A critical re-examination of Plato's Phaedo argument reveals that learning involves a recollection of prenatal knowledge. Plato`s thoughts on the knowledge that rests upon recollection is brought out through Socrates, his speaker. Socrates gives too much attention to the case of equal stones and sticks which are in most of the occasions viewed as existing without complete success that resembles a Form. Plato takes two different approaches in handling the theory of knowledge. In both the Phaedo and Meno, he presents this theory of knowledge as a recollection (Sedley, 1992, p 312). Plato presents his theory as a more or less incidental part for another purpose. He offers more targeted and astute analysis of what constitutes knowledge. Although, Socrates rejects all of these theories, Plato's third Theatetus analysis is considered as the definition of knowledge by Plato. Therefore, this paper endeavors to examine the knowledge that rests upon recollection in Plato's view. It also seeks to answer the question of what knowledge rests on (Rowe, 1993, p 117).
The Platonic recollection theory or the view of knowledge is significantly based on the popular tendency of viewing knowledge as familiarity that was a common past practice. In one of the Meno scenes, Socrates has a recollection of one of the slaves to demonstrate his Theory of Recollection. He showed that a slave can also have knowledge of things that he never learned at any point of his life. What Plato is demonstrating by alluding to this slave is that there is some sought of interconnection of nature. In any case, an individual is capable of recollecting the things that he or she studied at some point of his life (Morgan, 2000, p 96). As a result, within the concept of recollection of knowledge a person knows that the other is true if he or she can make such as recollection. However, if this particular scene is read within other different conversational roles of the slave and Socrates, the conclusion is that Socrates was leading to slave to deductive reasoning, as opposed to recollection of knowledge (Gallop, 1975, p 215). This is because the participation of the slave if significantly minimized by the numerous interventions. This clearly contributes no or little date to the reasoning. Socrates presents data inherent of the answers, and there is nothing left for the slave to recollect. The correct account and the knowledge that the slave displays are evidently nothing apart from elementary deductive logic through the guidance if Socrates (Dorter, 1982, p 154).
Since all the geometry and arithmetic of Plato's time was a deductively reasoned edifice originating from a small set of mathematical example premises, the arithmetic properties such as equal in the Phaedo are the only possible ones that could be used by Plato in support of his theory of recollection of knowledge (Bostock, 1986, p 217). The empirical position that gets massive support is that the ability to reason is what is innate within human beings as opposed to preexisting or recollection of knowledge of the answer. To overcome the problematic synthetic or analytic dichotomy of knowledge, Plato's recollection theory only works best for priori or analytical answers. These are answers that show some tendencies of the inherent logical deducibility from the already existing data. This is the basis of Plato's reasoning that two sticks of equal lengths withheld in the hands are equal with an emphasis on the meaning of equal. The recollection theory does not work with posteriori or synthetic answers owing to the fact that they are totally incompatible. Synthetic answers refer to those that depend on further investigation of the surrounding world (Brill, 2013, p 255).
Plato is greatly credited with the historical documentation of what is nowadays known as the Tripartite definition of knowledge. He tries to give an understanding on the things that constitute justification that qualifies a true belief as honorific knowledge (Rowe, 1993, p 219). This developed to the branch of philosophy known as epistemology. This branch of philosophy is primarily concerned about exploration of the meaning of for S to be justified in believing that P. Several years have passed since Plato identified the problem and philosophers still pursue those problems. According to Plato, knowledge should be given a tripartite definition because there are clear differences in mind between knowledge and belief. Knowledge refers to a special belief which satisfies various additional conditions. For the belief to fall within the meaning of knowledge, that belief must be accompanied by both justification and be true. Thus, Plato succeeds to offer a clear and concise account of the existing difference between belief and knowledge. Plato's account on the difference between belief and knowledge is satisfactory enough to be the foundation of the epistemology as an entire field of philosophy. This is because the tripartite understanding of knowledge goes on record as the most common understanding in the contemporary world. In the epistemological field, an even modern justification concept critic adopts Plato's tripartite knowledge definition as their starting point (Annas, 1982, p 123).
