Panos Dimas, Recollecting Forms in Phaedo, Phronesis, 48, No.3 2003

Recollecting Forms in the Phaedo
PANOS DIMAS
ABSTRACT
According to an interpretation that has dominated the literature, the traditional

interpretation as I call it, the recollection argument aims at establishing the thesis
that our learning in this life consists in recollecting knowledge the soul acquired
before being born into a body, or thesis R, by using the thesis that there exist
forms, thesis F, as a premise.1 These entities, the forms, are incorporeal, immutable, and transcendent in the sense that they exist separately from material perceptibles, which in turn are related to them through participation and by being
caused by them in some sense. But the properties of transcendence, immutability
and incorporeality are suf cient to signal forms, and so the thesis that there exist
forms claims that there exists entities with at least these three properties. In the
rst section of this paper, I argue that strong textual and more general exegetical
reasons suggest that the traditional interpretation is mistaken. Furthermore, this
interpretation, as I argue in the second section, fails to credit Plato with a proper
argument for recollection. In section III, I present an alternative account of the
argument for R in the Phaedo. At the same time I defend a more general interpretation according to which the metaphysical doctrine Plato offers in the Phaedo
represents a natural continuation of the philosophical position that stands at the
centre of the dialectical conversations we nd in the shorter Socratic dialogues.
I
At 76e7-77a5 Plato offers the following summation of the recollection
argument through Simmias:
I do not think, Socrates, said Simmias, that there is any possible doubt that it is
equally necessary ( at ngkh) for both to exist, and it is opportune that our
argument comes to the conclusion that our soul existed before we are born, and
equally so (movw enai) that reality of which you are now speaking. Nothing
is so evident (nargw) to me personally as that all such things must exist, the
Accepted March 2003

1
Representatives of this view are W. D. Ross, Platos Theory of Ideas, (Oxford,
1951); R. Hackforth (ed), Platos Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955); J. L. Ackrill Anamnesis
in the Phaedo, in E. N. Lee, A. D. P. Mourelatos, R. M. Rorty (eds), Exegesis and
Argument, Phronesis Suppl. I (Assen, 1973), 191, n. 12; D. Bostock, Platos Phaedo
(Oxford, 1986), 71; D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience (Cambridge, 1995), 56ff.;
C. Osborne, Perceiving Particulars and Recollecting Forms in the Phaedo, Aristotelian
Society (1995) 211-33. Contrast T. Penner, The Ascent from Nominalism (1987), 57ff.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003
Also available online www.brill.nl
Phronesis XLVIII/3
176
PANOS DIMAS
Beautiful, the Good, and all those you mentioned just now. I also believe that
suf cient proof of this has been given (ka moige doke kanw poddeiktai).2
The argument referred to is the one Socrates offers at 74a9-77a, which

aims at demonstrating R, i.e. the thesis that our learning in this life consists in recollecting knowledge the soul acquired before being born into a
body. It is obvious how the conclusion of this argument implies that the
human soul pre-existed its bodily birth, or thesis S. To have been able to
acquire knowledge before being born into a body, the soul must have been
in existence. But Simmias says actually more. His statement at 76a8-77a2
makes it perfectly clear that, according to him, this recollection argument
arrives at the conclusion that it is equally necessary both that our souls
existed before our birth, and also that the reality comprised by these entities Socrates just mentioned, the good, beautiful and so on exists. If anything mentioned previously in the dialogue can be interpreted as referring
to forms, then these entities must be forms too. So the conclusion reached
by the argument, as understood by Simmias, is not only the thesis of the
pre-existence of our souls but also that of the existence of these entities.
Simmias con rms that he understands the recollection argument as having arrived at this additional conclusion by explicitly stating in the last
sentence of the passage quoted that what was evident to him personally,
i.e. that these entities exist, has now received suf cient proof.3 Evidently,
G. M. A. Grube (tr.) Plato: Five Dialogues (Indianapolis 1981).
At 77a5 (ka moige doke kanw poddeiktai). The natural way to read the
Greek here is the way Grube reads it, i.e by letting the previous sentence provide the
subject of kanw poddeiktai, in which case this subject is the existence of the reality comprised by the beautiful, good, etc. If we were supposed not to look for the subject in the previous sentence, we should expect a pronoun at 77a5 that would send us
looking elsewhere. This line has created problems for the traditional interpretation.
Hackforth supplies his own translation of 77a5 with a note explaining that the proof
to which Simmias refers at 77a5 is of the prenatal existence of the soul; not, of
course, of the existence of the Forms, which has been a premise of the proof. (Platos
Phaedo, p. 73, n. 1.) But Hackforths very reason for adding this note is that, even in
his own translation, Simmiass remark suggests clearly that the recollection argument
has been also for F. Surely, Plato would be perfectly capable of making Simmias
express clearly at 77a5 that S is the thesis which received a satisfactory proof, if this
is what he had wanted him to express. There would be no point in summing up the
results of the recollection argument so as to create a grossly misleading impression of
what he takes the argument to have achieved. Simmias, as I read him, says here that
he is personally already convinced of the existence of these entities, but that this conviction, as the nargw with which he characterizes it clearly suggests, was not necessarily the result of a discursive proof. So he is now pleased that this conviction is
forti ed with such a proof. In any case, it is simply not possible to construe Simmias
2
3
RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO
177
Simmias statement is incompatible with the view that the recollection

