The Plato Paradigm

Having argued with Lysis that the friendly is not friendly to its like, and with Menexenus that the friendly is not friendly to its opposite, Socrates proposes (still with Menexenus) what might seem to be an uneristic and therefore more plausible solution, that the friendly is friendly to something between the two extremes.

Socrates continues to develop a highly provocative position he claims to have heard from someone clever, that the most opposite is most friendly to the most opposite, apparently contradicting the earlier claim that like is friendly to like. Menexenus takes over the conversation from Lysis, and Socrates returns to eristics.

Socrates provides only an argument from authority for his outrageous claim not only that the same are hostile to the same, but that most hostile are good people to good people. Even the argument from authority is problematic since Socrates deliberately misquotes two of the most famous lines of the poet Hesiod. We might almost suspect that he is looking for a reaction from his interlocutors.

Socrates continues to try to make Lysis think dialectically, but fails miserably. Lysis accepts that the same is useless and not a friend to the same, although the good person is a friend to the good person (this is a contradicton), Once again, it is Socrates himself who has to discover that they have been seriously misled (they have, by him), and he adduces someone who is said to have claimed that the same thing to the same thing, and the good people to the good people, are actually hostile. Socrates claims that that man used to adduce Hesiod, but...

Socrates leads Lysis by the nose, and Lysis does not object. Socrates "interprets" the poet and the physikoi as claiming that only the similar to the simlar are friends, but if those who are dissimilar in themselves are bad, this means that only the good are friends. Since this doesn't cause Lysis to object, Socrates adds another problem, that the similar add nothing useful to the similar; if another adds nothing useful to oneself, why would one love such a person? The verb phileo (I love) is replaced by agapao (I am affectionate). Agape in modern Greek is the word...

If like is friendly to like, what are we to make of bad people?

The previous section featured a discussion between Socrates and Menexenus asking whether the friend is the loving or the loved. Socrates changes the subject with Lysis to consider whether friends are similar people or opposites,

What was supposed to be an eristic debate designed to embarrass Menexenus turns into an intriguing discussion on friends which leads Lysis to intervene spontaneously and much to his own embarrassment. This is yet again a clear example of Socrates talking to one interlocutor (Menexenus) while his eye is on another (Lysis, and we should not forget Hippothales, although I don't mention him this time).

Treating philos as the beloved friend leads to problems easily demonstrated by Ancient Greek usage.While we do not use Ancient Greek, the underlying problems are common to all.

What was supposed to be an eristic debate has turned into a semi-philosophical enquiry into the nature of a philos ("friend"), being the one who loves or the one being loved, or whether the partners in such a relationsihp in which only one loves are both friends or both not friends. Socrates exploits to confusing effect an ambiguity in the word philos, which as an adjective (its original usage)  is passive ("beloved") but as a nount is the ambiguous "friend".

Socrates begins what should be an eristic debate. There are some attempts to make it look like an eristic debate, but the options provided allow Menexenus to avoid choosing one or other extreme, and the result of the questioning so far is no more than puzzlement over the identify of a friend in a friendship. If one loves, is the lover the friend, or the one loved, or both, or neither? Socrates also confuses love with lust, presumably for the benefit of Hippothales who is still listening.

Lysis asked Socrates to beat Menexenus in eristic debate, but instead, Socrates declares that he is desirous of acquiring a friend or companion, far more than acquiring a quail, a rooster, a horse and dog, the wealth of Darius, or even Darius himself. He claims to have no friends, while Menexenus is the expert on friendship since he and Lysis are such good friends.

Socrates seems to be going ahead with Lysis' request to beat Menexenus in eristic debate. He is taking time to set it up, ensuring that he appears to be the underdog, pretending to complain that Menexenus is sitting with his "teacher" Ctesippus, his slightly older cousin. He also ensures that Menexenus will be the one answering questions, the best way to guarantee eristic victory. At one point in the episode I say that Socrates is not an eristician although he is expert in the use of eristic techniques, since he never actually wants to beat anybody. This is not entirely...

