Anamnesis in Plato`s "Meno and Phaedo"
Transcription
Anamnesis in Plato`s "Meno and Phaedo"
Anamnesis in Plato's "Meno and Phaedo" Author(s): R. E. Allen Source: The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Sep., 1959), pp. 165-174 Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20123748 Accessed: 15/04/2009 04:45 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=pes. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Philosophy Education Society Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review of Metaphysics. http://www.jstor.org IN PLATO'S MENO AND ANAMNESIS PHAEDO R. E. ALLEN 1. in the Meno Socrates that no paradox, Sophist's either he knows what not need or he stir, a middle that wisdom of women who and not, must nor of things priests and sages: be the by appealing told ever to learn seeks therefore no has for men found; notion divine," including case he of what is false, neither have of brutes. ignorance to the doctrines For anything.1 it is he is to inquire about, in which does way the gods the difficulty one a in all likelihood Socrates points out that the antithesis it is he is seeking. and was states what He of "wise men Pindar the overcomes and and ancient (81b-c) They say that the soul of man is immortal and never perishes, though at one time itmakes an end, called dying, and at another is born again. . . . We must, lives in utmost holiness therefore, pass our whole Since the soul is immortal, and has been born many times, she has beheld all things in this world and the next, and there is nothing she so it is not surprising has not learnt; that she can remember what she once knew about virtue and other things. For since all nature is akin, and the soul has learnt all things, there is nothing to prevent one single thing?what men call "learning?dis her, by recollecting and courageous. For covering all the rest, if her search is untiring but recollection. learning and inquiry are nothing Such, in essence, is Plato's It comes to us embedded which our is not theological trappings, part of Plato's Anamnesis philosophical own, of Anamnesis, Recollection. imagery of a religion and many in rejecting its commentators, no concluded that it represents serious have philosophy. But I shall argue that the theory of a serious, represents And perplexities. least in the dialogues abandoned doctrine in the mythical and solution subtle, there is no certainly of the middle period, to genuine evidence, that Plato at ever it.a 1 Meno 80e 275c ff. ff.; cf. Symp. 204a, Euthyd. 2 On the in the Phaedrus it is Anamnesis, contrary; rouses the soul's desire of physical beauty, which perception it fell. celestial place" from which (249e-250c.) stirred by the for the "super 166 R. E. ALLEN The 2. the first a dramatic offers Meno argument forward put of the soul in the Phaedo: of demonstration for Anamnesis the the and of validity immortality (73a) if you put the question well, people are questioned, they will and yet, unless they had knowledge and the always answer correctly; correct account already within But them, they could not do this. you will find the clearest proof that this is so if you lead them to or anything else of that sort. geometrical diagrams, When The of slave-boy the Meno, of ignorant in succeeds geometry, establishing the truth of a fairly difficult theorem with no other aid than the figures inscribed in the sand at his feet and the assistance of intelligent questioning. Here is a fact. How is it to be Since the boy had never been taught, but only explained? it not imply that he had some recollection of a does questioned, seen truth a than entered recesses the forgotten If that were worthless, of passage, he before in all that curio dusty and that inference. human a form, truth and locked of personal memory? Anamnesis the theory would meant, of mental The fact is the archeology. in nothing consists passage However difficult inference may be fact more be it seems mysterious to understand, too that obvious that it is not all one with memory, obvious no easy it provides for immortality. Nor is this all. For ground in this way, taken the theory is a hopeless failure. If we could a come can we as to in know not existence, directly previous why come to know of memory? without the intervention now, easily our vision as as remote if we have And remains forgotten, really no we the truth itself, whereas if have not forgotten, there is need for recollection. So far from the solving Sophist's paradox, this theory is but a prey to it. But Meno in which and in the Phaedo, problem 3. the context of inference the theory indicates that Anamnesis is presented, that both it is precisely in the to the is directed. The would have been forced Plato's upon sophist's question his in awakened interest and mathematics, by newly by to teach; Socrates in himself. Socrates had never claimed Plato mind later dialogues the offspring their knowledge would present him as a spiritual not of his own. minds, out of themselves. of virtue of other midwife, delivering recover Men must The Meno connects ANAMNESIS this fact with our knowledge with 167 IN PLATO'S MENO AND PHAEDO of mathematics. of whether the question can virtue portion of it is devoted to establishing The dialogue begins be a But taught. major the truth of the doctrine of illustration. This is no accident; the by mathematical a fundamental exhibits of For theme. neither virtue dialogue unity nor mathematics can be if teaching the handing taught, implies over of information. do not understand You mathematics by Anamnesis the multiplication and you do not understand table, memorising virtue and moral In these areas, rubrics. by memorising adages come must from within?it in large measure must understanding be "recollected." in this not does sense, Recollection, very special