e in favor of the pursuit of truth. Meno confidently offers a number of definitions of virtue, but each of them merely cobbles together various aspects of Greek cultural custom. Socrates then dissects these to show that they do not meet the requirements of a definition. Thus, on the pretense of determining what virtue is, Socrates actually pursues the prior project of showing what fundamental virtue is not. What is really accomplished in the Meno is not a theory about virtue but rather a theory about what is necessary to frame a good theory about virtue.
             The first such necessity is attention to what is truly universal about "virtue." Meno's most common error involves naming various examples of virtue instead of naming what is common to all the examples. A closely related necessity for a definition is that it cannot use the term to be defined within the definition itself. Socrates makes this point in the context of Meno's idea that virtue is the ability to acquire beautiful things. Socrates makes Meno admit that such acquisition is virtuous only if it is jus
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