![]() Instead I intend to demonstrate that the theory of recollection doesn’t work generally. I do not intend to argue that Socrates’ theory of recollection does not work as a solution to the paradox of enquiry. ![]() In this respect, one can enquire into what one is ignorant of in virtue of the fact that the true opinions are ‘stirred up’ into your mind through questioning. He argues on these grounds that the soul already contains an array of true opinions, gathered, as it were, from a previous life, which can be newly aroused though simple questioning. Since the boy was not taught the right answer, Socrates proposes that he expressed an opinion that was already in him. Socrates is keen to stress that the boy arrives at the right answer by himself through a series of questions. An uneducated slave boy of Meno’s is shown to be capable of recognising the right answer to a mathematical problem that he has never (in this life) heard before ( Meno 81a-86b). Although everything the soul has learnt has been forgotten, during the process of enquiry someone might come to recollect something that they had previously known, thereby ‘relearning’ some piece of knowledge – say of the nature of virtue. In this way, the soul has learned everything that there is to know (i.e., everything that can be enquired into). He reasons that, since the soul is immortal and has been born again many times, it must have seen all things that exist in this world or in the world below or in the world of the Forms and has knowledge of them all. It might die and be reborn, but it is never destroyed. In defence of his position, Socrates refers to what he describes as a “glorious truth” – namely, that the soul of man is immortal. Since this will include all knowledge, enquiry is secured in very general terms. In this sense Socrates accepts that a person cannot enquire into what they genuinely do not know, but he avoids the paradox of enquiry by maintaining that they can enquire into what they have forgotten. This is the Platonic/Socratic theory of recollection. Although it has subsequently been forgotten, it may be ‘relearned’. Specifically, he proposes that everything a person knows or can come to know was previously known by them. Socrates refers to the problem as a ‘tired dispute’, and suggests that it might be solved upon a proper examination into the nature of knowledge and enquiry. The difficulty can be rephrased as being that enquiry into what is known is unnecessary, and enquiry into what is unknown is impossible. Socrates focuses primarily on the first part of Meno’s dilemma: how enquiry might be started. He argues that if the object in question is not known – in other words, if the person doesn’t know what they’re looking for – then they cannot begin their enquiry at all for how can one enquire into the nature of ‘x’ without knowing what ‘x’ is? Meno is also concerned with the possibility that enquiry is never-ending, since even if one were to stumble across the right account, one might not know that it was the right account, ( Meno 80d). Meno’s criticism is in effect that in order for a person to enquire into something it must also be known. Socrates argues that in order for a person to enquire into something it must be knowable. The problem is, how do you find something, such as virtue, when you don’t know what it is you’re looking for? If you already know what it is, then you don’t need to find it but if you don’t know what it is, how will you know when you have found it? This problem of finding a definition of something is known as ‘the paradox of enquiry’. Accordingly, Socrates, acting as usual as Plato’s mouthpiece, and Meno, a student of the sophists, attempt to answer the question ‘What is virtue?’ Their initial failure to understand what virtue is prompts Meno to ask whether they should even suppose that an answer is possible. The primary objective of Plato’s Meno is an inquiry into the nature of virtue. SUBSCRIBE NOW Plato Picking A Fight With Plato Ed Fraser argues that the theory of recollection presented by Socrates in the Meno is circular.
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