Analysis Of Plato's Theory Of Recollection

609 Words3 Pages
Is our soul truly immortal? In Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates states that the soul is immortal, as he provides 4 basic arguments. These arguments include: The Argument of Opposites, the Theory of Recollection, The Argument of Affinity [also known as the Argument of Scattering] and the Theory of Forms. The Theory of Recollection provides a strong argument that our souls are truly immortal. Based on the Theory of Recollection, I believe that our souls are truly immortal and they can also survive death. The theory of recollection explicates that we learn by recalling, remembering, and recollecting the things that we already knew before we were born; however we forgot them. This provides that the soul is immortal because in order for us to be knowledgeable about certain things before we are born, we have to be “living” before we are born. If we are not alive prior to being born in a human sense, then we could not learn before we were born either. According to the theory of recollection this means that we could not learn after…show more content…
If a man does not learn new things but simply remembers knowledge from a previous life, then where did he get the knowledge in the prior life? Meno’s Paradox conveys to us, “a man can not search for what he knows – since he knows it, there is no need to search – nor for what he does not know for he does not know what to look for. (writework)” This means that we can not go from knowing to knowing because we already know it (writework). Whether we gain knowledge before or after death, we had to learn it at one point of time. Socrates states that our souls already have knowledge, but there had to be a point in time when our souls did not have knowledge, and had to therefore obtain it. Our souls have to go from not knowing knowledge to knowing knowledge; therefore the Theory of Recollection cannot apply because of
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    In this paper I will offer an analysis and evaluation of the Argument of Recollection (73a-76e) in Plato’s Phaedo, by which learning is just recollecting what your soul previously knew before its incarnation in the body. I will first provide the literary context of the Argument of Recollection. Secondly, I will offer a formulation of Plato’s argument. I will then contend that one of the key premise of the argument, namely, that you must have knowledge of Equality before birth to see that equal things

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