Meno.
Socrates, Meno.
I am in doubt, and sometimes I think that they are teachers and sometimes not.
Soc. And are you aware that not you only and other politicians have doubts whether virtue can be taught or not, but that Theognis the poet says the very same thing?
Men. Where does he say so?
Soc. In these elegiac verses:—[1]
Theognis implies in one passage that virtue can, and in another that it cannot, be taught.
'Eat and drink and sit with the mighty, and make yourself agreeable to them; for from the good you will learn what is good, but if you mix with the bad you will lose the intelligence which you already have.'
Do you observe that here he seems to imply that virtue can be taught?
Men. Clearly.
Soc. But in some other verses he shifts about and says:—[2]
'If understanding could be created and put into a man, then they' [who
were able to perform this feat] 'would have obtained great rewards.'
And again:—
'Never would a bad son have sprung from a good sire, for he would have 96 heard the voice of instruction; but not by teaching will you ever make a bad man into a good one.'
And this, as you may remark, is a contradiction of the other.
Men. Clearly.
How can they be teachers who are so inconsistent with themselves? Soc. And is there anything else of which the professors are affirmed not only not to be teachers of others, but to be ignorant themselves, and bad at the knowledge of that which they are professing to teach? or is there anything about which even the acknowledged 'gentlemen' are sometimes saying that 'this thing can be taught,' and sometimes the opposite? Can you say that they are teachers in any true sense whose ideas are in such confusion?
Men. I should say, certainly not.
Soc. But if neither the Sophists nor the gentlemen are teachers, clearly there can be no other teachers?
Men. No.
Soc. And if there are no teachers, neither are there disciples?
Men. Agreed.