Lysis and Socrates continue to whisper to each other, and Lysis turns the future conversstion away from himself into an eristic match to defeat his friend Menexenus.

Hippothales, hiding close to Lysis and Socrates, becomes the focus of attention. It is unusual in a Platonic dialogue for a non-participant in a conversation to be noticed during the conversation. Socrates even states what he would have said to Hippothales had he made the mistake of speaking out loud. In orher news, Menexenus returns to the conversation.

Socrates uses the answers of Lysis himself to prove (albeit sophistically) that Lysis shouldn't complain about his lowly status iin crafts where he is incompetent, It is not claer to me that Lysis had been complaining about this, since he had earlier explained without a hint of resentment that slaves and hired hands controlled him in varoius crafts because of his (young) age.

Lysis is either a megalomaniac psychopath or possibly a young boy who is not quite grasping. the import of what he is agreeing to. He agrees with Socrtes that he should be entrusted by all and sundry around the world with any technē at which he is considered to be the best. This is a little complicated by Socrates adding himself to the mix. The whole world should entrust Lysis and Socrates together with any technē at which they are the most proficient, and then they would be free to do whatever they desire, and would be masters of others ra...

Under questioning, Lysis has been primed to think that being ruled by slaves and hired professionals in technai where he is incompetent is restrictive, while being entrusted to read and write for his parents, in the technai of reading and writing, where he is competent, is freeing and permits him to do as he desires. To say that Lysis himself actually thought like this before Socrates' questioning is problematic. Even so, Lysis should have begun questioning the notion that being entrusted with technai is freeing when Socrates began talking about making stew for the Great King.

Lysis realizes that he is ruled and restricted by slaves, hired professionals, and his mother, in those arts and crafts (technai) where he does not yet understand. However, his parents allow him to read and write because he understands the technai of reading and writing. Socrates draws out the implication that Lysis will be allowed to do whatever he wants the moment he understands all technai. Under further questioning, Lysis agrees that his father, his neighbour, Athenians in general, should entrust their things to him the moment he is more capable than them.

Even the parents of Lysis restrict his desires to technai where he is competent, but there he is allowed to do whatever he wishes, so Socrates pretends to infer.

Socrates' line of questioning establishes that Lysis is prevented by his parents, who love him very much, from doing whatever he desires. Even slaves are put in charge of him. We should remember that Hippothales is listening to this as a lesson in how to attract rather than repel his lust-obect.

Socrates begins his interrogation of Lysis. He had been considering asking Lysis and Menexenusk, before the latter left, which of them was more just and expert, but now with Lysis alone, Socrates asks him about his parents' treatment of him.

Menexenus leaves the conversation, leaving Lysis at the mercy of Socrates, Ctesippus, and the many onlookers, including Hippothales who still hopes to learn how to speak to his lust object without repelling him.

Stage directions about who sits or stands where for the conversation between Socrates, Menexenus, and Lysis

Socrates innocently describes the scene as he and Ctesippus, followed by the others, enter the palaestra.

Socrates promises.to demonstrate to Hippothales how to speak to one's lust object in a way which will attract rather than repel. Hippithales is. deviously inventive when it comes to helping Socrates talk to Lysis, enlisting the aid of Ctesippus and Ctesippus' cousin Menexenus in order to facilitate the meeting. Hippothales appears not to have noticed that Socrates has successfully engineered a conversatipn with Lysis, which is something Hippothales seems never to have done.

Socrates criticizes Hippothales for his speeches and songs, but not for the right reason.

Ctesippus describes to Socrates the sort of ridiculous praise his friend Hippothales has been directing at Lysis. It turns out that Hippothales is not in fact praising Lysis.

We learn some more about Lysis, the formal subject of this part of the conversation. Lysis is the son of Democrates of the deme Aixone, so he is of an aristocratic family. He seems to have it all - looks, wealth, status, reputation, and a course in wrestling. We should not forget, however, the the most important things we learn are from characters themselves, about themselves, and here we learn quite a bit about Hippothales, Ctesippus, and of course, Socrates as he is in this dialogue.

