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Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno (review)

2006; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 100; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/clw.2006.0097

1558-9234

Dana R. Miller,

Classical Philosophy and Thought

Reviewed by: Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno Dana Miller Roslyn Weiss . Virtue in the Cave: Moral Inquiry in Plato's Meno. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. x, 229. $49.95. ISBN 0-19-514076-1. It seems that as long as Plato's dialogues are read, the debate will flourish whether Plato abandons the epistemically barren Socrates of the early dialogues for an epistemically confident Platonic mouthpiece of the middle and later dialogues; and whether the early Socrates is merely a set-up man who demonstrates the need for Platonic metaphysics by his utter failure to achieve knowledge. Weiss embraces the set-up man view. The "cave" in the title of the book refers to the bleak state of affairs described in the Republic according to which we normal humans are bound fast in near-complete ignorance; even if some gain release from sense-based beliefs, they are still quite unable to make out the truth. According to Weiss, we should read the Republic's perspective on knowledge, especially moral knowledge, back into the Meno, and from that perspective we witness Socrates groping about in the cave, inquiring after what he can never find. We are told, then, that "there is, in the Cave, no other life that can rival in worthiness the life of relentless self-examination. In the Republic, by contrast, Socrates envisions godlike human beings who transcend the Cave and 'see' Forms" (205). Again, "in the event that some do attain the godlike status of moral expert, the others are to abandon moral inquiry in favor of unquestioning submission. 'The unexamined life,' Socrates says, 'is not worth living for a man'" (Weiss' italics); that is, when all men are but men. Yet when some men are virtual gods, there is no place for the examined life: "the men who are gods have knowledge and need not inquire; the rest lack knowledge and may not inquire" (209). While I do not think that this is an indubitable interpretation of Plato's position in the Republic, the relevant point is that Weiss' interpretation of the Meno is framed by it. Consistency in argument is a good thing, and Weiss is very consistent. Accordingly, she understands Socrates, equipped only with the elenchus as a path of inquiry, to hold that moral knowledge is unattainable: "Socrates believed, with respect to virtue, that true opinion is the most that can be achieved by ordinary men" (10). But if moral knowledge cannot be attained, why should Meno undertake with Socrates the frustrating labor of elenctic inquiry into virtue? According to Weiss, Socrates persuades Meno to believe that moral inquiry is still worth the trouble by duping him with the slave-boy demonstration of recollection that is "farcical on its face" (12). Being duped by the myth of recollection, Meno believes that groping through his various beliefs about virtue will lead to knowledge of what virtue is. It is by a ruse, therefore, that Socrates defends the elenchus, even though he does not think that the outcome will be moral knowledge. Weiss defends this deflationary view of the epistemological work done in the Meno by a careful, at times insightful, analysis of the text, interpreting each stage of the argument [End Page 80] in a manner that supports her thesis. Those, however, who do not share her overview of what Plato is doing in the Meno may not find her analyses of the text fully persuasive and may find Weiss' occasionally abrasive judgments in service of her thesis to be irritating. Dana Miller Fordham University Copyright © 2006 Classical Association of the Atlantic States