Scott. Platonic Anamnesis Revisited
Scott. Platonic Anamnesis Revisited
Scott. Platonic Anamnesis Revisited
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Classical Quarterly 37 (ii) 346-366 (1987) Printed in Great Britain 346
...in our ideas there is nothing that was not innate in the mind or fa
only these circumstances which point to experience - the fact, for in
this or that idea, which we now have present to our thought, is to
extraneous thing, not that these extraneous things transmitted the ideas
through the organs of sense, but because they transmitted someth
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 347
The innateness of ideas was also embraced by the Cambridge Platonists. Cudworth,
for instance, claimed that in sensible ideas there has to be a contribution from the mind,
and in the case of non-sensible ideas, such as relational ones, or 'cognitive' ideas, e.g.
wisdom, folly, etc., there is no question of an empirical contribution.4 More also
dismisses an empiricist explanation of the formation of relational ideas in his Antidote
(p. 224). Here he is discussing the idea of dissimilarity:
But now that these Relative Ideas, whether Logical or Mathematicall be no Physicall affectations
of the Matter is manifest from these two arguments. First they may be produced when there has
been no Physical Motion nor alteration in the subject to which they belong... As for instance,
suppose one side of a room whitened the other not touched or medled with, this other has become
unlike, and hath the notion of dissimile necessarily belonging to it.
Thus if there is no physical impression from without, the ideas must proceed from
within the mind.
The problem which the innateness of ideas is supposed to tackle is one about how
certain elements in human understanding could possibly have arisen if all we had for
their explanation was sense-experience. Thus one argument was that the mere passive
reception of mechanical bombardments from outside could never give rise to ideas
of colour, let alone extension, similarity and so on. This, of course, is a completely
different problem from that of the justification of moral and religious beliefs in the
wake of sceptical attack, the problem that lies behind the positing of innate practical
maxims. Nevertheless, the Cambridge Platonists, at least, espoused both theories, and
were concerned with both problems.5
What the solutions have in common, however, is that they are concerned with innate
ideas or propositions many of which are aroused automatically, and without any
conscious intellectual labour. This is obviously the case with innate ideas as these are
meant to explain the fabric of all human thought, but it is also true of the propositions
which were so fought over by the clerics and their empiricist opponents. This is made
clear from the fact that the innatists of the seventeenth century at whom Locke's
polemic was directed favoured arguments either from universal assent, or from the
immediate assent of someone to whom the principle is first proposed.6
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348 DOMINIC SCOTT
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 349
9 It is fascinating to note, however, that one person who dissociates himself from this
'Kantian' view of anamnesis is Kant himself. In the Critique of Pure Reason A 313/B 370 he
talks of the laborious process of recollection and identifies it with philosophy. Elsewhere,
(Reflexionen zur Metaphysik, Nr. 6050, in Kant's gesammelte Schriften [Berlin and Leipzig, 1928],
xviii (5). 434-5), he says that we recollect the ideas only with difficulty. It is thus a very recondite
affair and Kant's reason for thinking this was that he saw the ideas not as categories or concepts
of pure reason, which combine with sensible intuitions to make experience possible, but as far
surpassing these and constituting intellectual intuitions of things as they are in themselves, which
is a very different matter. In fact, Kant interpreted anamnesis as amounting to no less than a
participation in the Divine Intellect.
10 For the origin of this fragment, see Plutarch's Moralia (Loeb), ed. F. H. Sandbach, xv.
388-9; L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentators on Plato's Phaedo (Amsterdam, 1976), ii.166.
11 VII, 239, 4.
12 See SVF II 83.
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350 DOMINIC SCOTT
13 There was available an empiricist account of the emergence of knowledge from sensation
that is mentioned in the Phaedo at 96b, and it has been attributed to Alcmaeon (24 A 11 DK).
Its stage-by-stage account - sensation, memory, opinion, knowledge - was echoed by Aristotle
(An. Po. B19, 100a3 ff. and Met. Al, 980a27 ff.) and the Stoics (SVF II 83). On my story, Plato's
quarrel with Alcmaeon would have been with the final transition from opinion to knowledge,
not that from sensation through to opinion.
14 Notice Plato's lack of interest in Alcmaeon's theory in the Phaedo passage.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 351
It is between this point and 84a2 that the first stage happens, and at the end of it t
slave boy is in aporia, but is at least aware that he does not know.