Ctesippus enters the chat. He informs Socrates that Hippothales is so obsessed with Lysis that he is an annoyance to Ctesippus and the others of their age group.

Socrates, using his god-given gift to recognize lusters and lusted, quickly ascertains that Hippothales is lusting after a younger boy in the wrestling school. Socrates' profession of ignorance with regard to all other things should be taken with a grain of salt, as should be the notion that a god was required to give Socrates the ability to deduce Hippothales' infatuation with someone.

The youths, including Hippothales and Ctesippus, are assmbled outside of a palaestra, where they spend time in words. During this introductory chat we come to appreciate one feature of Socratic dialectic, namely how Plato's Socrates sets up conversations in advance. We should not apply this feature to Socrates in every dialogue, but it is certainly a feature in the later early dialogues, and some middle ones (e.g., Hippias Minor, Hippias Major, Politeia, Phaedrus, Symposium - not in. e.g., Euthyphro, Laches, Phaedo, where Socrates does control the conversation, but does not initiate the discussion or put himself in the...

Socrates says he was walking from Academy straight to Lyceum, but on the way encountered a crowd of youths. Is he about to be mugged under the city wall of Athens?

Socrates conceals his dialectic exercise with rhetoric and even eristics in an attempt to make Io, who enjoys listening to sophists (he says "you sophoi"), and consequently nice rhetorical stories such as the magnet analogy, actually consider what his rhapsodic techne is. It does include thousands of Homeric lines as subject matter, but this does not mean he is an expert (has the techne) regarding each subject talked about.
I have not speculated in the podcast, but Plato may have written this dialogue with some of his own students in mind. Plato was considered divine by many people, and...

What the dialogue is not about.

In this final section of the dialogue, Socrates provides Io with two options. Either Io has techne and refuses to divulge his sophia to Socrates, and is therefore doing wrong, or he has no techne but is divinely inspired. Should he choose to be considered unjust or divine?

Socratae, beginning his concluding remarks, presents the first of his two options for Io. Accordinng to this first option, Io is doing Socrates wrong by purposely shapeshifting in order to avoid revealing how clever he is with regard to the sophia of Homer.

Socrates finishes off the argument refuting Io's claim that he is a general, let alone a good general, incidentally revealing that the dramatic date of the dialogue is around 413 BC, after the disastrous Athenian campaign against Syracuse.

Socrates begins dismantling Io's claim that he has a techne common to rhapsodes and generals. Io accepts that he is the best rhapsode and the best general, but he cannot accept that any general is also a rhapsode, for the very good reason, I suggest, that a general is not a rhapsode. This is not a refutation based on logic, but an argument from observation.

Having essentially agreed (in not so many words) that each techne has exclusive subject matter, it is perhaps surprising that Io remains steadfast over his claim that the rhapsode and the strategos share the same techne.

Io had been forced to narrow the rhapsode's expertise down to knowing what sort of things it would be fitting for different types of people to say, ,such as a man, a woman, a slave or a ruler, rather than any type of craftsman. However, Socrates has derailed this approach to rhapsody by giving each of these types of people various types of techne: the ruler he has turned into a ruler of a ship at sea (a helmsman), and a ruler of a sick person (a physician); even the slave becomes a ruler of oxen (an oxherd), a woman...

Io misspoke when he formulated the rhapsode's techne as the ability to know the sort of things any type of person should say. It is easy for Socrates to make Io admit that craftsmen of all other crafts will say things connected to their crafts more finely than a rhapsode could - this after all is what they have been assuming for a long time now.

What began as a question over who can judge better when Homer is speaking well has recently become a question of which techne is better suited to judge the subject matter of the poem. In every case, the professional associated with the subject matter being discussed is preferred to the rhapsode, since Io accepts the sophistic principle of exclusivity (if one techne knows X, then the rhapsodic techne doesn't know X). This pushes Io finally to consider what the rhapsodic techne might be without reference to the subject matter of the poem.,

Socrates quotes another Homeric example of the mantike techne (the craft of the seer). Unlike the first example, a prophecy, the.second example is an omen.