argument presupposes F. If F is a conclusion of this argument, it cannot
sensibly have also been used as a premise.
What Simmias says here cannot be explained as a momentary lapse of
concentration. He picks up a point that Socrates makes with some emphasis in the previous paragraph. Beginning at 76d7, Socrates introduces the
result of the recollection argument by saying, among other things, that if
these entities that we have always been speaking about exist, then it is
also true that our souls pre-existed our bodily birth, which is compatible
with the traditional interpretation. But he says more. Explicitly stating the
position to which this argument has now brought the discussion (r otvw
xei), he asserts at 76e5-6 that it is equally necessary (sh ngkh) that
these entities exist and that our souls pre-existed our births. What this
statement implies is not only that if these entities exist then so do our
souls before their embodiment, but also that the former is true if and only
if the latter is. Interestingly, Socrates goes on to con rm this stronger
statement by saying, in the very last sentence of his summation, that if
these entities do not exist, then our souls did not pre-exist our births either
(76e7). The logical equivalent of this proposition is that if our souls preexisted, then those entities exist. It is the recollection argument just offered
that provides Socrates with grounds for asserting this. As it is already clear
from the Meno, the recollection thesis from which the pre-existence of our
souls is inferred does not, in itself, presuppose the existence of such entities. So Socrates reason for asserting what he does in the last sentence
of his summation (i.e. that if these entities do not exist, our souls did not
pre-exist our births, 76e7), as the remark about equal necessity at 76e5-6
clearly suggests, is that he understands the recollection argument as supporting the stronger claim that these entities exist if and only if our souls
pre-existed our birth.
as saying at 77a5 that what has been suf ciently demonstrated is just S. The subject
of kanw poddeiktai must be sought in Simmias comment (76e8-77a5) to
Socrates remark (76e4-7). What Simmias says in this comment, as clearly as we can
expect him to, is that the recollection argument has arrived at the conclusion that it is
equally necessary that out soul existed before our birth and that these realities, the
good, etc. also exist. If the subject of kanw poddeiktai at 77a5 is not the existence of these realities, as the immediately preceding sentence suggests, then it must
be what Simmias says in his comment is the conclusion of the recollection argument,
namely that it is equally necessary that our soul existed before our birth and that these
realities, the good, etc. also exist. But in this case too, Simmias does say that the existence of these realities has been a conclusion of the recollection argument.
178
PANOS DIMAS
If the equal mentioned at 74a10 is the form of the Equal, as claimed by

the traditional interpretation, then the good, beautiful, etc. mentioned at
76d8-9 must also be forms. So the traditional interpretation has little choice
but to read Socrates as claiming that F is as much a conclusion of this
argument as S is. Also Simmias who says that our argument comes to the
conclusion that our soul existed before we are born, and equally so (movw
enai) that reality of which you are now speaking (76e-77a2). F cannot,
then, be a premise for this argument any more than S can.4 Had it been
that, the direction of dependence between S and F would be asymmetrical.
The truth-value of S would depend on that of F but the converse would
not be the case, contrary to what both Socrates and Simmias maintain.
The language in which Socrates introduces the premise of the argument
may wrongly be taken as evidence that what is being referred to is a
Platonic form. As he puts it at 74a9-11, we say that there is something
equal, different from the equal things, the equal itself (famn po ti enai
son: teron ti, at t son). But we would not interpret Socrates as
being committed to the existence of a form of death when he says at 64c2
do we think that death is something? (gomeya ti tn ynaton enai).
Though the type of language used at 74a9-11 does eventually become the
vehicle for expressing the doctrine of the forms, it is common already in
the earlier Socratic dialogues. So Meno and Protagoras, in the dialogues
named after them, respond to questions about virtue and justice as does
Simmias here about equality. 5 Of course what Socrates does at 74a9-11
in talking about t son, which he does not do in the earlier dialogues, is
to add the quali cation teron. He also includes the formula at.6 These
locutions, it may be said, signal a Platonic form because they are reminiscent of those used previously in the Phaedo, commonly thought to be
referring to forms. We say there is a thing (famn po ti enai) such as
the just itself (dkaion at), the beautiful and the good, it is said at
On the basis of the recollection argument, Socrates and Simmias say, they may
assert that each of S and F are true and in the same way, or that S is just as true as
F is. If F was a premise, the logical relation between the two would be FS. But
then F and S could not have been be true in the same way, since S could not be true
without F, but F could be true without S. As it happens, Socrates and Simmias points
about equal necessity, as read by the traditional interpretation, is that the recollection
argument enables them to assert that FS.
5
M. 75e, 76a, d, 88a; Pr. 332a, 358d, 330c. See also Euth. 6d11; 6e3.
6
But this formula is used earlier, as in the Hippias Major (famn ti enai dkaion
at; 65d4-5). I discuss this passage more fully further on.
179
65d4-5. Further on Socrates mentions size, health and strength (65d11-12).

If that earlier passage introduces Platonic forms, then it is reasonable that
74a9-11 should do so too. It is time to take a careful, critical, look at that
earlier passage.
The setting of the dialogue is a discussion reported to have taken place
hours before Socrates death. When the just, beautiful, good, etc. are rst
mentioned, Socrates presents views on the special way in which the
philosopher leads his life. Plato says that he was not present at that conversation (59b10). We cannot therefore expect an exact reproduction of
what Socrates said, as he said it in these last hours of his life. By thus
removing himself from the actual scene, Plato creates suf cient dramatic
space in which he may present philosophical ideas that are not Socrates,
but his own, and at the same time also to portray the philosophical life
and activity of this in uential teacher, in the language that Plato, himself
now reaching maturity as a philosopher, is beginning to develop. For even
though Socrates may not have described his own life and activity as a
philosopher in the way Plato does on his behalf in this passage, there is
little room for doubt that the life and activity portrayed there is meant to
be Socrates. Phaedo, the narrator, we are told in the very rst line of the
Phaedo, was present when the conversation took place. To put emphasis
on the fact that, in the context of this dialogue at least, we are to understand the narrator as being himself present at the scene, Plato even gives
us Phaedo having his hair stroked by Socrates. However careful Plato may
have been in supplying himself with dramatic licence to introduce philosophical ideas of his own, he has at the same time been as careful in tying
this dialogue to the actual scene of Socrates death. The philosophical life
portrayed in this passage cannot be other than that of Socrates as displayed in the earlier dialogues, even though the terms of the portrayal may
be more distinctly Platonic. Just as importantly the philosophical position
underpinning the views Socrates presents on the philosophical search for
knowledge must be recognizable to the reader of the earlier dialogues as
Socratic. Describing the philosophers search in terms that could not have
been applied to Socratess own philosophical searches, and placing these
in Socrates own mouth shortly before his death, would at best strike
a disharmonious note. It might even look as if Plato were exploiting
Socrates philosophical stature to lend credibility to his own views. What
we have here, it seems more reasonable to suppose, is Plato not only portraying Socratess philosophical life and character as he saw it, but also
acknowledging that the position underpinning Socrates philosophical
activity provides the foundations for his own. In the context of the
argument for immortality, there could hardly be a better contribution to
180
PANOS DIMAS
immortalizing Socratess soul than by showing how his views, as reported

