Comparing Plato's Meno And The Allegory Of The Cave

Plato’s Meno and The Allegory of the Cave
Born in Athens, Greece (c.428-347 B.C.) Plato has been known as one of the most prominent philosophers in history. (History.com Staff, 2009) His written dialogues have been told century after century and are known for comparing the mind of mind to the reality around it. “The Republic” remains one of Plato’s most acclaimed books. It envisions a civilization in which the kingdom is ruled by a philosopher-king versus “lowly appetites”, in this civilization knowledge is treated as power, and those untutored where slaves to themselves. In much of Plato’s work he is influenced by his teacher, Socrates, and uses his teachings as a guideline for the lessons learned throughout the dialogue. “The Cave Allegory”

The conversation is told by Socrates, Plato’s teacher and directed towards Glaucon, a secondary character. The dialogue opens with Socrates establishing a cave. This is the first part of the conversation and is an important factor in visualizing and understanding the situation that the prisons are in. Socrates begins to describe the cave as dark, and leaves the location unknown. He also fails to mention how or why the prisoners are jailed, however in the first line Socrates says “The people have been in this dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck”. (Plato, The Allegory of the Cave). According to Socrates, most of what the prisoners are exposed to is the extent of their knowledge. The initial description paints a picture of chained prisoners to Glaucaon. The prisoners are sat facing a wall, behind the wall a fire is blazing. There is a small roadway that allows puppeteers to display various objects facing the sunlight. This creates shadows on the wall that can be displayed by the prisoners. The puppeteers are carrying objects that can reach higher than wall, this allows the prisoners to have an understanding that there is something bigger than the wall. However, since they are shackled they cannot turn around to see what the object is, nor can they look up to see what is beyond the

The conversation is led by Meno. The dialogue focuses on the question, “What is virtue?” this is best shown by Meno’s opening line which stated “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Initially Socrates does not have an answer, however throughout the dialogue different examples of what might by virtuous is expressed by Meno. When first asked to explain virtue, Meno is cocky and believes he has the answer. Meno’s first definition of virtue revolves around standards set for the individual, especially their gender. For example, Meno stated “A woman's virtue, if you wish to know about that, may also be easily described: her duty is to order her house”. (Plato, Meno, 380 B.C.E)This is quickly debunked by Socrates who compares the virtues of man and women to bees. He explains to Meno that all virtues have a core similarity just as the different types of bees are still all fundamentally, bees. In response to Meno’s sexist definition, Socrates concludes “And so of the virtues, however many and different they may be, they have all a common nature which makes them virtues”. (Plato, Meno, 380 B.C.E) Meno’s second attempt to explain virtue is by stating virtue is “the power of governing mankind” (Plato, Meno, 380 B.C.E). Socrates debates meno’s opinion by expanding on