OVERVIEW

To give a demonstration of his theory, Socrates questions a slave boy on a geometrical problem. The boy speaks Greek but, as Meno confirms later on, has never been taught geometry. Throughout, Socrates insists that he is merely asking questions and not teaching the boy, i.e. telling him what to think. So when the boy eventually gives the right answer, we are meant to conclude that he did not learn it from any source outside of himself.

Socrates starts the examination by drawing a square with two-foot sides in the sand and, after establishing that its area is four-feet, asks the boy to determine the side of the square whose area is double. The examination then falls into three stages. In the first, the boy confidently gives an answer, which he soon realises to be mistaken; in the second he gives another answer, also wrong, and eventually admits his ignorance; in the third, he moves towards the correct answer.

Although most of the passage is a dialogue between the slave boy and Socrates, Meno is also involved. At crucial points Socrates turns to him to ask about the progress the boy is making. This means that there are two dialogues: one about geometry between Socrates and the slave, and a meta-dialogue between Socrates and Meno about what is happening in the first dialogue.