Meno's Doctrine Of Recollection

Virtue and knowledge can only be learned through one’s self and not through others. Man’s experiences while on earth are very important moments that aid him in obtaining recollection. Both of these statements take part in Plato’s doctrine of recollection. To put it into simpler terms, Plato’s doctrine of recollection goes something along the lines of “how learning is possible.” Plato believed that there was an endless amount of possibilities in another realm. As an example, let’s use “equal.” Nothing in our world can teach us about what is equal, since there is nothing that is perfectly equal. The first thing you must do in order to identify two equal objects is: we must have had knowledge of the two equals when they were born. By continuing
to use our senses, to identify these two objects that are approaching the equal, we are able to recollect this knowledge. The theory of recollection has had many people guessing about what it is, but according to Socrates, it is that “all knowledge is learned from previous experience.” He believes that, we as humans already know everything and have known everything since we were all born. The process of re-learning something happens when we remember facts from the past and start to regain knowledge about the event. Socrates desperately searches for the meaning of virtue much like he did when searching for the definitions of piety and impiety in the Euthyphro. However, Meno is unsure whether or not the definition of virtue is something that can be taught. Meno wants to know what Socrates’ stand is on it, whether it is something that is acquired by birth, or if it something that is acquired through learning. Socrates wants to search for the answer to this question with Meno on his side, but Meno then presents an intelligent question “how can you search for it, when you don’t know what it is?” To counter Meno’s argument, Socrates says that because the soul is immortal, it has been in multiple bodies and has seen and experienced all things, therefore there is nothing that we do not know. Plato and Socrates see themselves more as guides rather than teachers. They don’t necessarily tell the answer to the student, instead, they guide them to the answer by giving hints and leading them on the right path. Later on, Plato advances the idea of the soul’s repeated reincarnation and states that the soul’s learning is stopped when it has arrived in a new body, and the knowledge that is acquired within the mind in your lifetime is the recollection of the knowledge that the soul once ensured. Meno is presented as a critic and a character who does not have very much belief in Socrates and the ways that he goes about his figuring and the way he develops theories and answers. A reason that Meno does not believe in Socrates is when he questioned the slave boy about the area of a square. Socrates is well aware that the boy has no education on geometrical problems, such as this one, but Socrates continues to question the boy until he gives the correct answer. After the slave boy gives the correct answer, Socrates figures out the difference between knowledge and true belief. After the boy gives the correct answer, Socrates thinks he should test the boy again and asks “what if the sides were to double?” The boy is confident at first and gives an incorrect answer, but through trial and error, he is able to come to the conclusion of the correct answer that Socrates was looking for. Then, Socrates gives his own bold definition of recollection “the immortality of the soul is the reason we know all things. Through previous being, our souls have learned everything there is to know.” Socrates says of the slave boy without anyone having taught him, and only having questions asked of him, he understood and recollected the knowledge out of himself. This was great proof that Socrates gave to back up his answer. It proves that because the boy had no geometrical education throughout his life, it is not possible for him to of obtained that knowledge in his lifetime. It gives even more proof of the theory of recollection, that all knowledge acquired in one body, is forgotten once the birth of the new body and home of the soul occurs. The theory of recollection is the solution to uncovering our own hidden knowledge. For example, whenever we try to make a decision on something that we have had no previous experience with, we seem to rely on our ability to guess or our intuition. Eventually we seem to arrive at the correct answer through trial and error. Where does this knowledge come from? The only explanation is that we recollect the knowledge that is really within ourselves. Plato’s conception of true knowledge is based on its distinctive nature and its theory of recollection. The doctrine of recollection that Plato came up with himself is: “all true knowledge exists implicitly within us, and can be brought to consciousness.” His theory is broken down into two parts that explains the theory more in depth. First, it states that humans obtain knowledge by remembering innate knowledge hidden in their soul. And secondly, it states that “the soul is immortal and cannot be killed off completely. When one body dies, it transmigrates to the next.” The main point that Plato is trying to make is that the soul never actually dies. Whenever the body dies off, the soul migrates to a new one that is about to be born. The purpose of arguing recollection was not only to show that the soul lived before birth, but to establish a premise so Socrates could further demonstrate how the soul is immortal. A pivotal point in Plato’s argument of Recollection is his Theory of Forms. The forms are invisible through our senses and cannot be seen by humans. They will always live forever and nothing can cause them to disappear. Some of the forms are like adjectives, for example: good, beautiful and nice. The way that we use forms is in a way that allows us to measure how much something possesses or is lacking. The forms are absolute and constant in the invisible world since nobody can say otherwise, but in the physical world, they never appear in the same way, since humans would actually be able to use their senses to notice the forms. Socrates comes up with his first conclusion from this argument when he states that the forms and the objects that possess the form are not the same. Gaining knowledge on the forms cannot be obtained in the physical sense. Knowledge will only be gained when the soul is separated from the body about to transmigrate to the next. Socrates concludes that our knowledge of the forms must have come before we were born. The method that Meno used to argue his case was the paradox.
His paradox is presented as a way to avoid the analysis about the true meaning of virtue. Meno failed over and over again when trying to give a relevant explanation, and then tries to change the subject and get the pressure off of him by raising a paradox (internal cite). The major consequence of the paradox is that Meno’s and Socrates’ thoughts are useless. They don’t actually know what the essence of virtue is, so they don’t know what they are looking for, therefore, they cannot find it. What they don’t realize is that nothing can be learned at all, since learning is obtaining knowledge of something we did not know previously. According to Socrates, this is impossible because he says that “all knowledge is learned from previous experience.” Consequently, the paradox introduces a bright new challenge to answer: explaining how learning is possible, and what it actually is. However, the theory of recollection that is stated solves this paradox. It says that the soul has at one point in time learned all things and just needs to recollect them, because it has forgot it. Even though one never learns anything new, they can only remember what they have previously learned. Therefore, learning is not learning any new knowledge, it is just remembering something from past experiences. This is why we struggle with finding the answer to a question because we don’t know we are looking for prior to learning
it. All in all, despite the wide range that the Platonic Theory, vagueness of the forms and Plato’s Theory of Recollection it all still remains balanced and sound in its use of logic. There is no explanation as to why our ability to guess always seems to get us to the correct answer. However, the most satisfying theory of them all is undoubtedly that we possess true knowledge within ourselves that we recollect as our lives go on and as we get older. Technology and science have both grown at incredible rates and yet we are still unable to determine where the first triangle or shape came into being and how we are able to recognize these shapes without ever having seeing them before. Virtue and knowledge can only be taught to us by ourselves, nobody else is able to teach us it. The Platonic Theory that Plato explains gives a foundation of knowledge we possess inside of us, knowledge that we cannot gain from outside of ourselves. As Plato suggests, knowledge forgotten is hidden within.