: Erich Loewenthal (Hrsg.): Platon: Complete Works in Three Volumes , Vol. 1. Unchanged reprint of the 8th, revised edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17918-8 , pp. 411–457.
  • Margarita Kranz (Ed.): Plato: Menon . Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-002047-6 (translation with Greek text after the edition by John Burnet, slightly changed and without the critical apparatus).
  • Rudolf Rufener (translator): Plato: Die Werke des Aufstiegs (= anniversary edition of all works , vol. 2). Artemis, Zurich / Munich 1974, ISBN 3-7608-3640-2 , pp. 401–453 (with the introduction by Olof Gigon, pp. 159–182).

Medieval Latin translation

  • Victor Kordeuter (ed.): Meno interprete Henrico Aristippo (= Plato Latinus , vol. 1). Warburg Institute, London 1940 (reprint: Kraus Reprint, Nendeln 1973).

literature

Overview representations

Comments

  • Monique Canto-Sperber : Plato: Ménon . 2nd, revised edition. Flammarion, Paris 1993, ISBN 2-08-070491-5 (French translation of the Menon with commentary and introduction).
  • Jacob Klein : A Commentary on Plato's Meno. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1965.
  • John E. Thomas: Musings on the Meno . Nijhoff, The Hague 1980, ISBN 90-247-2121-0 .
  • Theodor Ebert: Plato: Menon. Translation and commentary. De Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-057617-7 .

Investigations

  • Norbert Blößner: The Unity of Plato's Meno. Reconstructing the Author's Thoughts . In: Philologus 155, 2011, pp. 39-68.
  • Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-23049-5 .
  • Jens Holzhausen : Menon in Plato's 'Menon' . In: Würzburger Yearbooks for Classical Studies New Series, Vol. 20, 1994/1995, pp. 129–149.
  • Cristina Ionescu: Plato's Meno. In terms of interpretation . Lexington, Lanham 2007, ISBN 0-7391-2025-5 .
  • Dominic Scott: Plato's Meno . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 978-0-521-64033-6 .
  • Robert Sternfeld, Harold Zyskind: Plato's Meno. A Philosophy of Man as Acquisitive . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 1978, ISBN 0-8093-0838-X .
  • Harold Tarrant: Recollecting Plato's Meno . Duckworth, London 2005, ISBN 0-7156-3291-4 (deals in particular with the ancient Menon reception).

Web links

  • Menon , Greek text after the edition by John Burnet (1903)
  • Menon , Greek text based on the edition by John Burnet (1903) and German translation by Friedrich Schleiermacher
  • Menon , German translation after Friedrich Schleiermacher, edited
  • Menon , German translation by Ludwig von Georgii (1860)
  • Michael Eisenstadt: καλοὶ λόγοι in Plato's Meno

