Recollection and the Mathematician's Method in Plato's Meno

Semiotica, 1994

2005

PLATO JOURNAL, 2018

The Meno is often interpreted as an illustration of Plato’s decision to replace elenchus with recollection and the method of hypothesis. My paper challenges this view and defends instead two theses: (1) that far from replacing elenchus, the method of hypothesis incorporates and uses elenctic arguments in order to test and build its own steps; and (2) that recollection is not a method of search on a par with elenchus and the method of hypothesis, but is rather primarily a theory that accounts for the metaphysical horizon within which the method of hypothesis, coupled with elenchus and perhaps other dialectical methods, can lead us from opinions to knowledge.

Kaygi 29, 2017

The Meno contains a host of puzzles and problems, not the least of which is the status of the theory of recollection in the dialogue. This essay aims to present both the theory of recollection and what has been called "Meno's Paradox" not as epistemological issues, but as issues of eristic and protreptic. I suggest that the true purpose of the Meno's use of the theory of recollection is to be found in the implicit and explicit caveats that Socrates uses to frame the theory. These caveats, which indicate that we should not take the theory of recollection as demonstrated or proven, ultimately justify interpreting Socrates' claims about the theory of recollection serving a protreptic rôle as definitive. This paper has three sections. Section I offers some preliminary remarks on the nature of philosophical protreptic as a literary genre of the fourth century in general and its employment in Plato. Section II distinguishes the geometry problem used to 'demonstrate' the theory of recollection is employed to solve from the problem of inquiry into virtue that Socrates and Meno are facing. I show that the two problem are disanalagous. I also discuss the character of Meno as susciptible to a certain kind of persuasion, and how Socrates converts Meno's questions about the possibility of philosophical enquiry into a sophistical paradox and offers the theory of recollection as a solution to it. Finally, Section III offers evidence that Plato provides us with a number of caveats and warnings about taking the theory of recollection in the Meno as serious epistemology, leading to the conclusion that Plato's primary purpose in employing it in the Meno is as a protreptic device meant to keep Meno on the path of philosophical inquiry.

This essay explores the relevance of Socrates' mythical introduction of recollection in the Meno. I argue that the passage at 81a5-e2 addresses different levels of understanding, a superfi cial and a deeper one, corresponding to a literal and a metaphorical reading respectively. The major themes addressed in this passage-the immortality of the soul, transmigration, rewards and punishments in the after-life, Hades, the kinship of all nature and anamnesis-have distinct meanings depending on whether we approach them with a Platonic or an Orphico-Pythagorean eye. The literal understanding is appealing to Meno and is offered in reply to his challenge in order to persuade him to continue the investigation of virtue. It is, however, the deeper sense that Plato's Socrates intends for a more philosophically attuned audience.

PLATO JOURNAL, 2023

This paper challenges the prevailing interpretations about the role and the function of recollection in Plato’s "Meno" by suggesting that recollection is a cognitive process inaugurated by a myth. This process sets out the methodological and epistemological context within which two transitions are attainable: on the one hand, the methodological transition from the elenchus to the method of hypothesis, and on the other hand, the cognitive upshift from opinion(s) to knowledge. This paper argues, furthermore, that Socrates uses the myth of recollection just when Meno begins to object and tries to give up on their inquiry. Socrates’ myth accordingly imprints on Meno’s soul a true belief that facilitates the process of recollection by emboldening Meno to continue the inquiry.

According to Plato’s theory that learning is recollection, every person possesses complete knowledge of the forms prior to birth, and at least a portion of what we call learning consists in the recollection of that knowledge. Many scholars have argued that Plato intends the theory to explain concept acquisition as well as our ability to gain philosophical knowledge. There is an alternative interpretation that the theory explains only our ability to gain philosophical knowledge. In this thesis, I argue against this narrower interpretation and in favor of the view that the theory that learning is recollection is a broad account of our cognitive development. My primary argument rests on an analysis of the cross-examination method that Plato frequently employs in his dialogues. That analysis allows me to claim that Plato sees concept acquisition and philosophical learning as continuous with one another in ways that the narrower interpretation denies.

2017

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. © 2017, Modern Greek Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand. All rights reserved.

Once the first argument in favour of the immortality of the soul (the so-called antapodosis argument) has been exhausted, Cebes chimes in to reinforce the points made by Socrates. He does so by invoking a doctrine frequently expounded by the latter, the so-called doctrine of recollection (anamnesis). This states that learning is a kind of remembrance; hence, according to Cebes, it implies both that the soul has learned something before birth and that it must somehow have existed prior to its embodiment (72e-73a). Then in reply to Simmias' question as to what the evidence in support of this thesis might be (Cebes had stated: " if it is true "), Cebes provides one of the very few self-citations to be found in the dialogues: he recalls the Meno's example of a slave who solves a geometry problem without having ever studied geometry, simply by answering Socrates' questions (73a-b). However, Socrates, who is always careful to persuade his interlocutors in the best possible way, this time offers not a practical demonstration (as in the case of the slave) but a theoretical one. This marks the beginning of one of the most thorny and widely discussed sections in the whole of Plato's oeuvre. A great part of the problems that have been detected in the text depends, in my opinion, upon the misleading assumption that the theory of recollection is a sort of epistemological doctrine, that is a method or path by which it is possible to attain knowledge (in particular of the ideas). 1 This approach has inspired the now widely debated hypothesis that recollection is a faculty which Plato assigns not to all men, but only to philosophers 2 (the only men capable of attaining any knowledge of ideal reality). One possible corollary of this thesis is that Plato eventually abandoned recollection as a method of cognition in favour of dialectic, as he switched from the role of a metaphysical and speculative philosopher to that of an analytical and scientific one. One first reason why this interpretation cannot be correct may be found by comparing this passage with the ones occurring a little earlier on in the text (66e-67a) where Socrates peremptorily states that, assuming that any knowledge of the ideal world is indeed possible, this can only be attained after death. Now, given that the theory of recollection revolves precisely around the fact that the soul must possess knowledge in its disembodied form (i.e. prior to its union with a body), it is very unlikely that the aim of this theory is to bridge the divide between the imperfect knowledge which distinguishes the soul-body composite and the perfect knowledge that characterizes the disembodied soul.