Moment
Meno compares Socrates to a numbing fish
Plato's Meno, set in Athens; a dialogue turns confidence into perplexity
After attempts to define virtue fail under questioning, Meno compares Socrates to a torpedo fish that numbs those who touch it. He says that he has delivered many speeches about virtue but now cannot explain what it is. Fluency has survived longer than the definition that was supposed to support it.
- Question
- What is virtue?
- Speaker in difficulty
- Meno
- Comparison
- A torpedo fish
The caveat
This is an authored philosophical dialogue, not a transcript of an independently verified lesson. The geometry episode also belongs to Plato's larger argument about recollection. The narrower lesson here is about acknowledged uncertainty, not proof of that entire theory of knowledge.
Socrates accepts the comparison only with a qualification: he too is perplexed. He proposes that they continue the inquiry together. Later, during the geometrical questioning of an enslaved boy, the dialogue returns to the claim that recognizing ignorance can prepare someone to investigate what they previously thought they knew.
How it connects
Meno's lost fluency separates being able to talk from being able to explain.
This moment appeared in The useful moment of not knowing, the Involves connection for October 4, 2026, which asked: Can losing confidence be a step toward understanding?
Check yourself
How does Socrates qualify Meno's fish comparison?
He says he too is perplexed and proposes continued inquiry. Exactly. The dialogue presents shared inquiry rather than a simple display of one person's superior certainty.
What the sources establish
Meno compares Socrates to a torpedo fish; Socrates claims perplexity himself, and the later geometry scene revisits its possible value.
Sources
Meno (Plato; Internet Classics Archive), 80a–d: torpedo comparison; 84a–c: perplexity and desire to inquire