In this chapter, we investigate the idea of trade marks as property. Three questions need to be answered. The first is a conceptual matter: are trade marks capable of being property or are they ruled out as a matter of conceptual necessity? The second is conceptual-cum-descriptive: is the current law's treatment of trade marks treatment of them as property? The third is normative: if the current law does in fact treat them as property, is it right to do so? The questions need to be tackled in turn.

Are trade marks capable of being property?

When we ask whether trade marks are capable of being property, we are of course assuming that it makes sense to speak of things (resources, assets) being property. In other words, we assume with the layman and the practising lawyer that it makes sense to speak of an owner of a thing, where the thing owned is the property. Admittedly, among legal theorists there is a long tradition going back to Bentham that ridicules this way of speaking. It insists that property is best characterized not as the thing itself but as a bundle of normative relationships between people concerning the use of the thing. But, as Harris has rightly argued, this is a false opposition. In particular, scepticism about the very idea of ownership of a thing is generally based on the thesis that ownership involves the right to use a thing in any way one pleases.

RECOLLECTION AS METAPHOR?

Socrates rounds off this whole passage (80–6) on a note of caution, followed by a strong exhortation:

The first few words suggest a disclaimer of some sort; but we should be careful about what we take them to imply. In saying that he would not insist on the argument too strongly, he is acknowledging that it needs further support. We have noted at various points how the Phaedo attempts to do this, in regard to both recollection and immortality. But Socrates' words cannot be used as evidence that he only proposed recollection as a metaphor for something else. Of course, many modern readers may feel a deep unease with the whole recollection episode. On the one hand they might admire Plato's insights into the nature of learning and see his theory as a landmark in the theory of knowledge to which later theorists have, to a greater or lesser extent, been returning ever since.

On pages 60–65 above, I claimed that Plato draws an extremely vivid portrait of Meno's character throughout the work, and has Socrates attempt to reform it as the conversation goes on. One of his main stratagems is to use the slave boy and Anytus as object lessons from which Meno is supposed to learn. I now wish to examine the last section of the dialogue, 96d onwards, to see whether Socrates ultimately has any success.

Let us turn back to the point where Anytus leaves Socrates and Meno to continue the discussion as to whether virtue is teachable. After concluding that it is not (95b1–96c10), Socrates introduces the distinction between knowledge and true belief (96d1–98b6); finally they agree that virtue is true belief, not knowledge, and comes not by teaching but by divine dispensation (98b7–100c2). What I wish to show is that throughout this passage Meno's behaviour as an interlocutor undergoes a marked change, especially in comparison to the first ten pages of the dialogue.

He is much milder and more co-operative. There are certainly no abrupt or peremptory demands, nor any obstructions. At no point does Socrates need to comment on his failings, even light-heartedly. The third section (98b7–100c2) is a particularly striking contrast to Meno's behaviour in the first part of the dialogue: in all his answers he agrees straightforwardly with Socrates.

In the previous chapter, I went against the trend of many recent commentators who take the conclusion of the Meno to be largely ironic. In doing so, I concentrated solely on the evidence internal to the text. This, however, is to overlook what many of these commentators would see as crucial evidence: the trenchant critique of Athenian politicians in the Gorgias. If, as these sceptics assume, the Gorgias predates the Meno can we not assume that Plato's earlier views are in the background when he has Socrates revisit the question of what the Athenian politicians did for their city?

I wish to continue to go against this trend and argue for a different way of relating the two dialogues. I shall begin by rehearsing the essentials of the political critique of the Gorgias and then argue that, by comparison with the Meno, it operates at a greater level of sophistication where the analysis of political virtue is concerned. It is more likely that the Meno represents an earlier point in Plato's career as a political commentator. To support this claim, I shall attempt to undermine the reasons usually given for dating the Meno after the Gorgias. The upshot will be that there is no longer any reason at all to read the Meno in the shadow of the Gorgias; and any external evidence for finding the Meno's conclusion ironic fades away altogether.

Meno offers his third definition of virtue at 77b2–5:

Socrates' first move is to substitute the word ‘good’ (agathos) for ‘fine’ (kalos). Although he does this very swiftly, the move is not as straightforward as it is made to sound. The word kalos can mean ‘beautiful’, and is commonly applied to physical objects. But it can also apply to actions or characters in the sense of ‘noble’. (I have used the translation ‘fine’ in an attempt to cover both senses.) In Plato's works, the concept of the agathon is very closely connected with whatever is beneficial or useful – prima facie a different sense from that of kalon. Nevertheless, agathon and kalon draw very close together in other dialogues, and it is interesting that here Meno accepts the substitution without any complaint. This allows Socrates to proceed straight to the business of refutation, which he does by examining each of its two components in turn: that virtue involves (1) the desire for good things and (2) the ability to acquire them.

DESIRE AND THE GOOD (77b–78b)

The underlying assumption of this section is that, if something is to act as a mark of the virtuous, it cannot be common to all people, because not everyone is virtuous.

We have now reached a turning point in the dialogue. Meno's definitions have all been refuted and, in response to the demand to inquire into the nature of virtue, he is about to issue a notorious challenge to the possibility of inquiry and discovery (80d). En route to this point, Plato has revealed a number of details about his character, details that will turn out to be fundamental in two ways: first, and more immediately, they will help us understand exactly why Meno issues his challenge at 80d. Second, and more generally, throughout the dialogue Socrates not only discusses education as one of his central themes, but also shows it happening in practice by confronting some of Meno's failings and trying to change them. To appreciate this point, we first need to be aware of what exactly these failings are.

INTELLECTUAL LAZINESS

Right from the beginning, we have seen how Meno appears as someone imbued with the ethos of memorising answers to be recycled at a later date. I mentioned how this was anticipated in the very opening lines and in Socrates' immediate response – his snide comments about the Thessalians and the ‘wisdom’ they have just acquired from Gorgias. The implied criticism comes still closer to the surface at 71c8–d2 when Socrates asks Meno to recall what Gorgias said about virtue, hastily correcting this into a request for Meno to state his own view (which will of course coincide with Gorgias').