or the items and cannot tell us the date of the battle of Marathon, on yesterday's whose judgments, judgments This menu: the objects truth whose is the significance not does theory are explain of fact, matters contingent is guaranteed by empirical but those systematic necessity. of "kinship": of the metaphor (Meno 81c-d) Since all nature is akin the soul has learnt all things, (ffuyyevri?), and one single thing, to prevent her, by recollecting there is nothing recovering all the rest. A single bit of genuine knowledge serves us as the terminal link in a Zeus-like, whole of intelligible link is structure, from ignorance necessary can pass on But The the reality. and his draw each all. innate of grasp to knowledge. of is a theory theory of Anamnesis intensional relations which the Forms it is not clear why to ourselves should inference the stand in The objects of knowledge and necessary connection with to gain to recover the means intimate 4. by which chain, golden we may, to recover other; It is because of it, that the one this slave-boy and it rests inference, bear to one another. be made to rest on Anamnesis. The between separated doctrines. answer is bound view of the relation Plato's up with as and Forms. The Phaedo them particulars regards an a two entailed unbridgeable by gulf, yupispi?;, by To begin with, aux? xaO'aOx?, alone the Form exists by itself, independent of and ontologically It does character so because to be had it is a cause, by particulars, prior to its exemplifications. since without which are, it there would in a formal be no sense, its 168 R. E. ALLEN neces et seqq.). every (100b-c, Secondly, particular never to own it fully; it is not what sarily falls short of the Form, are exepa ovxa, different Forms sorts it has. and particulars of are members not one. of two worlds, (74b ff.). things They "effects" are of knowledge of the objects independent and from cannot be known world, it, they "separate" it. Because there is a gulf between Forms and particulars, Because physical the through the objects of knowledge pass knowing, supposes ment and from directly prior knowledge. for the doctrine after There, of sense, we in cannot, objects the latter to the former: passage pre This is the core of the second argu the of Anamnesis that establishing in the Phaedo recollection may (74b ff.). be provoked either by what is like or unlike to the thing recalled, and that when reminded of something by another thing which is like it, you must be able short of to compare the original, and decide Socrates in what proceeds Forms. separation not equal, of particulars as sticks are something just equal in itself?Equality. know it? and equal the resemblance way to state the doctrine to There sticks, or falls of is a thing which to stones, stones the is but But how do we come to the of sense, for sensible through apparent equals are different sorts of things. and Equality Because equals Why? as one to cannot to know it know is equal; Equality perfectly sense it as in any conceive sensible whereas appear, unequal, equals now or now to in different different observers, equal, unequal, perspectives. Not Again, they are trying perfectly equal. From these conclusion: sensible equals differ from Equality because to be like it, but fall short; they can never be considerations, Socrates draws an important (75b) it was in other ways, Before we began to see and hear, and perceive nature of no doubt necessary of the essential to possess knowledge if we refer perceptible they all desire equals to it because Equality, to be of its nature, but fall short of it. ardently This is true of: (75c-d) The Greater and the Less and everything of that sort; for our argument than to Beauty itself, to the Good itself, applies no less to Equality in to all those things which, to Justice, Holiness, and, in a word, we the our dialectic, seal of "Reality." ratify with IN PLATO'S MENO AND PHAEDO ANAMNESIS Now must either we recall them. the man for have who what he must come knows, to know must have existed The 5. of And particulars. There second unless know you to examples thing it every day of our a is of use. problem do This apply to an object. first a know of Therefore, and the soul we (76c) is that to knowledge prior of capital importance. ease with which Socrates' of, say, while courage, a definition in formulating what account Anamnesis is, can you yet of it. For furnish the thing seems impossible; of it? Logically, is that we of in the involved the utmost difficulty finding this. for argument is epistemically is a doctrine is a paradox could point respondents must the this an render always do always recollection, things through we entered human form. of the Forms knowledge how, these these can knowledge cannot and we before nucleus or we things, cannot be accepted; of complete knowledge alternative And the former has 169 specimens yet the simple fact lives. You have a predicate, But if you are to apply itwith which intelligence, you you its meaning. You must, that is, know what kinds of action are such-and-such can before that this is that kind you say of action.3 associated with the problem of use is the problem Closely of origin?how did you come by your notion of courage to begin common A with? we abstraction: similar to to know a has been of question theory and define universals by comparing or and abstracting, from the isolating this of perception, their common context, in the answer, are things easy obviousness can know that two a common Therefore to come objects material own answer knowledge character; of the knowledge of character. difficulties similar but that universal leap despite to the eye. only by knowing is the character must a certain But be For we that they universal. epistemically prior its instances.4 3 Cf. Laches 190b-c, Aristotle, An. Post. I.i.6. 