in the earlier dialogues, will live on through Platos own developments
and re nements.
If this interpretation is on the right tracks, we should expect Plato to
provide some indication of how his metaphysical views evolve out of the
philosophy of the earlier dialogues, and not simply to make Socrates put
the doctrine of the forms to theoretical work right from the start. It may
perhaps seem that Socrates, already from the begining of the philosophical conversation at 61c, rests on assumptions and adopts a style of presentation that is unfamiliar from the early dialogues. He takes death to be
the separation of the soul from the body and says that in tending to the
soul in the special way that practising philosophy requires, the philosopher has actually been preparing for death already while living. Merely
that death amounts to the separation of the soul from the body does not
entail commitment to the souls survival after death. But Socrates assumes
such survival straight off and con rms that he does when he says toward
the end of this section that one is more likely to attain knowledge dead
than alive (66e-67a). While this goes beyond the commitment of the Apology,
we need not here have anything more than an indication on Platos part
that he intends to go further than his teacher, preparing the reader for the
fact that this dialogue will gradually become richer in commitment than
what we have seen from Socrates previously. Socrates present assumption, though stronger, is not incompatible with the Apology, where the
posthumous survival of the soul is considered a possibility. Just as importantly, whatever Socrates may hold about the souls surviving our death
in the earlier dialogues, the fact that he seems committed to it in the
Phaedo does not in any way make what he says about the philosophical
life in search for truth incompatible with the activity and ontological commitment displayed in those dialogues. His remarks concerning this philosophical activity do not presuppose that our soul survives our death. That
is why Cebes, though he accepts everything Socrates says about the search
for truth can still, and does, remain doubtful about the thesis of the souls
survival, asking Socrates for arguments to support it (69e6-70b9). Socrates
in his turn will not try to prove it by arguing that it is entailed by the
views he has expressed on the search for knowledge, but will go on to
offer additional arguments instead.
The assumption that the philosophers soul will continue in its search
for truth after death may be Platos, as the subsequent arguments for it
most likely are. But the activity said to be displayed by the philosophers
soul in its search for truth can still be the activity we have watched
181
Socrates display in the early dialogues. The picture proposed by the present paper is one of continuity: Plato begins the Phaedo with the presuppositions, methodology and level of ontological commitment that de ne
the philosophical character of those dialogues. With this as his point of
departure, he proceeds in the remaining of the dialogue to develop a comprehensive metaphysics. What may seem to stand in the way of such an
interpretation is that Socrates presentation of the souls search at 64e-66a
includes, as we have noticed, terminology that could be part of a more
involved metaphysical doctrine than we have ever encountered previously.
This could be taken as proof that the metaphysical doctrine of the forms
is at work already here. Serious though as it may be, this consideration
cannot be allowed to deliver all by itself the nal verdict on such an
important issue, particularly when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for the terminology used in Socratess presentation one which
leaves intact the claim that the theoretical commitments presupposed by
the activity this terminology characterizes are, in substance, Socratess
own. The earlier dialogues display Socrates actually engaging in this
activity; 64e-66a merely characterizes the presuppositions that provide
those displays with their distinctive philosophical thrust and content. It is
entirely reasonable that such a characterization should be offered in a different language and with a terminology not found in the actual displays
where the presuppositions are at work. What we need to do is look beyond
the style of presentation and go into what is actually being said to see
whether the views Plato makes Socrates present on the requirements that
attaining knowledge imposes on the inquirer, and the ontological commitment implied by them, contain anything more than what we encounter
in Socrates earlier searches.
The true philosopher, Socrates says, despises the pleasures of the body
and turns his attention to the soul. He does so because his aim is truth
and the bodys concern for pleasures is disruptive. But there is also
another way in which the body disrupts the philosophers search, one intimately connected with Socrates views on the methodological requirements posed by such a search.
The bodys way of making epistemic contact with the world is by making use of the senses. Unfortunately, the senses cannot be trusted (65a9b7). Only in reasoning (logzesyai) will the truth about reality reveal itself
(65c2-3). In the context of the souls search for knowledge, for reasons
connected both with the unreliability of the senses and with the impetuousness of the bodily demands for pleasure, Socrates claims that the soul
reasons best (logzetai kllista) itself by itself (at kay atn; 65c7).
182
PANOS DIMAS
The purpose of the locution at kay atn, as made plain at 65c5-9

and 65c9-d2, is to get it across that in its search for truth the soul must
devote itself completely to reasoning, remaining as far as possible uninterrupted by the senses and the bodys lusts. Nothing is said or implied
about the immortality or continuing existence of the soul. More importantly, nothing is said with which we are not familiar from Socrates earlier dialectical investigations. While inquiring into what courage, piety,
virtue or beauty really are, Socrates tries, as much as the situation permits, to focus the dialectical exchange on reasoning pure and simple,
putting to one side the testimonies of the senses and urging his interlocutors to do the same. He does not tell those interlocutors, most of whom
are not philosophers, to search with the soul at kay atn, but he does
instruct them to look away from how the senses present whatever they
seek to de ne and try instead to reach the answer through reasoning. Plato
may be using this locution here to acquaint the reader with a term that
will gradually acquire a (semi-) technical sense in his forthcoming metaphysical scheme. But also and most de nitely, he uses it to serve the
immediate purpose of characterizing for the bene t of Socrates philosopher-interlocutors and the reader, succinctly and explicitly, the crux of one
part of Socratess method in the earlier dialectical searches.
Consider now the realities that constitute the objects of pure logzesyai.
Throughout the earlier dialogues, Socrates insists that his questions are not
about this courageous action or person, that beautiful thing or colour. He
seeks knowledge of that which is common in everything beautiful, in
virtue of possessing which it has become beautiful; and similarly with
courage. Perceivable features of the empirical manifestations of courage
or beauty do not gure in the content of the knowledge of courage and
beauty that Socrates seeks. As he explains, there exist all too many numerically distinct manifestations not sharing any given such feature. Socrates
seeks knowledge of courage or beauty itself. As importantly, he takes it
for granted, in a way that he does not offer us evidence of having considered in any detail, that these things he seeks knowledge of, courage,
piety, virtue, beauty, etc. exist. That is why he is convinced that the task
of trying to discover the truth about them has point. In the Protagoras he
makes this assumption explicit when he says, and Protagoras agrees, that
justice is something (330c1). In the Hippias Major, he makes it explicit
about the beautiful, the good and the just (287c1-8). All the while, what
he takes it for granted exists is not simply particular just, good, beautiful
things but justice, goodness, beauty. So he is committed to the existence
of the properties he inquires about; a commitment that extends, in some
183
as yet unexamined way, beyond the perceptible particulars to which these

