Plato Paradox Of Recollection Essay

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Is Plato’s Theory of Recollection a plausible solution to Meno’s Paradox of Knowledge?

The general topic is Plato’s theory of recollection. Is Plato’s Theory of Recollection the plausible solution to Meno’s Paradox of Knowledge? Throughout many of his dialogues Plato often concludes that we cannot know something through our senses. He often concludes that we became acquainted with our knowledge in a previous existence. In Meno, Socrates states that, “As the soul is immortal, has been born often, and has seen all things here and in the underworld, there is nothing which it has not learned; so it is in no way surprising that it can recollect the things it knew before…” In many of Plato’s works is it difficult to recognize as to where our thoughts and/or total knowledge initially came “to be.”
With the use of Socrates’ elenchus , Meno finds himself in aporia , and leads him to introduce us to, what is titled, the paradox of knowledge. It is, as he states:
MENO: How will you look for it, Socrates, when you do not know at all what it is? How will you aim to search for something you do not know at all? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing that you did not know?

Meno wants to know how you are supposed to search for something you cannot even identify as the subject of …show more content…

Tis theory consists of the following theses: (1) the soul is immortal (2) there is nothing which the soul has not learned; and (3) what humans call learning is actually recollecting. For Socrates, there is no difference between “learning” and recollecting. “As the whole of nature is akin, and the soul has learned everything, nothing prevents a man, after recalling one thing only – a process men call learning…” In more common words, knowledge is simply forgotten memories and learning is the process of remembering these ideas, by this man is able to recognize the true from the

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