"meno" - читать интересную книгу автора (Plato)

Soc. Then begin again, and answer me, What, according to you and
your friend Gorgias, is the definition of virtue?

Men. O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you
were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are
casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and
enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest
upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power
over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those
who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I
think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not
know how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an
infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to many
persons-and very good ones they were, as I thought-at this moment I
cannot even say what virtue is. And I think that. you are very wise in
not voyaging and going away from home, for if you did in other
places as do in Athens, you would be cast into prison as a magician.

Soc. You are a rogue, Meno, and had all but caught me.

Men. What do you mean, Socrates?

Soc. I can tell why you made a simile about me.

Men. Why?

Soc. In order that I might make another simile about you. For I know
that all pretty young gentlemen like to have pretty similes made about
them-as well they may-but I shall not return the compliment. As to
my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is torpid as well as the cause of
torpidity in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise;
for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly
perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to
be in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you
touched me. However, I have no objection to join with you in the
enquiry.

Men. And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do
not know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if
you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the
thing which you did not know?

Soc. I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome
dispute you are introducing. You argue that man cannot enquire
either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not
know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he
cannot; for he does not know the, very subject about which he is to
enquire.

Men. Well, Socrates, and is not the argument sound?