properties become attributed.
Socrates continues, in the Phaedo, on the theme of philosophical investigation by turning his attention to the realities constituting the objects to
which the soul is to direct its investigative effort, alone by itself. As he
did in the Protagoras (330c1) and the Hippias Major (287c1-8), but now
pursuing a different line of argument, he reminds these interlocutors that
we say that there is such a thing as the just itself (famn ti enai dkaion
at; 65d4-5), 7 the beautiful and the good, properties that have gured
prominently in his early investigations. In addition he mentions size,
health and strength, which have not gured in the same way in those
investigations something that perhaps signals Platos intent to extend the
philosophical search for knowledge beyond the domain of value. This widening of scope is possible because what is true of the properties on which
the earlier dialogues focus will also be true of those to which the investigation is now to be extended: their true nature is not revealed by the
bodily senses. Socrates does not need here to explain why he holds this
because he has already done so on several occasions in the earlier dialogues, at least as regards the value properties. In the Hippias Major he
argues that it is useless trying to reveal the true nature of beauty by pointing to perceivable features of beautiful things. It is always possible for
any such feature to be present in one thing and absent from another that
we say is beautiful. The answer to the question what is beauty? will
remain elusive, if we try to hunt it down through the senses, and so the
investigation must avoid all perceivable features and focus instead on
beauty itself by itself. Having argued this previously, Socrates in the
Phaedo merely states that we must prepare ourselves best and most accurately to do what Hippias was unprepared to do, namely go after the thing
we investigate itself by itself (at kay at, 65e2-66a3). The locution
at kay at characterizes the other part of the Socratic methodology:
the object of the philosophical search must be engaged with apart from
how particulars appear to the senses (65d-66a). As we are promptly reminded
at 66a1-4, the rst part of this methodology is that the soul must search
through pure reasoning alone and by itself (at kay atn).8 The locutions at kay at and at kay atn are symmetrical. The former
And in the Hippias Major, in a language quite similar to the one used here:
Okon sti ti toto, dikaiosnh; (287c4).
8
Repeated when the claim of the immortality of the soul is explicitly made at 66d7e2.
7
184
PANOS DIMAS
makes about the souls objects of investigation precisely the point the latter makes about the mode in which it is to engage them. Ideally, the soul
makes no use of the senses, and any perceptual testimony they supply on
what it investigates is left out of account. In a less than ideal setting, the
soul must try to concentrate solely on its reasoning powers just as it must
try to focus on the object it investigates alone and by itself, avoiding as
much as possible the confusing perceptible features of its various empirical manifestations.
Nothing is said or implied here about the metaphysical status of these
objects at which the soul directs its investigative focus. Indeed, it would
seem that less ontologically committing language is used to characterize
them than the expressions using parts of enai that are used in the
Hippias Major 287c-d about the good, just, beautiful, expressions that
indicate explicit commitment to the reality of the things characterized by
them. And it would be premature to interpret Plato as committing himself
already at this stage to health, mentioned at 65d12 in the same context as
the good, beautiful and just but never again mentioned in the dialogue, as
being a form. No doubt, Plato has an obligation to deal theoretically with
the unexamined ontological presuppositions on which the earlier investigations have been resting. Imprecise expressions such as we say that
there is such and such a thing cannot be tolerated for ever, and so
answers must be offered to the obvious questions concerning the ontological status of these things. But precisely because these questions are obvious and important, they must be addressed openly, not summarily through
casual mention of a stupendous metaphysical theory that the unsuspecting
reader of the Phaedo is totally unprepared for and likely to miss at these
initial stages of the dialogue.
If Plato were already talking about the forms in this part of the Phaedo,
it ought to have struck us as odd that he should introduce the forms without at the same time discussing their distinctive metaphysical properties.
It is not that they are not discussed in the Phaedo. The crucial properties
of transcendence, immutability and incorporeality are introduced explicitly for the rst time actually at 78c10-79a11, shortly after the recollection argument. They are not just casually mentioned as if brought in from
a familiar doctrine to play some part in an argument. They are introduced
in a vividly inferential style and exhaustive detail, and they even form the
basis of a comprehensive metaphysical deduction. It is explained rst that
the equal itself or the beautiful itself is invisible, remains in the same state
never varying from time to time, for it is simple by itself (monoeidw) and
thereby admits of no change. This mode of being is then contrasted with
185
that of material entities and, on the basis of this contrast, Socrates asks
Simmias to join him in putting it down that there are two kinds of existence, the invisible and the visible, the former immutable, the latter ever
