Meno's Doctrine Of Recollection
Virtue and knowledge can only be learned through one’s self and not through others. Man’s experiences while on earth are very important moments that aid him in obtaining recollection. Both of these statements take part in Plato’s doctrine of recollection. To put it into simpler terms, Plato’s doctrine of recollection goes something along the lines of “how learning is possible.” Plato believed that there was an endless amount of possibilities in another realm. As an example, let’s use “equal.” Nothing in our world can teach us about what is equal, since there is nothing that is perfectly equal. The first thing you must do in order to identify two equal objects is: we must have had knowledge of the two equals when they were born. By continuing
…show more content…
His paradox is presented as a way to avoid the analysis about the true meaning of virtue. Meno failed over and over again when trying to give a relevant explanation, and then tries to change the subject and get the pressure off of him by raising a paradox (internal cite). The major consequence of the paradox is that Meno’s and Socrates’ thoughts are useless. They don’t actually know what the essence of virtue is, so they don’t know what they are looking for, therefore, they cannot find it. What they don’t realize is that nothing can be learned at all, since learning is obtaining knowledge of something we did not know previously. According to Socrates, this is impossible because he says that “all knowledge is learned from previous experience.” Consequently, the paradox introduces a bright new challenge to answer: explaining how learning is possible, and what it actually is. However, the theory of recollection that is stated solves this paradox. It says that the soul has at one point in time learned all things and just needs to recollect them, because it has forgot it. Even though one never learns anything new, they can only remember what they have previously learned. Therefore, learning is not learning any new knowledge, it is just remembering something from past experiences. This is why we struggle with finding the answer to a question because we don’t know we are looking for prior to learning
His paradox is presented as a way to avoid the analysis about the true meaning of virtue. Meno failed over and over again when trying to give a relevant explanation, and then tries to change the subject and get the pressure off of him by raising a paradox (internal cite). The major consequence of the paradox is that Meno’s and Socrates’ thoughts are useless. They don’t actually know what the essence of virtue is, so they don’t know what they are looking for, therefore, they cannot find it. What they don’t realize is that nothing can be learned at all, since learning is obtaining knowledge of something we did not know previously. According to Socrates, this is impossible because he says that “all knowledge is learned from previous experience.” Consequently, the paradox introduces a bright new challenge to answer: explaining how learning is possible, and what it actually is. However, the theory of recollection that is stated solves this paradox. It says that the soul has at one point in time learned all things and just needs to recollect them, because it has forgot it. Even though one never learns anything new, they can only remember what they have previously learned. Therefore, learning is not learning any new knowledge, it is just remembering something from past experiences. This is why we struggle with finding the answer to a question because we don’t know we are looking for prior to learning