Socrates adds to the medical quote from Homer a quote from the techne (craft) of fishing, and another from the craft of divination. It still appears to Io that professionals rather than a rhapsode would be able to better judge whether Homer speaks well about these ultimately minor details from entire professions..

Socrates makes a meal of the refutation. One point I don't discuss in the podcast is why a charioteer would want to judge a poet anyway, and the question may be directed at the judging of rhapsodes in competitions. What exactly is being judged? Their knowledge of the subject matter talked about by the poet, or their ability to perform the poem? This would seem to be an easy question to answer, but it would imply that the subject matter is not exclusive to one techne, and were Io to have arrived at this conclusion, Socrates' longwinded refutation of the...

Socrates is still sophistically establishing the exclusivity of the subject matter of a craft, such that the subject matter of one techne cannot be the subject matter of another techne.

Spcrates continues developing his sophistic argument which will eventually lead to yet another proof that rhapsody is not a techne (craft or skill). We two use the same skill concerning the same content, such as knowing that Socrates is holding up five fingers. It would seem to follow that different content therefore requires different skills.

Socrates' apparently dialectical elenchus turns out to be more of a sophistic exercise with the foregone false conclusion that only a charioteer (having the techne of chariot racing) would understand what Homer says about chariot racing. Not only are there several obvious flaws in the construction of the argument, but the very idea that it is Homer rather than Nestor speaking is also concerning, but probably deliberate, given the care Socrates earlier took in making sure the rhapsode knew who spoke the lines and to whom. Of course Io would know this too, but with these names fresh in his...

While the four rhetorical arguments to prove that Io lacked techne and nous at the moment he delivered well the best of Homer were, according to Io, spoken well, they were not convincinng. Socrates changes tack, deciding to stop arguing to persuade in favour of questioning, but still with a view to challenging Io's view that he has a techne. If Io speaks well, he must surely know what Homer is talking about. In the spirit of dialectial induction,  Socrates begins with an example from the techne of chariot racing. Does Io really know how to make a chariot make a...

Socrates' four analogies supporting his claim that Io lacks techne, nous, or episteme whenever he performs the best of Homer's poems, is easily dismissed by Io who appreciates Socrates' rhetoric, but remains unconvinced by it. He observes that Socrates speaks well. Coincidentally, this is now what also concerns Socrates about Io. On what subject in Homer's poems does Io speak well?

Socrates completes his fourth analogy illustrating why rhapsodes lack techne and episteme when performing a poet's best poems in the best way possible. This time, very little of substance seems to have been added to the original magnet analogy. Possibly an attempt has been made to shift the notion of possession as a divine occupation replacing the rhapsode's intelligence towards the notion of possession as a holding by magnetic attraction, but the absence of intelligence is still the main point.

Purportedly to explain why even the emotions instilled in the spectator are not due to the skill of the rhapsode, the fourth analogy is a refinement of the first analogy about magnets. Instead of a magnet attracting many rings which in turn attract many other rings, this time there are only three rings in a chain, and this must be explained.

Now that Io has agreed that he is affected by the poetry he declaims, Socrates asks whether the audience is similarly affected, and Io makes it clear that it is his job to know that they are.

Having shown to Io's delight with three examples why poets lack techne, Socrates begins to interrogate Io in order to determine that rhapsodes also lack techne. The reason for rhapsodes lacking techne differs from the reasons Socrates ascribed to the poets.

My final thoughts on the three analogies concerning the mindlessness of poets producing good poetry. Socrates then returns to the rhapsodes who are interpreters of interpreters, given that poets are interpreters (or expounders of expounders - hermenes of hermenes). Io replies, "Absolutely!".