Remarks

  1. ↑ Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, p. 167; William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, pp. 236 f.
  2. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy , Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, p. 236; John S. Morrison: Meno of Pharsalus, Polycrates, and Ismenias . In: The Classical Quarterly 36, 1942, pp. 57-78, here: 57 f., 76; Debra Nails: The People of Plato . Indianapolis 2002, pp. 204, 318 f .; Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, p. 166 f.
  3. ^ John S. Morrison: Meno of Pharsalus, Polycrates, and Ismenias . In: The Classical Quarterly 36, 1942, pp. 57-78, here: 76.
  4. ↑ Xenophon, Anabasis 2, 6, 21-27; Ktesias, Persika F 27 and F 28. See on the historical Menon Truesdell S. Brown: Menon of Thessaly . In: Historia 35, 1986, pp. 387-404; Monique Canto-Sperber: Plato: Ménon . 2nd, revised edition. Paris 1993, pp. 17-26; Richard Goulet: Ménon de Pharsale . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Vol. 4, Paris 2005, p. 484 f .; Debra Nails: The People of Plato . Indianapolis 2002, pp. 204 f.
  5. ↑ See on the historical role of Anytos Debra Nails: The People of Plato . Indianapolis 2002, p. 37 f .; Thomas C. Brickhouse, Nicholas D. Smith: Socrates on Trial . Oxford 1989, p. 29; Monique Canto-Sperber: Plato: Ménon . 2nd, revised edition. Paris 1993, pp. 26-32; Emile de Strycker, Simon R. Slings: Plato's Apology of Socrates . Leiden 1994, pp. 91-93.
  6. ↑ Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, p. 167 f .; Jens Holzhausen: Menon in Plato's 'Menon' . In: Würzburg Yearbooks for Classical Studies. Neue Episode Vol. 20, 1994/1995, pp. 129-149. On Menon as a dialogue figure, see Josiah B. Gould: Klein on Ethological Mimes, for example, the Meno . In: The Journal of Philosophy 66, 1969, pp. 253-265; Dominic Scott: Plato's Meno . Cambridge 2006, pp. 60-65.
  7. ↑ See Ernst Heitsch: Plato: Apologie des Sokrates. Translation and commentary . Göttingen 2002, pp. 57-60.
  8. ↑ On the problem of translating the term Arete, see Peter Stemmer : Tugend. I. Antiquity . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy . Vol. 10, Basel 1998, Col. 1532-1548, here: 1532 f. On the history of the concept, see Harold Tarrant: Recollecting Plato's Meno . London 2005, pp. 20-23.
  9. ↑ For Menon's understanding of this question, see Norbert Blößner: The Unity of Plato's Meno . In: Philologus 155, 2011, pp. 39–68, here: 44, 47–49.
  10. ↑ Cf. Plato, Crito 53d. See also Cristina Ionescu: Plato's Meno , Lanham 2007, pp. 4-6; Jacob Klein: A Commentary on Plato's Meno , Chapel Hill 1965, pp. 40 f .; Paul Friedländer : Plato . Vol. 2. 3., improved edition. Berlin 1964, p. 257.
  11. ↑ Plato, Meno 70a-71e.
  12. ↑ Plato, Meno 71e-72a.
  13. ↑ Plato, Meno 72a-73c. For the unity of virtue according to Socrates' and Menon's understanding, see Norbert Blößner: The Unity of Plato's Meno . In: Philologus 155, 2011, pp. 39–68, here: 49 f.
  14. ↑ Plato, Meno 73c-74b.
  15. ↑ Plato, Menon 75a4-5.
  16. ↑ Plato, Menon 75b9-11.
  17. ↑ Plato, Menon 75c2-7.
  18. ↑ Plato, Menon 75c4-5.
  19. ↑ Plato, Menon 75e1-76a2.
  20. ↑ Plato, Menon 76a6-7.
  21. ^ Theodor Ebert: Socrates on the Definition of Figure in the Meno . In: Suzanne Stern-Gillet, Kevin Corrigan (Eds.): Reading Ancient Texts. Vol. 1: Presocratics and Plato . Leiden 2007, pp. 113-124; Theodor Ebert: Plato: Menon. Berlin 2018, pp. 73–81.
  22. ↑ Plato, Menon 76a8-b1.
  23. ↑ See David Sansone: Socrates' "Tragic" Definition of Color (Pl. Meno 76D-E) . In: Classical Philology 91, 1996, pp. 339-345; Edmonde Grimal: A propos d'un passage du Ménon: une définition “tragique” de la couleur . In: Revue des Études grecques 55, 1942, pp. 1–13.
  24. ↑ Plato, Menon 77e5-b1.
  25. ↑ See also Marcel van Ackeren : The knowledge of the good . Amsterdam 2003, pp. 70-74; Christoph Horn : Plato's concept of the will in the Meno and in the Gorgias . In: Christian Pietsch (ed.): Ethics of ancient Platonism . Stuttgart 2013, pp. 173–190, here: 173–178.
