PLATO

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The Theory of Recollection

In the Meno and the Phaedo, Socrates presents the Theory of Recollection. Historians use this term to refer to what Socrates is thinking. It is not a term Socrates himself uses.

The Theory of Recollection is about the existence of the soul (the ontological thesis) and about reason in the soul (the epistemological thesis). According to the ontological thesis, the soul exists before it enters the body and continues to exist after leaving it. According to the epistemological thesis, some true beliefs belong essentially to reason.

• Meno 79e

Socrates, before I had as much as made your acquaintance, I had heard that you are simply perplexed yourself and that you make others perplexed too; and now, as it seems to me, ⊕ γοητεύω, goēteuō, verb, "bewitch, beguile"

κατεπᾴδω, katepadō, verb, "subdue by song"

φαρμάσσω, pharmassō, verb, "enchant by potions"


"at a loss," in the state of ἀπορία.


γόης, goēs, noun, "a bewitcher or wizard" you are bewitching and using spells and enchanting me, so that I am completely at a loss. And if I may make a joke, I consider that both in your appearance and in other respects you are altogether like the flat torpedo sea-fish; for it benumbs anyone who approaches and touches it, and something of the sort is what I find you have done to me now. For in truth I feel my soul and my tongue quite benumbed, and I have no answer to give you. And yet on countless occasions I have made abundant speeches on virtue to various people--and very good speeches they were, so I thought--but now I cannot say one word as to what it is. I think you make a right decision in not taking a trip away from home or living abroad; for if you went on like this as a stranger in any other city you would very likely be taken up for a wizard.

Notes on the Text

At the outset of the dialogue, Meno asked Socrates how he thinks we acquire virtue. Socrates says that he does not know what virtue is, let alone how we acquire it. Meno asks whether he met with Gorgias when he was in town and whether he thought Gorgias knew what virtue is. Socrates says that he cannot remember, and he invites Meno to say himself what virtue is.

Meno initially is confident that he can say, but he finds that he has trouble defending his answers. He thinks that Socrates causes his trouble by using magic to numb his soul.

Why does Meno think it is magic? Why does he not conclude instead that when he gave all those speeches about virtue, he did not know what he was talking about?

• Meno 80d

  Why, on what lines will you look, Socrates, for a thing of whose nature you know nothing at all? Pray, what sort of thing, amongst those that you know not, will you treat us to as the object of your search? Or even supposing, at the best, ⊕ 1. Either I know or I do not know.
2. If I know, then I cannot inquire.
3. If I do not know, then I cannot inquire.
----
4. I cannot inquire.


'forsooth' is an archaic adverb used in derision to express disbelief. The translator uses it for the particle ἄρα. Greek uses this and other such words to express what in spoken English is expressed by changes in tone (Smyth 2771, 2796.)

The translation is from 1927. that you hit upon it, how will you know it is the thing you did not know?
  I understand the point you would make, Meno. Do you see what a captious argument you are introducing--that, forsooth, a man cannot inquire either about what he knows or about what he does not know? For he cannot inquire about what he knows, because he knows it, and in that case is in no need of inquiry; nor again can he inquire about what he does not know, since he does not know about what he is to inquire.
  Now does it seem to you to be a good argument, Socrates?
⊕   It does not.

Notes on the Text

Meno gives an argument against the search for definitions. Socrates rejects it.

• Meno 81b

⊕ "They say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time comes to an end, which is called dying, and at another is born again, but never perishes. ... Seeing then that the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has beheld all things both in this world and in the nether realms, she has acquired knowledge of all and everything; so that it is no wonder that she should be able to recollect all that she knew before about virtue and other things."

Notes on the Text

In response to Meno's argument against the search for definitions. Socrates introduces what has come be known in the secondary literature as the Theory of Recollection.

Socrates discusses the content of the theory again in the Phaedo.

• Meno 85b

  What do you think, Meno[, about the demonstration with your slave]? Was there an opinion this boy gave that was not his own? of his own thought?
  No, they were all his own.
  But he did not know the answer, as we said a little while ago.
  That is true.
  Yet he had in him these opinions, had he not?
  Yes.
  So that he who does not know about any matters, whatever they be, may have true ⊕ "true opinions" (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι)

"knowledge" (ἐπιστήμη) opinions on such matters, about which he knows nothing?
  Apparently.
⊕ "True opinions do not care to stay for long, and run away out of the human soul, and thus are of no great value until one makes them fast by reasoning out the cause (αἰτίας λογισμῷ). This process, Meno, is recollection, as in our previous talk we have agreed. But when once they are fastened, in the first place they turn into knowledge, and in the second, are abiding. And this is why knowledge is more prized than right opinion" (Meno 98a).   And at this moment those opinions have just been stirred up in him, like a dream; but if he were repeatedly asked these same questions in a variety of forms, you know he will have in the end as exact a knowledge of them as anyone.
  So it seems.
  Without anyone having taught him, and only through questions put to him, he will understand, having recovered the knowledge out of himself?
  Yes.
  And is not this recovery of knowledge, in himself and by himself, recollection?
  Certainly.
  And must he not have either once acquired or always had the knowledge he now has?
  Yes.
  Now if he always had it, he was always knowledgeable; and if he acquired it all some time, he could not have acquired it in this life. Or has someone taught him geometry? You see, he can do the same as this with all geometry and every branch of knowledge. Now, can anyone have taught him all this? You ought surely to know, especially as he was born and bred in your house.
  Well, I know that no one has ever taught him.
  And has he these opinions, or has he not?
  He must have them, Socrates, evidently.
  And if he did not acquire them in this present life, is it not obvious at once that he had them and learnt them during some other time?
  Apparently.
  And this must have been the time when he was not a human being?
  Yes.
  So if in both of these periods--when he was and was not a human being--he has had true opinions in him which have only to be awakened by questioning to become knowledge, his soul is in the state of having learned throughout all time? For ⊕ What is the "state of having learned" (μεμαθηκυῖα)? clearly he has always either been or not been a human being.
  Evidently.
  And if the truth about the things that are is always in our soul, ⊕ Immortality does not follow. Even if the soul is "in the state of having learned throughout all time" the soul exists, it need not be that the soul is eternal and thus immortal. then the soul must be immortal; so that you should take heart and, whatever you do not happen to know at present--that is, what you do not remember--you must endeavor to search out and recollect?
  What you say commends itself to me, Socrates, I know not how.
  And I think I am right too. As far as the other points are concerned, I would not altogether take a stand on the argument; but that we will be better and braver and less helpless if we think one should search for what he does not know than if we thought it is not possible to discover what we do not know and that we do not need to search for it—this is a point for which I am determined to do battle, so far as I am able, both in word and deed.