Ostensibly to prove the third claim regarding the lack of intelligence of poets at the time of performing a poem, Socrates adduces the famous example of an otherwise worthless poet whose paeon is widely considered to be the best of lyric poetry. Socrates, as usual, inserts a number of inconsistencies no doubt calculated to make Io think dialectically, although nothing of the sort happens,

Socrates adds a third reason for the poets' lack of intelligence, inconsistent with the other two reasons.

Socrates makes some interesting wordplays and confusions between the two analogies - the magnet and the bees. Io does not react. As he said earlier, he enjoys listening to "you sophoi". Socrates has contrasted an accurate but prosaic analogy with a highly inaccurate and denigrating but poetic and rhetorical analogy.

Socrates continues telling Io about the divine power, this time using the analogy of bees spreading honey.

The alternative to Io having a techne is that he is possessed by a divine power. Socrates first uses the magnet analogy.

Io seems almost to challenge Socrates to tell him why he is exceptional as someone with a techne, in that he can talk well only about one practitioner of his techne, although Socrates' last example implies that Io does not have Homer's techne. The techne of poetry and the techne of rhapsody appear to be treated differently. All the technai in this inductive passage are treated incorrectly, as if complete knowledge of the techne includes complete knowledge concerning the practitioners of the techne.

Socrates appears to perform a normal sequence of induction, but things are not quite what they seem.

To exemplify the point that any techne deals with the whole of the field of that techne, Socrates refers to graphike techne, meaning here just painting. Socrates proceeds, however, to talk about the critic of one artist needing to be able to criticize all artists if indeed the techne pertains to the whole. Earlier, Io had said that he excelled as a critic of Homer, but not of other poets, so Socrates' analogy is accurate, although it does not prove the point about techne pertaining to the whole of its field.

The rhapsode Io can judge of the poets both who speaks well and who speaks less well since he has the appropriate techne, but in the next breath Socrates determines that Io can't judge anyone, even Homer, since he lacks techne and episteme. Even more strangely, Io seems happy with this, and even treats Socrates as a sophos whom he is happy to listen to.

Socrates concludes from the examples with arithmetic and medicine that the one who has a techne in a subject is the one who may recognize the one speaking well in the subject and the ones speaking badly (later in the argument, worse = less well), so that Io himself turns out to be the one with techne who can judge that Homer speaks well while the other poets speak less well. Socrates finally uses the word kritēs (judge), but not about those who judge rhapsodes such as Io in competitions, but about Io himself, judging Homer and the other poets. T...

Socrates steers the conversation back to the subject matter by asking who will recognize who speaks well or badly in arithmetic and in medicine. The answer is that the one who has the techne (craft / art) of arithmetic or medicine is the one who will recognize both types of speaker. Why does Socrates not mention a judge (kritēs) explicitly, or the verb "to judge" (dikazō)? He is certainly referring to the function of a judge, and we may ask why a judge is necessary for the argument. Why does Socrates not focus the argument on the arithmetician, the physician, or...

Socrates does dialectic "badly" (as usual), failing to compare and contrast clearly and concisely. He allows Io to revert to an aesthetic understanding of Homer more than once.

Socrates and Io are already talking at cross-purposes. Socrates appears to want to talk about the rhapsode's ability (as part of his techne) to understand the intent (dianoia) of a poet, while Io states that it is the hardest part of the techne to perfect the expression of the intents (dianoiai) of a poet. Io is motivated to present the poems as beautifully as possible, not as informatively as possible.

Socrates concentrates his supposed envy of rhapsodes on their ability to understand the poet. Apart from the verb "to understand", he also uses the noun "dianoia", which I translate as "intent" or "intention". Io understands Socrates to mean what he himself means by dianoia, the emotional thought to be expressed in any particular passage of a poem.

The dialogue Io is very short but still not well understood. All agree that Socrates is talking to a rhapsode. The conversation is simple but Plato's intent is not obvious.

We are finally in a position to uncover the underlying concept or idea of the dialogue which is dramatized as it is and as it appears to be (correctly, to a dialectical reader, and incorrectly to the Many) in every aspect of the dialogue. Just as in HIppias Minor and in Politeia, there are actually several paradigms dramatizing this idea in various stages of false appearance. The characters are deigmata of the various paradeigmata.