changing. Since this is done in the Phaedo anyway, why is it not done in
the vicinity of 65d, where the just, beautiful and good are rst mentioned,
if they are introduced as forms? What prompts Socrates to introduce these
properties at 78c-79a is Cebes request for proof that the soul will not get
scattered after death (77c1-5), which is exactly the request Cebes had
made at 70b1-4. If the forms were introduced by 70b, as the traditional
interpretation maintains, why does not Socrates use their properties to
demonstrate the continuing existence of the soul when Cebes asked for it
the rst time, instead of postponing it until 79d1-7? The answer, I propose, is that the forms are not yet introduced at 70b. Before the recollection argument, the just, beautiful, good, etc. are understood as the type of
things the truth about which the investigations in the shorter Socratic dialogues were trying to discover. Socrates con rms this at 78c10-d2, where
he asks Cebes to go back to the things they were discussing earlier (65d
and 75c-d) and of whose essence they are trying to give an account in
their dialectical exchanges (rvtntew ka pokrinmenoi).9 The expression
rvtntew ka pokrinmenoi cannot fail to bring to mind the shorter Socratic
dialogues, and the fact that it does so is precisely why Plato uses it.
It may be said that since those present in the discussion, to whom the
we in we say that there is something that is equal at 74a9-10 most
likely refers, are all friends of the forms, the son must be referring to a
form. This is not so. The theoretical commitments of the interlocutors cannot settle the question whether Socrates and Simmias introduce the son
as a Platonic form or in the innocuous sense we have been used to from
the shorter Socratic dialogues. Even though Plato is convinced that the
forms exist, he may still want to publish an argument for their existence.
That is what philosophers do. An argument for R that presupposes F is
excessively esoteric. If, as we may suppose, F is not yet widely known
and the Phaedo takes aim at putting it on the scene, Plato cannot assume
that the uninitiated reader will understand that son signals reference to
such entities as the forms, particularly since this reader has not been
offered reason to take the similar language of 64e-66a as doing anything
more than characterizing Socrates approach in the earlier investigations.
9
I read at ousa w lgon ddomen to enai ka rvtntew ka pokrinmenoi at 78d1 as this reality (or set of realities) of whose essence we give an account
in questioning and answering with C. J. Rowe. Plato: Phaedo, p. 183.
186
PANOS DIMAS
But if Plato argues that there is a plausible sense in which the equal is
distinct from the various equal things and that the knowledge we have of
it is not obtained from them, he offers an interesting argument that aims
at a controversial conclusion, but has premises that would be acceptable
to most. He would also be extending a serious invitation to those who are
not already convinced of the existence of Platonic forms to take the recollection claim seriously. As importantly, Plato will be making public the
considerations that motivated him to take the step from the position of the
earlier dialogues that he must have at some point found appealing to one
that is so much richer in ontological commitment. This is no more than
should be expected of him.10
To sum up. At 76d7-77a5 Socrates and Simmias offer their summation
of the recollection argument by presenting the claims for which they
believe it provides warrant. Simmias actually says that this argument has
proved the existence of certain entities. They both claim that it has produced the conclusion that the thesis concerning their existence and S stand
or fall together. An argument for R premised on F could not account for
what Simmias says, or provide warrant for these claims. Plato has obviously realized, as many of his commentators have not, that there is little
philosophical plausibility in an argument for recollection that presupposes
the existence of the forms as a premise. Properly to understand this, we
need to examine the philosophical merit of the recollection argument as
interpreted by proponents of the traditional interpretation.
II
According to an in uential account defended by several adherents of the
traditional interpretation, the philosophical aim of the recollection passage
in the Phaedo is to account for concept-formation and thus explain our
ability to engage in conceptual thought in addition to simply perceiving.
In a representative statement of this view Cornford writes:
10
We should also notice that Socrates does not simply assert that the equal is something different (tern ti) from the equal things, as he ought to have done if he was
borrowing it unquestioningly from the theory of forms. He argues that it is different,
as he indicates with the ra at 74c4-5, even though Simmias had already accepted
that it is. It has also been said that Simmiass emphatic endorsement of Socrates point
at 74b1 is another sign that it is Platonic forms he has in mind. (D. J. Scott
Recollection and Experience, 56ff.; D. Bostock Platos Phaedo, 71). But, as I have
argued, Simmiass personal feelings cannot settle the issue, which is con rmed by the
fact that Socrates ignores them and proceeds to argue the tern ti point.
187
The conclusion suggested earlier [i.e. in the Phaedo] was that perception cannot
be the whole of knowledge because there are other objects the common terms
which the mind must know if it is to re ect at all.11
Although in our dealings with the sensibles we are able to distinguish

