Questions on Plato's Meno

Directions: Answer these questions on a separate piece of paper. Please number your answers. Only typed answers will be accepted.

1. What is Meno’s opening question?
2. What is Socrates’ answer?
3. What is Meno’s first attempt to define virtue?
4. What is wrong with this answer?
5. What is Meno’s second attempt to define virtue?
6. How does Socrates define shape?
7. What are Socrates' objections to Meno's definition of virtue as the desire for beautiful things and the power to acquire them?
8. What are Socrates' objections to Meno's definition of virtue as the desire for beautiful things and the power to acquire them?
9. Why does Meno compare Socrates to a flatfish?
10. Meno raises a question at 80d about searching what is not known (p. 41). Try to explain Meno’s point (or, Meno’s paradox, as it is called). How does Socrates answer this paradox?
11. What true and beautiful thing did Socrates learn from priests and priestesses?
12. Describe the general steps in Socrates' examination of Meno's slave.
13. What lesson does Socrates draw from the examination of the slave?
14. What reasons would lead to the conclusion that virtue is not knowledge?
15. Who are the best candidates to teach virtue, according to Socrates? Why does Anytus object Socrates’ idea? What is Anytus answer to this question?
16. What is the importance of showing that prominent good people failed to pass on their virtue to their children? What lesson does Socrates draw from past examples of famous fathers and sons.
17. Why does Meno refer to his teacher, Gorgias and what did Gorgias teach to people?
18. In what ways is true opinion just as good as knowledge? How do they differ?
19. How can true opinions become knowledge?
20. How does Socrates end up answering Meno's question about virtue?
(modified slightly from http://www.uri.edu/artsci/phl/marton/intro/study_questions/meno.htm)