Notes on the Text

Socrates gives a demonstration to disarm Meno's argument, which Socrates calls "captious."

⊕   "Then do you, Gorgias, think that to have learned and to be convinced, or learning and conviction, are the same thing, or different?
  In my opinion, Socrates, they are different.
  And your opinion is right, as you can prove in this way: if some one asked you—Is there, Gorgias, a false and a true conviction?—you would say, Yes, I imagine.
  I should.
  But now, is there a false and a true knowledge?
  Surely not.
  So it is clear that they are not the same.
  But surely both those who have learned and those who are convinced have come to be persuaded?
  That is right.
  Would you like us to posit two types of persuasion, one providing conviction without knowledge, the other providing knowledge?
  Yes I would" (Gorgias 454d). The demonstration, as Socrates seems to understand it, shows that although we may not be able to remember the right answer, we have it all along as an essential part of having reason.

This is the Epistemological Thesis in the Theory of Recollection.

We have the concept of virtue. We can bring its content to mind if in dialectic we abandon the false beliefs about virtue we have acquired in experience.

• Phaedo 72e

  [I]f it is true, said Cebes, as you are fond of saying, Socrates, that our learning is nothing else than recollection, then this would be an additional argument that we must necessarily have learned in some previous time what we now remember. But this is impossible if our soul did not exist somewhere before being born in this human form; and so by this argument also it appears that the soul is immortal.
  But, Cebes, said Simmias, what were the proofs of this? Remind me; for I do not recollect very well just now.
  Briefly, Simmias, a very good proof is this: When people are questioned, if you put the questions well, they answer correctly of themselves about everything; and yet if they had not within them some knowledge ⊕ "knowledge (ἐπιστήμη) and right reason (ὀρθὸς λόγος)" and right reason, they could not do this. And that this is so is shown most clearly if you take them to mathematical diagrams or anything of that sort.

Notes on the Text

Socrates' primary interlocutors in the Phaedo are Cebes and Simmias. They are Pythagoreans.

Cebes repeats a lesson from the Meno, that the Theory of Recollection implies the soul exists before it enters the body and thus that it appears that the soul is immortal.

• Phaedo 74a

  We say there is such a thing as to be equal. I do not mean one piece of wood equal to another, or one stone to another, or anything of that sort, ⊕ "the equal itself (αὐτὸ τὸ ἴσον)" but something beyond that--the equal itself. Shall we say there is such a thing, or not?
  We shall say that there is most decidedly, Socrates.
  And do we know it, the thing that is?
  Certainly.
  Whence did we come upon the knowledge of it? Was it not from the things we were just speaking of, by seeing equal pieces of wood or stones or other things, on the occasion of them that equal was in thought, it being different from them? ... It is on the occasion of ⊕ "in thought (ἐνενοήσαμεν)" those equals, different as they are from that equal, that you have thought and come upon knowledge of it?
  That is perfectly true.

Notes on the Text

We can talk about two pieces of wood being equal in length, but we can also talk about equality or what Socrates calls the "equal itself." We can say, for example, that equality ("the equal itself") is transitive (that a is equal to c if a is equal to b and b is equal to c).

"Whence did we come upon the knowledge of [the equal itself]?"

The question, it seems, is how did we become aware that we have a grasp of the equal itself.

The answer is that we reflected on thoughts such as that these two pieces of wood are equal in length. In thinking this thought, we apply our grasp of equality.

• Phaedo 75b

  Then before we began to see or hear or use the other senses we must somewhere have gained a knowledge of the equal itself, if we were to compare with it the equals which we perceive by the senses, and see that all such things yearn to be like the equal itself but fall short of it.
  That follows necessarily from what we have said before, Socrates.
  And we saw and heard and had the other senses as soon as we were born?
  Certainly.
  But, we say, we must have acquired a knowledge of equality before we had these senses?
  Yes.
  Then it appears that we must have acquired it before we were born.
  It does.
  Now if we had acquired that knowledge before we were born, and were born with it, we knew before we were born and at the moment of birth not only the equal and the greater and the less, but all such things? For our present argument is no more concerned with the equal than with the beautiful and the good and the just and the holy, and, in short, with all those things on which we stamp 'the thing itself that is' (τὸ ‘αὐτὸ ὃ ἔστι) in our dialectic process of questions and answers; so that we must necessarily have acquired knowledge of all these before our birth.

Notes on the Text

There is an argument here.

Since we apply our grasp of the form the equal itself in thinking thoughts (such as this is equal to that), we must grasp this form before we have the thoughts. We can have the thoughts from the moment we are born. So we must have gotten knowledge of this form before birth.

It does not seem true that we can have such thoughts from the moment we are born.