equal from not equal or beautiful from ugly, we are able to do so only
relative to some perceptible object or other. At the perceptual level, this
capacity is tied up with this or that particular thing. But we are also able
to attain a level of apprehension where we deal with the notions equal,
beautiful, etc. as removed and disengaged from this or that perceptible
object. We use these notions to describe perceptibles to others, speak about
beauty, for instance, without focussing on this or that thing, engage in
philosophical re ection about it and so on. On this view, recollection is
that in terms of which Plato explains our passage from the perceptual to
the conceptual level. Since everyone whose mental capacities are not impaired
forms concepts, everyone recollects to some degree. Exactly how concepts
are supposed to be formed is not clear.12 But conceptual thought is placed
over and above our ability to orient ourselves successfully in the realm of
experience. Therefore, entering the conceptual level of apprehension through
recollection of prenatal knowledge of the forms represents a move beyond
the perceptual level.
There is very little by way of textual evidence to recommend this account.13
There is even less by way of philosophical plausibility. As has been observed
already, it may be attributing to Plato an incoherent theory. Whatever
accounts for concept formation, it must in any event be the case that the
concept is formed on the basis of something that is not already understood
F. M. Cornford, Platos Theory of Knowledge, London 1935, 109. Other versions

include N. Gulleys, Platos Theory of Recollection, Classical Quarterly, 4, 1954,
197ff.; D. Bostocks, Platos Phaedo, 66ff. C. Osborne, Perceiving particulars and recollecting forms in the Phaedo, speaks of concept application, not concept-formation
(p. 216). But it is unlikely that she attributes to Plato the thoroughly untenable view
that one forms concepts rst and only later, in a logically and temporally distinct
process, learns to apply them. J. L. Ackrill, Anamnesis in the Phaedo offers by far
the more subtle and critical version of the view in question.
12
Hence N. Gulley, Platos Theory of Recollection, says simply that What
appears to be envisaged here is an immediate transition from the sensible to the intelligible world, the argument relying on a contrast between sensation and a conceptual
level of apprehension. Plato is apparently saying that the fact that we attain this conceptual level in describing what is given in sense-experience constitutes recollection
of forms (198).
13
D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, pp. 53-73 argues this point well.
11
188
PANOS DIMAS
as falling under that concept.14 But I am more interested in drawing attention to a different problem. If Platos aim is to explain concept-formation,
it is peculiar that he should completely ignore the possibility that we may
form concepts on the basis of perception without having to recollect forms.
We need an account that would explain why Plato adopted such a contentious thesis without even considering an alternative, possibly simpler
explanation.
Not only is such an account not forthcoming, the actual claim that recollection is meant to explain concept-formation is riddled with problems,
too obvious to have escaped Platos notice. In addition to presupposing
that the forms exist, this claim presupposes also that our souls knew them
in a disembodied state, which would seem to be completely eliminating
the chances of demonstrating the pre-existence of the soul in a non question-begging way. Even worse, the assumption that the soul knew the
forms in a disembodied state does not bring any closer the conclusion that
we form concepts by recollecting. Having known the form of the Equal
before our birth and forgotten it is no guarantee that our coming to form
the concept of equality in this life is the result of recollecting that previous knowledge. Even though our souls may possess a forgotten knowledge of the forms, we may still be forming concepts on the basis of perception
alone without recollecting that past knowledge. The recollection passage
does not offer psychological evidence suggesting that we do actually recollect the form of the Equal. On what basis, then, does Plato claim that
we do, or that we form concepts by doing it? Though this interpretation
credits Plato with two dubious assumptions, it still fails to present him
with an argument that we form concepts through recollection.15
This point was rst made by J. L. Ackrill, Anamnesis in the Phaedo: There
may be a lurking danger for Platos program. For if reminding is to explain conceptformation, can a precondition for reminding be recognition or something akin to it?
(183). T. Ebert, Socrates als Pythagoreer und die Anamnesis in Platos Phaidon,
Stuttgart 1994, 34ff. takes this to be a valid objection against the recollection argument. D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience (57), offers the objection as grounds
for preferring his own, different, interpretation.
15
Hence M. M. McCabe, Platos Individuals, Princeton1994, herself a proponent
of the concept-formation view, says that the reason Plato never considers the equal
itself as being simply a universal or an idea I got into my head (p. 59) is that, had
he done so, his argument concerning its origin could not proceed by denying induction and then postulating the theory of recollection (p. 58, my emphasis). McCabe
deserves credit for sensing that presupposing the forms makes recollection a postulate,
not the conclusion of an argument.
14
189
In an interesting account advanced recently, Scott, also an adherent of

the traditional interpretation (which claims that the recollection argument
establishes that learning is recollecting by assuming the theory of forms
as a premise), avoids some of these problems by denying that the aim of
the recollection passage in the Phaedo is to account for concept-formation. The ordinary concepts equal, beautiful, etc. that we all use daily,
we form empirically on the basis of perception. No prenatal knowledge
of the forms contribute to that. Instead, Platos claim in the Phaedo is said
to be that recollection is the process through which some humans, the real
philosophers, achieve fully- edged philosophical knowledge of the actual
forms in this life.16
According to Scott, the recollection argument assumes the forms
straight off and uses this assumption in the premises.17 Since recollection in this interpretation is reserved for those who acquire fully- edged
philosophical knowledge of the forms and amounts simply to this, it follows also that the discussants cannot reasonably be thinking of themselves
as having recollected the equal. 18 But Socrates clearly implies that they
16
See D. J. Scott Platonic Anamnesis Revisited and Recollection and Experience,
ch. 2 for a detailed exposition and defence of this view, and M. Scho eld in the Plato
article in the recent edition of the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. For a similar view see also G. Fine, On Ideas, Oxford 1993, 137-8.
17
D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, p. 59.
18
That the interlocutors do not take themselves as having full edged philosophical knowledge of the equal is con rmed at 76b-c where Simmias says that perhaps no
one but Socrates has knowledge of the entities previously mentioned. D. Sedley, Platonic
Causes Phronesis 43/2, 1998, 127-8, n. 15, borrowing an idea from Scott, says that
this comment re ects the fact that they are now speaking of the entire range of the
forms including the problematic goodness, beauty, etc. suggesting that this disclaimer
of knowledge may not mean to include the form of the equal. But the Greek suggests
that whatever comment Simmias makes about these entities at 76b-c, he makes about
the equal too. The at with which Socrates refers to the entities about which
Simmias makes this comment (76c2) picks up the totvn pntvn from 75d4, the reference of which is clearly said to include the equal. It is then argued that in each case
(kstote) we acquired knowledge of these things before birth, and lost it at birth. It
is in order to make this argument for each case that it is pointed out that perhaps no
one but Socrates has knowledge of them (75c10-76c2). But even if Scott is right,
excluding the equal from this disclaimer of knowledge does not imply claiming philosophical knowledge of it. It could simply be that, as regards this mathematical notion,
it is possible to be in an epistemic state short of philosophical knowledge, but still
plausibly characterizable as knowledge, as for instance the state of having practical
rule of thumb knowledge of it or the knowledge mathematicians have. It is not as
unproblematic to say that there is a comparable epistemic state to be in as regards
other forms. In the event the disclaimer at 76b-c is inclusive of the equal, this con-
190
PANOS DIMAS
have already recollected. At 74c13-d7, he describes in detail a mental