(ii) The slave boy now moves from the aporia towards the acquisition of tru
opinions. Yet when he has these opinions, he does not yet have knowledge (85c6 if.)
So that he who does not know about any matters, whatever they may be, may have true opinio
on such matters, about which he knows nothing?... and at this moment those opinions have be
stirred up in him just like in a dream.
making (av8avELv co-extensive with our word 'learn'. And we should be wary of
making such a move, as it raises some acute problems for any interpretation. If w
take the statement at face value, then should we include all learning, 'learning how
as well as 'learning that'? Does Plato include learning how to play the lyre, fo
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352 DOMINIC SCOTT
15 R. S. Bluck, Plato's Meno (Cambridge, 1961), 9-10, for instance, argues against
including experiences of a previous life into the matter of recollection. G. Vlastos, 'Anamnesis
in the Meno', Dialogue 4 (1965), 143ff., excludes empirical knowledge from Plato's programme.
For an extremely severe restriction on the meaning of cLavG6vELv, see A. Nehamas, 'Meno's
Paradox and Socrates as a Teacher', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3 (1985), 1-30: on
his view, the slave boy does not recollect at all, and would only do so if he attained knowledge,
not just true opinion.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 353
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354 DOMINIC SCOTT
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 355
20 65d 11 ff. and 82d9 ff. It is particularly at 75e3 ff. that Plato seems to contradict these other
passages.
21 For a statement of this problem, see D. Gallop, Plato's Phaedo (Oxford, 1975), 121.
22 Socrates is perhaps referring to the necessary role of sense-perception at 83a6-7.
23 This has been discussed by T. Irwin, Plato's Moral Theory (Oxford, 1977), 315 n. 13.
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356 DOMINIC SCOTT
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 357
It is, however, false to say that on D there will be three kinds of knowledge in play
there will 'actually' be three, but only two of them will be 'in play', i.e. feature in
the passage, as, according to D, the argument makes no use of our humdrum
knowledge whatsoever. So the argument from economy bows out, while another one
this time favouring D, takes the stage in its place: the shift of meaning that is mad
on D is much smaller than the one Bostock proposes, and since there is no signal in
the text that 'know' has changed sense, this is a mark in D's favour, because on this
interpretation we shift from knowledge needed to conduct a dialectical question
and-answer session to knowledge needed to conduct one with total success. So in this
case, unlike (B), where the shift is from the knowledge we all have in usage of concepts
to the ability to give a logos, we do not move from one sphere of intellectual activity
to another that is very different.
On D, however, we can do away with a shift in meaning of the word 'know'
altogether, and so dissolve the problem completely:27 when Simmias admits that he
knows the equal, he means that he, like other Platonists, can give an account of a
perception. In both dialogues these premises are used jointly to prove recollection for one o
a small number of cases, from which Socrates then makes a tacit generalization. (Of course, if
in the Meno, Socrates made use of an argument to the effect that since someone of such humbl
origins can recollect so can everyone, then there would be a considerable difference in strategy
between the two dialogues. But nowhere in the Meno does he appeal to such considerations
What he does make use of is the fact that because the slave boy has always been in Meno's
household, they know that he cannot have already learnt geometry (83e3-5). It is not so much
that he is a slave boy but that he is Meno's slave boy that matters, as it is this that ensures tha
the experiment is a controlled one.)
26 See, for example, 83d4 ff.
27 I am following Hackforth here (R. Hackforth, Plato's Phaedo [Cambridge, 1955], 76).
Gallop (op. cit. (n. 21), 133) objects to this view because 'moral and mathematical forms are
expressly said to be on a par' (75c10-d2), but the only way in which all the forms are put on
a par at 75c10 is by being objects of dialectical argument, not of knowledge.
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358 DOMINIC SCOTT
-P-- R
P-- S
but - R
therefore S.