Knowledge that does not ordinarily require assertion such as virtues rests upon recollection. Plato tries to answer the question of how human acquire virtue and reaches the conclusion that the first step is defining virtue. However, this to some extent becomes unanswerable, and the theory of recollection comes into play. It is something which one did not expect from the earlier days Socrates, who was very inquisitive. This is a testimony that Plato came with new ideas that outplay Socrates and his role as a common questioner (Morgan, 2000, p 73). The theory of recollection is a viable solution to the challenge that Plato noticed as he questioned Socrates, as well as his love for wisdom. The suggestion was that human beings are capable of transforming themselves so that they possess practical wisdom concerning ethical matters by eliminating his confusion on virtue. Plato suggests that human beings do away with the virtue confusion by eliminating inconsistencies in belief. He makes the assumption that false belief is always a problem and not a lack of knowledge. In addition, Plato makes assumptions that the knowledge ordinarily is in the human soul all along and that it cannot be eliminated by doing away by the inconsistency. This theory offers an explanation as to why some knowledge in human beings is innate and not acquired through experience. Moreover, this knowledge is an important component of the human soul, and it cannot be lost. Plato argues that this knowledge can only be distracted by confusion resulting from false beliefs developed through experience. As a result of this, the mechanism Socrates employs in his love of wisdom cannot be said to be problematic at the first glance. Hence, the elimination of inconsistency will not take away the knowledge that Socrates displays in his love of wisdom. Moreover, this knowledge is a significant part of human psychology and reason.
In terms of epistemological thesis, knowledge is an important part of a reason and because reason is an integral part of the soul, elimination of this knowledge can occur at any stage. This makes knowledge a structural component of the human soul and it makes this thesis rational. In terms of ontological thesis, the theory looks into the nexus between the soul and the body. According to Plato, the soul has a lot of persistence and its existence is not dependent on the body. This is because the soul of human beings always exists before going into the body and also exists after leaving the body. It is essential that Plato’s argument shows strong coherence as he deduces that human beings do not access reality through their senses. Consequently, Plato infers that the content of human thoughts should be supplied in some manner, and this gives an opportunity for metaphysical proposals concerning the world of eternal life for the human soul, Forms, and learning as recollection (Hackforth, 1955, p 61).
The abstract reality and higher reality of forms in the world represents human efforts to derive some sense from the universe in simple language and ideas easily understood. However, the recollection theory is problematic in that Plato deduces the existence of the universe of the Forms from the human being inability to get knowledge through perception. To gain such knowledge through recollection, the human soul is said to be external and of similar materials as the Forms. Thus, the existence of Forms in the assumptions used to argue such existence is implicit. Plato does not make any distinctions between recollection as knowledge and recollection as belief. He makes erroneous assumptions that knowledge refers to the recognition of the answer or response that one recollects while this cannot be distinguished from true belief (Annas, 1982, p 123).
The recollection theory also goes in a circle or is circular, and it rests upon the memory, learned facts, past occurrences and nuggets of understanding or algorithms. This knowledge gets its original input through the senses, and it is stored after processing it through cognition. Humanity is currently learning new ways of creating faculties into machines as computers can nowadays perform goal-oriented, primitive, learning, and reasoning, particularly when it comes to deductive logic. This is sometimes more reliable and excellent when compared to human capabilities (Hackforth, 1955, p 89). Computers only lag far much behind human capabilities only with respect to perceptions. Therefore, computers are much more like human beings that Plato envisaged in his recollection theory. Plato makes claims that reasoning and learning rests upon or is significantly based on recollection. The Platonic recollection theory or the view of knowledge is significantly based on the popular tendency of viewing knowledge as familiarity that was a common past practice (Dorter, 1982, p 154). To this end, all the geometry and arithmetic of Plato's time was a deductively reasoned edifice. They originated from a small set of mathematical example premises, the arithmetic properties such as equal in the Phaedo are the only possible ones that could be used by Plato in support of his theory of recollection of knowledge. This is because a critical re-examination of Plato's Phaedo argument reveals that learning involves the recollection of prenatal knowledge (Sedley, 1992, p 316).
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