The deigmata (examples).

We look at the various characters in the dialogue, so consistent that they may be regarded as models: Meno, Socrates, Anytus (based on a character in Theognis), Gorgias, Meno's slave. They seem to have features in common, but we still cannot see the diagonal line, as it were, which will make everything fall into place.

This is the second part of the overview of the dialogue Meno. Once again, we see that nothing actually said should be taken as the words of Plato himself, and that the philosophy must be found in what is more consistent in the dialogue, namely the characters themselves.

This and the following podcast provide a brief summary of the dialogue Meno, emphasizing the lack of philosophical content in what is said. To put it another way, the philosophy of Plato is not to be found in the words spoken by the characters. We should start thinking about the characters of the dialogue, which is only possible through listening to what they say.

Before reaching conclusions regarding the dialogue Meno, I thought it would be helpful to provide an overview of the general structure of a Platonic dialogue (at least, of the ones I have analysed), with the aid of the examples of Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, and Hippias Major (to these may be added the overview of Politeia, aka Republic, in episode 75).

The end!
Who would be the politikos who could make another person politikos?  If reasoning has led to the fourth option proposed by Socrates, is it not episteme, and if so, why should it be reexamined? Socrates leaves Meno with an outline of the dialectic method.

Socrates provides Meno with a new answer to the question asked by Meno at the beginning of the dialogue. Virtue comes to people through divine lot.

What is the significance of good politicians being called divine? Why does it matter that not only women but also Spartan men think this way? We find out that all through Socrates' unflattering portrayal of good politicians as people lacking sense, Anytus has been listening, and appears to be, according to Meno, upset. Is this at all important for our understanding of the philosophical import of the dialogue, or is it merely a nod to the historical fact that Anytus was one of the prosecutors of Socrates?

Socrates continues his attempts to make Meno think even while leading up to his grand conclusion. Politicians don't understand what they are talking about. This is a given. However, Socrates is supposed to be demonstrating that they have true opinion as a guide to beneficial acts. This he emphatically does not do.

Socrates begins his last attempt to shock Meno into reacting to the ramifications of his own opinions and assumptions. If Meno is now happy that virtue not a knowledge (episteme) since there are no teachers of it (this itself is a false premise), then those good politicians (politicians with arete) guide cities without episteme. Socrates likens the senseless politicans to prophets and seers, to ease the transition from politicans being guided by correct opinion, through an ihtermediate stage of appearing to be guided well simply because of the good opinion of others, all the way to politicians being guided by...

Socrates concludes the confused summary of the arguments since the hypothesis that virtue is something teachable by setting up episteme and orthe doxa as the two things which lead well and beneficially,  only. to eliminate episteme on the specious claim that no one teaches it, leaving orthe doxa, correct opinion.  However, Socrates does not go to orthe doxa. He claims that politicians rely on eudoxia,  which is not "good opinion" but "good reputation" (despite the special pleading of LSJ).

Nearing the very end of the conversation, Socrates tries one last time to cause Meno to recollect, by seriously conflating and confusing 1. a summary of the hypothesis that virtue is teachable and 2. the discussion about understanding and true opinion. Socrates fails, since Meno agrees to everything Socrates says, as if each false remark exactly reflects what was said earlier.

Socrates continues to dwell on the similarities between episteme and orthe doxa - they are both good, and therefore beneficial, as are the men who have either of them. Socrates proceeds to recap the discussion from the time Meno gave up answering the question what arete is by returning to ask which of the four options is held by Socrates, concerning the type of thing arete is - teachable, exercisable, something coming to people by nature, or coming in some other way. Socrates' reconstruction of the discussion is perverse, the only plausible explanation being that he is testing Meno's ability...

I discuss the difference between correct opinion (orthē doxa) and understanding/knowledge (epistēmē), explaining why only understanding/knowledge is useful. Socrates, for his part, asserts his true belief that correct opinion is no worse than understanding/knowledge, and Meno confirms Socrates' belief, saying that Socrates is speaking correctly.