4 Cf. Theat. 185a ff. It is Aristotle's doctrine that sense provides the The universal is apprehended by an act of universal, but not as a universal. intellectual Such a view is not?at least intuition, mediated by sense. to the criticism here urged. But if, with Kant, we deny the patently?prey or with of intellectual existence that the universal is Plato, intuition, in the particular, immanent then knowledge cannot be gained by abstrac then presupposes tion, since abstraction prior knowledge. 170 The of Anamnesis theory in fact, it represents, Plato's doctrine compare uncover the structures an with that are the of Kant. of presuppositions there could which "experience" but the ordered data, Plato's of absolute without we mean, if by an answer provides infant theory one. fundamentally E. ALLEN to this problem: We may a priori. It was Kant's to goal the a priori at all. And experience, be no experience not the casual as Kant meant, structure R. then Kant's of perception, For the structure and of flow goal and order of And like the universal. for Plato, presuppose though experience must? the in the final universal can?and Kant, indeed, analysis, cannot it be considered be discovered apart from experience. apart, The doctrine that recollection may be provoked either by what is like or unlike, the radical distinction between knowledge and belief, the gulf obscure between posited But this point. genuine contribution to and particulars in the last analysis, else thought?how strive for Equality apparent equals of cooperation. is the product fall and have Forms, tended to make a senses the we could know short??and that knowledge But if it is true that both Plato and Kant have a theory of a we would do well not to confuse their knowledge, priori a sense: the is universal in this it necessarily For Kant, priori true of the physical world. of Forms the separation There deny. and perishes. which can Nor mind the be no ism," refusal holds It is just this which Plato's doctrine of and exact particulars of science is chiefly that which to concerned comes to be a a structure for Plato, element, priori Kant's of itself upon imposes experience. own cate mind its the of the projection by is the realism," "empirical into the material gories the views. of to grant and sense, his ideal "transcendental existence and independent are equally alien the of the Ideals which Reason, ground activity are not The Forms Plato's principles subjective philosophy. itself. structure are of Being the objective organization; they Although knowledge follow may sensible objective to to of can recover that we it is only through experience we once known has been clearly that Form of a Form, to reference without thread of implication Ariadne's objects. The world on the further side of the ytop^[xri<; IN PLATO'SMENO AND PHAEDO ANAMNESIS and once is self-contained, It is this emphasis on the mind's for the accounts own its need ethics and fixes reason, the object of knowledge and divine, true (84a). never leave.8 of perception that of the Phaedo.* The on what its gaze is true rather than of opinion, fulfillment the nourishment, The doctrine need independence intellectualist strongly follows always soul which it, we entered having 171 of that philosophy its own finds deepest and true virtue consist in the practice of death, the separation of the soul from the body to do so, is merely in so far as it is possible the articulation of the of the y copado?; and of Anamnesis. ethical consequences 6. are We now Anamnesis. in a to position see inference why implies of universals, i.e., presupposes knowledge are we of Forms. which that But the Forms "separate," implies come to know cannot them through in sensation. the objects given Now Inference either we know do know This this implies them through since them, in turn implies that we cannot some means perception at all, or that And we sensation. know other them than that presupposes that knowledge knowledge. is epistemically of Forms to knowledge of the particulars which them, exemplify at least, this Plato that knowledge concludes, ostensibly as well.7 is temporally This in turn implies the Forms prior prior from we awareness to explicit of something is not a discovery wholly known. something Learning already still ask whether But we may this when to the Forms, come sophist's can we problem. recall them? For The how, of a Form, the recollection the nature new, but of and of that, it of is recollection. provides if we answer, of a genuine solution the have forgotten course, is that the 5 Cf. Phaedo 65e-66a. 6 Cf. 82d f?. 7 If Plato understood Anamnesis in this way, he has unquestionably confused with There epistemological priority. temporal or psychological is no reason to hold that, because knowledge of x presupposes knowledge of y, y must have been known beforehand. Kant, whose view of the a priori is in many never similar to fell into this trap. For him, Plato's, respects the a priori is part of the very structure of reason; reason could never come to know it, precisely because there could be no reason without it. It may be that Plato's doctrine of Anamnesis should be interpreted along similar lines, but the explicitness of the Phaedo on the subject of pre-existence makes this appear unlikely. 