Meno

Meno, a confident young aristocrat, asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught, and within a few pages discovers that he cannot even say what virtue is. To answer the puzzle of how we can look for something we do not know, Socrates calls over a slave boy who has never studied geometry and, by questions alone, leads him to work out how to double the area of a square.

The demonstration supports Plato's idea that learning is recollection, and the dialogue is one of the shortest and clearest ways into his thought. Watch for Anytus, who appears briefly and leaves with a threat: he would later be one of Socrates' accusers, as the Apology tells.

Plato (c. 428–348 BC) was born into an aristocratic family in Athens and became the devoted student of Socrates. After his teacher's trial and execution in 399 BC, he travelled, returned to Athens and founded the Academy, a school that lasted for centuries and counted Aristotle among its students.

Almost all his writings are dialogues in which Socrates questions his fellow citizens about justice, love, knowledge and the soul, from the Apology to the Symposium and the Republic. Known to Arab philosophers as Aflatun, he was read closely by al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd, and Western philosophy has been called a series of footnotes to him.