event that he claims occurs often as we make perceptual contact with
equal things. The reason he describes this event is to make the claim that
it occurs also and commonly in what everyone would regard as typical
recollection cases. The claim that perceptual contact with equal things shares
a type of mental event with typical recollection cases is central in his argument that we recollect the equal itself from the equal sticks and stones. 19
Socrates point is that the interlocutors are already now in the position to
identify a mental event occurring to them that constitutes a sign that they
recollect the equal. But Scotts interpretation cannot allow that the discussants can do so, unless they implicitly also claim to have fully- edged
philosophical knowledge of the form. But whether or not the equal is
included in their disclaimer of knowledge of entities such as the good,
beautiful, etc. at 76b-c, they cannot be interpreted plausibly as claiming
anywhere in the dialogue philosophical knowledge of the equal, which is
what recollecting it would be according to this interpretation. Had they
done so, they would be claiming to have the highest knowledge possible
and therefore, implicitly, also that they have views on how they acquired
it. It would be just too strange that Simmias should have fully- edged
philosophical knowledge of the form of the equal, but would need to be
convinced now, through argument, that he has actually recollected it.
Still, it is a distinct advantage of Scotts interpretation that it attributes
to Plato an argument for recollection (p. 61). Socrates offers the argument for the thesis that we must have known the equal before we were
born, at 74e9-75b6. Here is how Scott presents it.
(1) Then we must previously have known the equal, before that time
when we rst, on seeing the equals, thought that all of them were
striving to be equal but fell short of it.
(2) Yet we also agree on this: we havent derived the thought of it, nor
could we do so, from anywhere but seeing or touching or some other
of the senses I am counting all these as the same.
(3) But of course its from ones sense perceptions that one must think
that all the things in the sense perceptions are striving for that which
is equal, yet are inferior to it . . .
sideration would also explain how the discussants can have said without con ict, rst
that they have knowledge of what the equal is and now that no one but maybe Socrates
has knowledge of it.
19
As indicated also by the present tense plural of psxv at 74d4 (psxomn ti
toioton), the verb used to refer to the occurrence of recollection (cf. 73d6).
191
(4) Then it must surely have been before we began to see and hear and
use the other senses that we got knowledge of the equal itself, of what
it is, if we were going to refer the equals from our sense perceptions
to it, supposing that all things are doing their best to be like it, but
are inferior to it.
(5) Now we are seeing and hearing, and were possessed of our other
senses, werent we, just as soon as we were born?
(6) But we must, were saying, have got our knowledge of the equal
before these?
(7) Then it seems we must have got it before we were born. 20
In Scotts view, all occurrences of equal are meant to refer to the form
of the Equal. Still, it is clear that the premises of this argument cannot
preclude the possibility that we actually come to know the form of the
Equal after the embodiment of our souls. All that follows from the
premises is that we come to think of this form by way of using our senses,
and that we compare it with the perceptible equals when we think of it.
It does not follow that we have had access to the form we thus come to
think before we were born, as opposed to discovering it after. Aware of
this dif culty, Scott claims that Plato assumes among the premises, without
mentioning it, that any sense perception that prompted us to think of the
form . . . would also prompt us to make the comparison between form and
particulars.21 We can see how this helps the argument reach the desired
conclusion. Any comparison presupposes some knowledge of the things
compared. Comparing the particulars with the form any time our sensing
them makes us think of it implies that we did so also the rst time that
sensing them made us think of the form. But we can only sense after we
are born and it is only through sensing that we can come to think of the
form in this life. Since we cannot think of the form without also comparing it with the particulars, then, the supposition is, we must have acquired
the knowledge presupposed by this comparison before we were born.
There are two problems here. The rst one, as Scott admits, is that this
assumption is dubious. Still, Scott maintains that in a previous passage
Plato commits himself to it:
when the recollection is caused by similar things, must one not of necessity also
experience this: to consider whether the similarity to that which one recollects is
de cient in any respect or complete? (74a5-7).22
20
21
22
D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, pp. 61-2.

Ibid., 62, Scotts emphasis.
Ibid.
192
PANOS DIMAS
But this passage does not even suggest that Plato includes such an
assumption among the premises for the recollection argument. What it
says is that if one has forgotten all about, say, Simmias and happens to
remember him from seeing his portrait, one will also get thoughts about
the portraits resemblance to him. Plato expresses a view on what occurs
when people actually recollect. He cannot, then, include this among the
premises of the recollection argument, unless he is confused. The purpose
of this argument is to argue that we recollect past knowledge of the equal
(74e9-75b6). Plato would be begging the question all too obviously, if he
included among its premises a proposition which, according to him, can
be true only if the conclusion is true.23
The second problem is that, even after including this assumption, the
premises as offered by Scott are still unable to support the conclusion that
the soul of the philosopher must have known the form before its embodiment. All that follows is that it compares the form with the perceptibles
any time perception makes it think of it. It does not follow that the soul
cannot learn the form in this life and then compare it with the perceptibles every time they make it think of it. To eliminate this possibility, we
need to interpret premise (2) as claiming not simply that it is via perception that cognitive access to the form is gained in this life, but also that
the only way this access can be gained is through a direct and unmediated transition caused by perception. Other means, as for instance a transition mediated by re ection on the ordinary concepts equal, beautiful,
etc. concepts which we are said to have acquired empirically, would have
to be excluded. Otherwise, the philosopher could, compatibly with these
premises, discover the form in this life through re ection and, having done
so, compare it with the perceptibles any time perception makes her think
of it. On this interpretation, then, Plato has to eliminate what seems the
most reasonable means of arriving cognitively at the form of the Equal in
this life, namely by pursuing further the thoughts about equality that perception has prompted one to think.24 Now notice that while the recollec23
Quite apart from all this, it is also a mistake to understand this passage as even
supporting the claim that any sense perception that prompted us to think of the
form . . . would also prompt us to make the comparison between form and particulars.
What this passage claims, quite plausibly, is that any time a portrait makes us recollect
Simmias, we compare this portrait with Simmias. It does not say that we compare the
portrait with him every time looking at the portrait makes us think of him not unless
we read in it the dubious claim that every time perception of Simmias portrait makes
us think of him constitutes an instance of recollecting him.
24
There is a further possibility that needs to be excluded, namely that perception
193
tion argument is conducted with reference to the equal only, its results are
explicitly generalized to support the same claim with respect to goodness,
justice and piety. Socrates says at 75c10-d1 that the argument just offered
( nn lgow) shows that our souls must have had prenatal knowledge of
the good, the just, the pious, etc. The same argument, then, suitably
adapted, shows that we recollect these too. Reasonably so, since it would
be strange to claim either that we only recollect the equal and not the others, or to generalise so casually a conclusion proved about only one of
them, if other arguments are needed to prove it for the other ones. But it
is hardly plausible to construe Plato as claiming that, in this life, our only
path to the forms themselves is an unmediated transition from the perceptibles, caused by the senses. For one thing, we would have considerable dif culties making sense of this claim with respect to forms such as
the Good, the Just or the Pious. Just as importantly, we would have even
greater dif culties making such a claim compatible with all the evidence
showing that Plato himself has had to engage in extended philosophical
re ection to arrive at the forms. It is just not believable that Plato should
argue for recollection by claiming that the philosophers only path to the
forms in this life is an unmediated transition caused by perception.
These two accounts that take their point of departure from the traditional interpretation fail to provide Plato with a decent argument for recollection. The concept formation account claims in effect that recollection
is a postulate. The account by Scott presents him with an argument, but one
that is question-begging, possibly in more than one respects, and attributes to Plato views that it is not clear are his own. Just as importantly,
neither of them succeeds in accounting satisfactorily for the philosophical
motivation behind recollection. If Plato is convinced independently that
the forms exist and can be known by human souls anyway, exactly what
is the philosophical gain of insisting that perception makes us recollect a
knowledge our souls had of them before they were born into a body? Why
not say more simply that with perception as stepping stone we can both
form concepts and (some or all of us) discover these entities and attain
knowledge of them, partially or fully, during this life? Unless we nd
of many equal things can make the soul discover the form in this life by way of such
an unmediated transition. For the desired conclusion to follow, the premises need to
assert that the transition effected by perception must be to a knowledge of the form
that the soul already possesses. But, as Socrates own examples of recollection at
73c-e demonstrate, this looks very much like recollecting the form, which would again
seem to be smuggling the conclusion into the premises.
194
PANOS DIMAS
answers to these questions, the recollection thesis in the Phaedo would