  26. ↑ Plato, Meno 74b-78b.
  27. ↑ Plato, Meno 78b-80d.
  28. ↑ Plato, Meno 80d-e.
  29. ↑ See Russell M. Dancy: Plato's Introduction of Forms . Cambridge 2004, pp. 218-221; Sang-In Lee: anamnesis in the menon . Frankfurt am Main 2001, pp. 97–119.
  30. ↑ On Socrates' handling of Menon's objection to the recognizability of the unknown, see Norbert Fischer: On the problem of transcendence in the Platonic theory of knowledge . In: Theologie und Philosophie 55, 1980, pp. 384–403, here: 388–393; Rosemary Desjardins: Knowledge and Virtue: Paradox in Plato's Meno . In: The Review of Metaphysics 39, 1985/1986, pp. 261-281, here: 262-269 as well as the contributions to the discussion by Dominic Scott, Denis O'Brien and Monique Canto-Sperber in Revue philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger . Vol. 181, Vol. 116, 1991, pp. 627-663.
  31. ↑ See also Thomas Alexander Szlezák : ἅτε γὰρ τῆς φύσεως ἁπάσης συγγενοῦς οὔσης (Men. 81 c9 – d11) . In: Michael Erler, Luc Brisson (eds.): Gorgias - Menon . Sankt Augustin 2007, pp. 333-344.
  32. ↑ Plato, Meno 81a-82a.
  33. ↑ Plato, Meno 82a-85b.
  34. ↑ Plato, Meno 82c-84c.
  35. ↑ For the details of the learning process, see John E. Thomas: A Re-examination of the Slave-boy Interview . In: Laval théologique et philosophique 26, 1970, pp. 17-27. See John E. Thomas: Plato's Methodological Device at 84a1 . In: The New Scholasticism 45, 1971, pp. 478-486.
  36. ↑ Plato, Meno 84c-86c.
  37. ^ Plato, Meno 81a-b.
  38. ↑ Plato, Meno 86c-87d.
  39. ↑ Plato, Meno 86e-87c. Cf. Ernst Heitsch: Paths to Plato . Göttingen 1992, pp. 39-50; Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Darmstadt 2013, pp. 136–144. Lee Franklin: Investigations from Hypothesis in Plato's Meno: An Unorthodox Reading takes an interpretation that deviates from the current understanding of the hypothesis method . In: Apeiron 43, 2010, pp. 87-115.
  40. ↑ Plato, Meno 87d-89c.
  41. ↑ Plato, Meno 89c-92c.
  42. ↑ Plato, Meno 92c-95a.
  43. ↑ Plato, Meno 95a-96d.
  44. ↑ For "tying up" see Gail Fine: Knowledge and True Belief in the Meno . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 27, 2004, pp. 41–81, here: 55–61; Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Darmstadt 2013, pp. 109–112.
  45. ↑ See Hartmut Westermann: The intention of the poet and the purposes of the interpreters , Berlin 2002, pp. 181–188.
  46. ↑ Plato, Meno 96d-100b.
  47. ^ Plato, Meno 100b-c.
  48. ↑ See also Paul W. Gooch: Irony and Insight in Plato's Meno . In: Laval théologique et philosophique 43, 1987, pp. 189-204; Dominic Scott: Recollection and experience . Cambridge 1995, pp. 43, 46 f .; Harold Tarrant: Studying Plato and Platonism Together: Meno-related Observations . In: Michael Erler, Luc Brisson (eds.): Gorgias - Menon , Sankt Augustin 2007, pp. 20–28, here: 23–25; Margarita Kranz (Ed.): Plato: Menon . Stuttgart 1994, p. 120 f.
  49. ↑ An overview of various interpretations is provided by John E. Thomas: Musings on the Meno . The Hague 1980, pp. 127-147.
  50. ↑ Among the numerous representatives of this direction are Peter Stemmer: Platons Dialektik. The early and middle dialogues . Berlin 1992, pp. 233-236; Bernhard Waldenfels : The Socratic Questions , Meisenheim am Glan 1961, p. 115 f .; Sang-In Lee: anamnesis in the menon . Frankfurt am Main 2001, pp. 148–152 and Plato's anamnesis in the early and middle dialogues . In: Antike und Abendland 46, 2000, pp. 93–115; Klaus Reich (Ed.): Plato: Menon . Hamburg 1972, pp. IX-XIX; Rod Jenks: On the Sense of the Socratic Reply to Meno's Paradox . In: Ancient Philosophy 12, 1992, pp. 317-330; Gail Fine: Inquiry in the Meno . In: Richard Kraut (Ed.): The Cambridge Companion to Plato . Cambridge 1992, pp. 200-226, here: 204-215; Theodor Ebert : Opinion and Knowledge in Plato's Philosophy . Berlin 1974, pp. 96-104 and "The Theory of Recollection in Plato's Meno": Against a Myth of Platonic Scholarship . In: Michael Erler, Luc Brisson (eds.): Gorgias - Menon . Sankt Augustin 2007, pp. 184-198; Roslyn Weiss: Virtue in the Cave. Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno . Oxford 2001, pp. 63-74.