Socrates uses the statues of Daedalus as a way to explain to Meno how opinions (doxai) differ from pieces of knowledge (epistemai). One episteme, according to this account, is one doxa bound by "a reasoning of cause" (aitias logismos). Socrates suggests that they had agreed to this during the discussion of recollection (anamnesis), which is patently false. Meno once again fails Socrates' attempt to make him remember things already said in the dialogue.

Correct opinion (orthē doxa) and knowledge (epistēmē) are slightly distinguished by me, if not by the conversation between Socrates and Meno.

Meno wonders why people regard knowledge as so much more valuable than opinion, given that correct opinion leads to the same results as knowledge.

The infamous road to Larissa argument supporting the notion that orthodoxy (correct opinion) is as beneficial as knowledge, given that it leads to the same destination.

Socrates tests Meno's ability to remember or "recollect" previous arguments in the conversation, but Meno is blissfully unaware of all the outrageous distortions Socrates perpetrates. Then it was prudence (phronesis) which was the guiding principle leading to acts being performed correctly and well by an individual, Now Socrates suggests that they were correct in thinking that good men could lead us correctly and well, but were incorrect in agreeing that someone leading correctly and well needed to be prudent (phronimos).

Socrates having established that there are no teachers or students of virtue, Meno wonders whether there are any good men at all, or if there are good men,  how they come about. It is the second question which Socrates begins to answer by returning to an apparent mistake they had made much earlier in claiming that people act correctly and well only when episteme (knowledge/understanding) is guiding.

Socrates finally concludes his argument demonstrating that neither sophists nor the "fine and good" think that virtue is something teachable. The number of times he asks Meno versions of this question throughout the argument suggests that Socrates would have liked Meno to notice one of the many problems in the argument. After completing the argument, we return to a consideration of the Theognis interlude, which turns out to have been not only redundant but actually unhelpful to Socrates' argument, since virtue is seen to be teachable in certain circumstances.

Socrates concludes his quotations from Theognis, overtly to demonstrate that even an individual can believe that virtue is something teachable, but then (in the same poem), that virtue is not teachable. Apart from this point being philosophically redundant (it is enough that Meno is aware that he and the Many cannot decide whether sophists and good citizens are able to teach virtue or not), it is not the case that Theognis contradicted himself. I suggest a more significant reason for the appearance of Theognis' model well-born citizen so soon after the departure of Anytus.

Socrates carries on the discussion about teachers of virtue by returning to the question whether virtue is teachable. Meno and the other politikoi are not alone in wavering on the question, since even Theognis contradicts himself in this very matter.

Socrates continues interrogating Meno about virtue being something teachable. Having agreed that virtue is not something teachable if the teachers of it disagree, and then Meno himself having shown that the sophists disagree among themselves, Meno fails to conclude the sophists are not  teachers of virtue. This has no bearing on the teachability of virtue, but we do learn that Meno has made no progress in his ability to draw conclusions.

Anytus has just left, and Socrates and Meno are now free to say what they like about him. Socrates continues his demonstration that virtue is not something teachable, given that there are no teachers of it, as appears evident from his discussion with Anytus.

Anytus leaves with a scarcely veiled threat that Socrates will get himself into trouble if he keeps badmouthing people. This is not so important as the fact that he is exemplifying what he said earlier about decent Athenian citizens making better those people who are prepared to be persuaded by them.

Socrates demonstrates to Anytus inductively that that virtue of the Athenian citizen qua Athenian citizen is not something teachable. Themistocles, Aristides, Pericles, and Thucydides are all shown to have wanted to educate their sons, and that their sons were capable of learning, but that none of the sons ever acquired this particular arete. We'll have a look at the validity of this argument next time.

Socrates begins to test Anytus' claim that any decent Athenian citizen can teach his own virtue (arete). He ensures that Anytus thinks Themistocles is a good Athenian citizen before asking him whether he taught his virtue to his son, Cleophontus.