Section 4, line 95-100 Summary and Analysis

Socrates returns to speaking to Meno. According to Meno, statesmen are divided over whether virtue can be taught. The more honest Sophists, like Gorgias admit that all that they are teaching is the art of public speaking and persuasion, not virtue at all. The poet Theognis likewise first says that virtue can be taught in a poem, but then in another line of the poem says it cannot be taught. Looking at these examples of statesmen and sophists, Socrates decides that virtue cannot be taught.

Another difficulty in solving the problem of whether virtue can be taught is that someone who has knowledge of virtue and someone who has a right opinion, look and behave in exactly the same way. A right opinion is defined as an opinion that is virtuous, but lacks sufficient knowledge to know...