On closer inspection, 75e2-7 turns out not to parallel the previous paragraph, because
whereas R is the implication of -P alone, S is the implication of P and another
premise, viz. that we later regain the knowledge that we once had. Now, in the next
paragraph, this is preserved exactly, but the second premise is incorporated into the
consequent. Thus P and - P are as before (as is R), but S is 'those who learn recollect',
and 'those' is contrasted with the TadvrTE of R. Now there seems little room for doubt
that the argument is an application of the excluded middle, as the &pa of 76c4 testifies,
but if this is so the conclusion is not that all people recollect, but that those who learn
recollect. If the argument is to be valid, therefore, the sentence at 76c4 must be
consistent with the D thesis, and cannot be used as evidence for K. Plato has simply
been careless in his language (as he is at 76a9-b2), and if this conclusion is the price
we have to pay to vindicate Plato's logic, it is a small one.30
28 Meno 85c6-7.
29 I am translating dva?LpuvquKovra7t here as 'being reminded' rather than 'are reminded' as
the latter would create a needless contradiction with an earlier passage. If Socrates and Simmias
are now concluding that all men recollect, they are contradicting what they have just decided,
viz. that not all men know the forms: at 75e5-6 it has been stated that to recollect is to regain
knowledge, so if all men recollect, all men know, and this is just what has been denied.
30 Interestingly enough, Hackforth (op. cit. (n. 27), 72) translates 76c4 as 'Can they then
recollect what they once learnt?'.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 359
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360 DOMINIC SCOTT
33 W. D. Thompson, The Phaedrus of Plato (London, 1868), 55, for instance, says 'It is a
law of human understanding that it can only act by way of generic notions... sensibles are per
se unintelligible'. One scholar who does not follow this line, remarkably enough, is Gulley, who,
despite his reading of the Phaedo, takes the Phaedrus passage to refer only to the philosopher:
'Thus whereas the Phaedo argued that the presence of [the possibility of reasoning from sensation
to conceptual apprehension] was explicable as recollection of forms, the Phaedrus can be
consistently interpreted only as a description of a process of inductive reasoning from a number
of instances of sense-perception.' (CQ 4 [1954], 201). See also T. Irwin, op. cit. (n. 23), 173.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 361
(2) t6v has been objected to because it is surely the man, not the form, which goes
to the one. Hence the change to tLOr'.39 Accepting both these emendations, Hackforth
translates :40
... seeing that man must needs understand the language of Forms, passing from a plurality of
perceptions to a unity gathered together by reasoning.
Verdenius,41 however, argues that we can make sense of the text as it stands without
either emendation: AEy6YLEvov = A6yog, and, in this usage, no article is needed and
it is quite admissible to talk of the A6yos (= the man) going to the form.
(3) ovvaLpobp)Evov has been changed to uuvaLpovvv wov by those who argue that
it is not the form that is collected together, but the sense-perceptions. We can avoid
this change either if we take the word as middle, agreeing with the A6yos, or as passive,
meaning not collected together literally, but 'comprehended', and to say that the
34 249c7. 35 251a ff. 36 250e4.
37 Though see n. 14 above. " Heindorf inserts rT.
39 Badham, followed by Thompson, op. cit. (n. 33), 55. Jo Plato's Phaedrus 86 n. 1.
41 W. J. Verdenius, 'Notes on Plato's Phaedrus', Mnemosvne (Series IV), 8 (1955), 280.
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362 DOMINIC SCOTT
For a man must understand an account according to a form, which passes from many perceptions
to a one comprehended by reasoning.
So far little of this seems to affect our issue. But what is implied by 'understand'
(avvt~vat)? This can either mean 'understand something said' in a casual sense (hence
the point about generic terms which are indeed essential to language and rational
thought), or we can take it as understanding (i.e. gaining knowledge of) an account
according to a Platonic form, not just an innocent generic term. So far there seems
to be nothing to push us either way - the language leaves it open.
Things begin to tilt in favour of D in the second half of the sentence. To begin with,
AoyLta/cj is a word that means 'calculation' (often in a mathematical sense), implying
a deliberate, perhaps laborious, activity, whereas the generalizing processes that K
has the text refer to are surely automatic. Second, we are told that the AEy6,/LEvOV (or
the man) goes (16v) to the one from many sense-perceptions, which K takes as moving
from raw sense-data to the generic terms by which we understand them. According
to D, we move away from sensible appearances in this world, leaving them behind,
and go on to contemplate the form on its own. From what has emerged from our
analysis of the overall context, this is clearly the message of 250ff. What K is
sponsoring, however, is not a departure from one to the other, but a synthesis of the
two, necessary to generate empirical understanding.
