Meno
Plato (428–347 BC)
Plato's Meno in the Greek text edited by John Burnet.
Section 70
Section 71
Section 72
Section 73
Section 74
[74] SOCRATES: What are they? tell me the names of them, as I would tell you the names of the other figures if you asked me.
MENO: Courage and temperance and wisdom and magnanimity are virtues; and there are many others.
SOCRATES: Yes, Meno; and again we are in the same case: in searching after one virtue we have found many, though not in the same way as before; but we have been unable to find the common virtue which runs through them all.
MENO: Why, Socrates, even now I am not able to follow you in the attempt to get at one common notion of virtue as of other things.
SOCRATES: No wonder; but I will try to get nearer if I can, for you know that all things have a common notion. Suppose now that some one asked you the question which I asked before: Meno, he would say, what is figure? And if you answered 'roundness,' he would reply to you, in my way of speaking, by asking whether you would say that roundness is 'figure' or 'a figure;' and you would answer 'a figure.'
MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And for this reason--that there are other figures?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if he proceeded to ask, What other figures are there? you would have told him.
MENO: I should.
SOCRATES: And if he similarly asked what colour is, and you answered whiteness, and the questioner rejoined, Would you say that whiteness is colour or a colour? you would reply, A colour, because there are other colours as well.
MENO: I should.
SOCRATES: And if he had said, Tell me what they are?--you would have told him of other colours which are colours just as much as whiteness.
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And suppose that he were to pursue the matter in my way, he would say: Ever and anon we are landed in particulars, but this is not what I want; tell me then, since you call them by a common name, and say that they are all figures, even when opposed to one another, what is that common nature which you designate as figure--which contains straight as well as round, and is no more one than the other--that would be your mode of speaking?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in speaking thus, you do not mean to say that the round is round any more than straight, or the straight any more straight than round?
MENO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: You only assert that the round figure is not more a figure than the straight, or the straight than the round?
MENO: Very true.