  51. ↑ Criticism of the “demythologizing” of the anamnesis is practiced by Bernd Manuwald : Wiedererinnerung / Anamnesis . In: Christoph Horn et al. (Ed.): Platon-Handbuch . Stuttgart 2009, pp. 352-354; Dominic Scott: Plato's Meno . Cambridge 2006, p. 121 f .; Kenneth Seeskin: Dialogue and Discovery. A Study in Socratic Method . Albany 1987, pp. 103-110; Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, p. 366.
  52. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, p. 258; Richard S. Bluck (Ed.): Plato's Meno . Cambridge 1961, p. 11.
  53. ↑ Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Darmstadt 2013, pp. 112–115.
  54. ↑ Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Darmstadt 2013, p. 116 f.
  55. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, pp. 242-247; Christoph Horn: Plato's concept of the will in the Meno and in the Gorgias . In: Christian Pietsch (ed.): Ethics of ancient Platonism . Stuttgart 2013, pp. 173-190; Franz von Kutschera: Plato's philosophy . Vol. 1, Paderborn 2002, pp. 226-228; Charles H. Kahn: Plato and the Socratic dialogue . Cambridge 1996, pp. 157-164.
  56. ^ For example , William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy advocate the presence of the doctrine of ideas in the Menon . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, pp. 253 f .; Cristina Ionescu: Plato's Meno . Lanham 2007, pp. XV-XVII; Konrad Gaiser : Plato's 'Menon' and the Academy . In: Konrad Gaiser: Collected writings . Sankt Augustin 2004, pp. 353–399, here: 355 f .; Carlo E. Huber: Anamnesis in Plato . Munich 1964, p. 316 f. Theodor Ebert, among others, has the opposite view: Opinion and knowledge in Plato's philosophy . Berlin 1974, p. 84, and Roslyn Weiss: Virtue in the Cave. Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno . Oxford 2001, p. 74 f.
  57. ↑ Joseph T. Bedu-Addo: Recollection and the argument, from a hypothesis' in Plato's Meno . In: Journal of Hellenic Studies 104, 1984, pp. 1–14, here: 10–14; Michael Cormack: Plato's Stepping Stones: Degrees of Moral Virtue . London 2006, pp. 70-72.
  58. ^ Gail Fine: Knowledge and True Belief in the Meno . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 27, 2004, pp. 41–81.
  59. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, p. 255; Oliver Hallich: Plato's "Menon" . Darmstadt 2013, pp. 104-108.
  60. ↑ This interpretation represented Jerome Eckstein: The Platonic Method . New York 1968, pp. 36-45, and Roslyn Weiss: Virtue in the Cave. Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno . Oxford 2001, pp. 12, 77-126.
  61. ↑ Norbert Blößner: The Unity of Plato's Meno. Reconstructing the Author's Thoughts . In: Philologus 155, 2011, pp. 39–68, here: 64–66.
  62. ↑ Ernst Heitsch: Plato: Apology of Socrates. Translation and commentary . Göttingen 2002, pp. 177-180.
  63. ↑ See for the chronological classification Ernst Heitsch: Plato: Apologie des Sokrates. Translation and commentary . Göttingen 2002, p. 179 f .; Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, p. 165 f .; William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, p. 236; Monique Canto-Sperber: Plato: Ménon . 2nd, revised edition. Paris 1993, pp. 319-323; John E. Thomas: Musings on the Meno . The Hague 1980, pp. 10-16, 22.
  64. ↑ See on Aristotle's reception of the Menon David Bronstein: Meno's Paradox in Posterior Analytics 1.1 . In: Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 38, 2010, pp. 115–141; Sang-In Lee: anamnesis in the menon . Frankfurt am Main 2001, pp. 160-185.
  65. ^ Aristotle, Analytica posteriora 71a.
  66. ^ Aristotle, Analytica priora 67a.
  67. ↑ Aristotle, Politics 1260a.