Interestingly enough, Hackforth refers us to Republic 476a for a parallel usage of
this language of' going to the form'. Yet if we look at that passage we do indeed find
a parallel, but not one which helps the orthodox interpretation. At 476b10-11,
Socrates says that those who would be able to go (lIva) to the beautiful itself would
be few, and he says this to contrast the philosophers with the lovers of sights and
sounds who do not acknowledge the form at all. At 476a4-7 he has just stated in no
uncertain terms the one/many distinction, where the many are also called appearances.
This seems an excellent parallel for the Phaedrus passage, according to D at least: in
both cases the philosopher moves away from the many objects of sense-perception to
the one form, apprehended by reasoning.
So far I have attempted to show that what is said after the sentence is inconsistent
with K, and that the sentence itself internally reads better on D's terms. We have yet
to show how this fits with the preceding argument (249b) - and it was this passage
that originally ruled out D. The order of argument that seemed so attractive was this:
the possible transmigrations include only the movement from man to animal, or
animal back to man. A soul which has never seen the truth will not enter a man because
he must understand in generic terms etc. K reads the 'must' as meaning 'It is a fact
of human nature that we have rational thought'. All men do in fact understand; all
men do not in fact become philosophers, so we dismiss D. The 8EL thus has a declarative
force. But this is not the only possible meaning - a more natural translation would
be that man ought to understand etc., whether he actually does or not: it is his
epistemological (and hence moral) duty.43 Man, that is, unlike animals has the
42 I am resisting the temptation to read 'collection' into this passage (contra Gulley, op. cit.
(n. 33), 200-1). This new turn in Plato's dialectic has yet to be announced (265d). Furthermore,
avvatptw is not part of Plato's terminology for this procedure - it is not in fact used anywhere
else in his works.
43 SEZ is used of our epistemological duty to inquire after what we do not know at Meno
86b7.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 363
44 A further problem that some versions of K would have to tackle is that of the range of forms.
If the Phaedrus is meant to explain the use of universals in language, then we do not need only
forms produced by an argument from opposites, but also forms corresponding to all universal
terms - hair, mud and dirt included. One advantage of embracing D is that we avoid tying
anamnesis down to this particular crux. We should note that the only parallel text that K could
appeal to for its range of forms in the Phaedrus is the notorious, but ambiguous, sentence at
Republic 596a6-8: [o3AEL oviv Ev8~VE a6p5%o'EOa E'7TLUKo7TOiVTEs, K T~ EUlOvas ILE080sov; Etaso
yip i?ro6 0v EIKaUrov ELOa1LEV TL'EUOaL TEpL' E KacYra d' iroAAi, otq rav'Tv "volta ELrEpoLEv.
S0ot pavOvuELS; J. A. Smith ('General Relative Clauses in Greek', CR 31 [1917], 69-71) points
out two linguistic difficulties involved in taking this sentence as advocating forms of all universal
terms. In the first place, the relative clause that ends the sentence is very unlikely to be a general
relative clause: this would have a subjunctive or an optative, or, if an indicative, ootLs for oLq
(see W. W. Goodwin, Syntax of Greek Moods and Tenses [London, 1889], ?? 532, 534). Second,
the TabTr'v is ambiguous, meaning particulars having the same name as each other or having
the same name as the form. Smith suggests that KOLVOV 6votia would be a much more natural
expression for the former possibility. More work needs to be done on these problems, but as
they stand they are sufficient to cast considerable doubt upon the usual claims made for this
sentence.
45 See above, pp. 346f.
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364 DOMINIC SCOTT
46 The Cambridge Platonist Cudworth (op. cit. (n. 2), 100), in the course of arguing for innate
ideas, praises Theaet. 184ff. as an accurate assessment of the limitations of sense-perception.
47 Plato's volte-face on this issue has been discussed by M. F. Burnyeat in 'Plato on the
Grammar of Perceiving', CQ 26 (1976), 29-52.
48 Phaedo 65a9-66a10, 79a, 83a-b.
49 83bl-2: ...'TL Iv voIcr atr' KaO' a7 O 'rv ab7' KaO aO70a TCV OV7WV.
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PLATONIC ANAMNESIS 365
13 OCQ
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366 DOMINIC SCOTT
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