172 R. E. ALLEN are Forms without use them in all cognition, that we continually we use this raises that them. But the old implicit knowing in a new form; problem for how is this possible? In answer we may cite as an analogy the distinction between utens and docens. in the Aristotle, l?gica l?gica discovering a to the rendered brilliant service science of logic, syllogism, was docens. his was But not it the invention; l?gica discovery abstract ent kinds for that of a formal recognition of valid inference, it passed centuries so native principle unnoticed perforce with the Forms. turns everything to order it in some measure to use We on recognized, to discover are. fully and clearly what they a task, not a was It this possession. and practice the method of inquiry formulate to know But inquiry itself would for Anamnesis. For how, thought; unless for them, of a genius when high are they remains still For fact they philosophy, to led Plato that he calls which what that were be unintelligible you knew so it is And that they are is still To know are hypothesis. it. he it. nature their sought, obscure and difficult to penetrate. not used a step without proceed but it requires universality; even And their presence. recognize and consciously who as Aristotle not could those by Indeed, if it is the valid form of deduction, had in many differ to l?gica utens inherent principle a you were of it not looking for, could you find it? 7. is a final There that to be question considered. is largely based on the Phaedo; Anamnesis of the Meno? on which To be more This is the account specific, the doctrine rests in the Phaedo account of is it consistent with of separation also found in the Meno ? of Anamnesis the doctrine is an answer If, as we have argued, to epistemological entailed of Forms problems by the separation and particulars, the question it answered in the be seems, should, affirmative; appear to be a highly for it would to hold Plato's development to fit found a question a short way with dissenters, later between the dialogues on the that he it. for But accepted to argue there is evidence intimately connected view of unlikely an answer, so would and be only to take of inconsistency of the question relation of belief and knowledge. In his indictment of rhetoric in the Gorgias (454c ff.), Plato offers criteria for distinguishing and belief. Knowl knowledge IN PLATO'S MENO AND PHAEDO ANAMNESIS 173 not and it is produced is infallible, by instruction, persuasion. or on true and the the other be false; hand, Belief, may persuasion it may also destroy these are dis which it. But though produces edge we of knowledge and belief, features tinguishing natures. This omission little of their intrinsic where Meno, connectedness. of the are of knowledge grounded with his Socrates has finished the criteria When turns he slave-boy, have is made to Meno and says still in the good in systematic examination "At (85c), these notions have been stirred up in him as in a dream; were would asked the same questions frequently as well as anyone at last." know true opinions, will go on but if his mind to recover truth Later in the dialogue, belief in different So the boy far, learned present but if he he forms, has only is further stirred by questioning, out he of himself. the distinction between knowledge and is more drawn. While the doctrine carefully examining success is knowledge, it is agreed that practical may man well attained with A knows who equally right opinion. can to Larisa but so too can the man who others; way guide that virtue right Right But not there one as useful is, and it is not there the way we have while opinion, knowledge "that about opinion same the is a difference he has never although a as is it, good guide thing between as runaway down, slave traveled it. to action as Socrates remarks, and knowledge is opinion I would to know: claim knowledge. right of conjecture, but something are not many of which I would things say or belief, of them" however (98b). Opinion likened that, but On the other hand, "when this and good to the mythical statues of Daedalus, which, run away. no more It will with you stay on the unless it is made fast by "reflection (a?x?a; Xoyt<T[X(j>,98a). the has (97a-c). a matter be may fastened be true is true, if not a than reason" beliefs are fastened, they turn into knowledge, and abide; that iswhy knowl it differs because of its edge is more valuable than right opinion; bond " (oeor(ji?<;). account This of knowledge, whereby a collection of true beliefs is bound into a coherent system by "reflection on the is intimately to the Phaedo's related reason," description an account able to render of itself (Xoyov Souvcu, 7665). vital point is that, in the Meno, opinion is made reflection. There is an essential continuity of it as But the into knowledge between the by two, 174 R. in the Phaedo whereas divine not and objects an anticipation of the doctrine of the Republic and knowledge doctrine is the of Opinion logical problems which particulars dialogues that that and in kind, our modes different and not one translatable knowledge. It follows in the Meno and the Phaedo for, but had not yet clearly are Teipaorixo? "tentative"; spirit to a conclusion. of startling new This formulated. and But in the middle of a man the system sophical the universe. that differ in The who ways early the Meno period a different spirit has Phaedo originality, in many Plato's through, things thought a us with presents philo man a new and of of theory in F. Cornford's M. rests, philosophy on twin of the immortality and divinity metaphor, pillars: rational and the of the and soul, objects reality indestructibility its knowledge. is the doctrine The architrave of these pillars Anamnesis, of into in the Phaedo, solves epistemo Anamnesis a between Forms and generated by yup^u?; was when he wrote the Meno, Plato, perhaps shares their character. is stirring, and come is evidently (V 476c ff.), respect: important groping and and objects, between Forms separation be different, can never become as "true same the got the them must the doctrines of Anamnesis this not have opinion result if the two are wholly particulars; apprehending the other. are described the Forms (84a), " of opinion This (?ooCaonr?v). E. ALLEN Recollection. University of Minnesota. the of of