  68. ↑ See also Carl Werner Müller : Appendix Platonica and Neue Akademie . In: Klaus Döring , Michael Erler, Stefan Schorn (Eds.): Pseudoplatonica . Stuttgart 2005, pp. 155-174, here: 156-163; Michael Erler: Plato . Basel 2007, pp. 323-325.
  69. ↑ See Harold Tarrant on Cicero's Menon Reception: Recollecting Plato's Meno . London 2005, pp. 101-125.
  70. ^ Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 1.57.
  71. ↑ Cicero, De divinatione 1,115 (reference to Menon 81c – d).
  72. ↑ Diogenes Laertios 3: 57-59.
  73. ^ Athenaios 11, 505a-b. On this tradition see Jacob Klein: A Commentary on Plato's Meno . Chapel Hill 1965, p. 37.
  74. ↑ Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5,13,83.
  75. ↑ Arnobius, Adversus nationes 2.24.
  76. ↑ Augustine, De trinitate 12:15, 24.
  77. ^ Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini (CPF) . Part 1, Vol. 1 ***, Firenze 1999, pp. 139-141, 494-499.
  78. ↑ For the text transmission see Bruno Vancamp: Investigations on the handwritten transmission of Plato's Menon . Stuttgart 2010; Richard S. Bluck (Ed.): Plato's Meno . Cambridge 1961, pp. 129-147.
  79. ↑ Muhsin Mahdi : Alfarabi: Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle . 2nd Edition. Ithaca 2001, p. 55 (English translation of al-Fārābī's work). See Harold Tarrant: Recollecting Plato's Meno . London 2005, pp. 130-135.
  80. ↑ Victor Kordeuter (ed.): Meno interprete Henrico Aristippo . London 1940, p. 5 f.
  81. ↑ Marsilii Ficini Opera . Volume 2, Paris 2000 (reprint of the Basel 1576 edition), p. 1132 f. An English translation of the introduction is provided by Arthur Farndell: Gardens of Philosophy. Ficino on Plato . London 2006, pp. 14-16.
  82. ^ René Descartes: Epistola ad Gisbertum Voetium . In: Charles Adam, Paul Tannery (eds.): Œuvres de Descartes , Vol. 8/2, Paris 1987, p. 167.
  83. ^ Leibniz: Discours de métaphysique 26.
  84. ↑ Friedrich Schleiermacher: Menon. Introduction . In: Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher: About the philosophy of Plato , edited by Peter M. Steiner, Hamburg 1996, pp. 206-219, here: 216.
  85. ↑ John Stuart Mill: Grote's Plato . In: John Stuart Mill: Collected Works . Vol. 11: Essays on Philosophy and the Classics . Toronto 1978, pp. 375-440, here: 422.
  86. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. His life and works . 5th edition. Berlin 1959 (1st edition Berlin 1919), pp. 219–221.
  87. ^ Alfred Croiset (Ed.): Plato: Œuvres complètes . Vol. 3, part 2. 6th edition. Paris 1955, p. 227.
  88. ^ Franz von Kutschera: Plato's philosophy . Vol. 1, Paderborn 2002, p. 233.
  89. ^ Paul Natorp: Plato's theory of ideas . 2nd, revised edition. Leipzig 1921 (first edition 1903), pp. 30 f., 33.
  90. ^ Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff: Platon. His life and works . 5th edition. Berlin 1959 (1st edition Berlin 1919), pp. 212, 217.
  91. ↑ Nicolai Hartmann: The problem of apriorism in the Platonic philosophy . In: Smaller Fonts . Vol. 2, Berlin 1957, pp. 48–85, here: 57. Cf. Oliver Hallich: Plato's “Menon” . Darmstadt 2013, p. 103 f.
  92. ^ Gregory Vlastos: Platonic Studies . 2nd Edition. Princeton 1981 (1st edition Princeton 1973), p. 230, note 22.
  93. ^ William KC Guthrie: A History of Greek Philosophy . Vol. 4, Cambridge 1975, pp. 255 f.
  94. ↑ Jonathan Barnes: Enseigner la vertu? In: Revue philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger . Vol. 181, Vol. 116, 1991, pp. 571-589.
  95. ^ Karl Popper: The open society and its enemies . 7th edition. Vol. 1, Tübingen 1992, p. 154. Oliver Hallich also points to this aspect, but without reference to the historical Socrates: Oliver Hallich: Plato's “Menon” . Darmstadt 2013, p. 100 f.
  96. ↑ Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations . Tübingen 2009, pp. 13-18, 43.
  97. ^ Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe: Understanding Proofs. Meno, 85d9-86c2, Continued . In: Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe: From Parmenides to Wittgenstein . Oxford 1981, pp. 34-43.
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