seem hopelessly ad hoc, motivated simply by the fact that it is able to
deliver the further thesis that our souls pre-existed their bodily birth.
III
I will now offer an interpretation of the recollection argument that is less
likely to be embarrassed by these questions, one that tries to make sense of
Simmias explicit assertion at 77a5, implied also by Socrates remarks at
76e5-8, that this argument has also proved the existence of the good, beautiful, etc. I argued in the rst section that when Socrates says in the initial stages of the dialogue that attaining truth requires that ones reasoning
alone by itself focusses on the reality under investigation in and of itself,
he merely characterizes the philosophical activity he displayed in the early
dialogues. By accepting Cebes invitation to argue that the soul will survive the bodys death (69e6-70b4) he signals that he is about to break
new ground. We are also reminded at 73a-b that the doctrine Socrates is
about to argue was already introduced in the Meno. In that dialogue, recollection enters the scene to solve a problem raised by the long section
before it, which could well have been one of the earlier dialogues. Reminding
us of that previous argument for recollection now may well be a sign that,
in the Phaedo too, the passage precipitating recollection (65d-e), to which
the argument for it is linked with the famn po enai that also introduces
the just at 65d4, takes its point of departure from the position of the
shorter Socratic dialogues in order to develop it further.
Socrates begins the recollection argument at 74a9-10 by saying about
the equal that we say that there is something, . . . the equal itself (famn
po ti enai son, . . . at t son 74a9-10). As he has often done previously with other properties, he makes explicit a commitment that there
exists something named the equal. Not a phantom made up by us out of
thin air, but an objective property in the objective world, quite apart from
how the senses may be reporting about it (74a11-12). Explicitly asserting
that there exists some such thing might be taken to imply the further claim
that one has knowledge of it. Be this as it may, Socrates and Simmias do
claim to possess knowledge of the equal at 74b2-4. Not fully- edged
philosophical knowledge, but suf cient to know and be able to express the
judgment that the same sticks and stones that seem equal may also seem
unequal. 25 So they implicitly also claim that our epistemic faculties some25
The pistmeya at stin at 74b1 cannot be intended to signify possession
195
how make contact with the property that goes by this name. As a result
of this contact it is possible for the soul to come to possess a knowledge
of this property, but also engage it in other ways, as it does when it thinks
thoughts about it.26 This way of characterizing the starting position of the
argument has, of course, ontological implications, but not of a kind that
would prevent it from being acceptable by most in a commonsensical
of fully- edged philosophical knowledge of the form of the equal. At 75c10-d1 we
are told that the same argument can demonstrate that the soul possesses prenatal
knowledge of the good, beautiful, etc. This implies that the interlocutors ought to be
able to run the same argument with respect to these other properties also, and so they
must be able to make about them similar knowledge claims they make about the equal,
even though they also say at 76b-c that no one but perhaps Socrates has knowledge
of them. The pistmeya at stin need not be saying anything more than that
we know what equality itself is, i.e. apart from how it is presented to the senses, as
we evidently do, since we are able to form the judgment we do about the perceptible
equals. In one respect, the knowledge claim made about the equal here is no different
from saying that we have knowledge of courage or beauty, suf cient to engage in a
constructive conversation about it (and to say about perceptibles, as is said in the
Hippias Major, that they are both beautiful and not beautiful). But there is also an
important difference. For it is possible to have of the equal, as it is not of the good,
beautiful, etc., the type of knowledge that mathematicians can be said to have, which
though far from being as in depth as philosophical knowledge, it is still much rmer
than any non-philosophical knowledge of those other ones can be. This well known
superior rmness of the non-philosophical knowledge that may be had of the equal is
no doubt why Plato runs the recollection argument with it and not the others, since
doing so makes it possible for him to get away with saying about the former, as he
could not if he were to say about the latter, that we know what it is and leave it at
that without further explanation.
26
As for instance the thought of equality to which perception is said at 75a5-8 (as
I will be reading these lines) to be directing the soul. In the cases where the contact
of the souls epistemic faculties with the property in question result in the souls
acquiring knowledge of it, we may distinguish between the thing known and the
knowledge that the soul comes to possess. I will occasionally be saying that this
knowledge represents in the soul the thing of which it is a knowledge, but I do not
thereby mean to attribute to Plato a representational view of knowledge. All I mean
to signal by representation here is that through this knowledge, the soul has cognitive access to the property. I express no view as to how Plato conceives of this access.
If degrees of knowledge are allowed, then partial knowledge of something represents
it in the soul partially, i.e. such that the soul has partial access to it. So if mathematical knowledge of equality may be had independently of philosophical knowledge of
it, possession of such knowledge represents equality in the soul merely in the sense
that the soul is able to access equalitys mathematical aspects. Having knowledge of
something would also make it possible to think of that something. Fully- edged knowledge of it would enable the soul to have thoroughly clear thoughts about it, partial
knowledge of it would make the souls thoughts about it less clear.
196
PANOS DIMAS
manner.27 For nothing is said about the metaphysical constitution of this

property which is said to exist.
The stakes get raised when Socrates goes into the reasons for asserting, as he has done at least implicitly with other properties previously,
that equality differs (is tern ti) from the various perceptible things we
may call equal (74c4-5). This is also the point at which he begins to argue.
He makes the point, with which Simmias agrees, that the perceptibles,
without themselves changing, appear equal to one, unequal to another (t
mn sa . . . t d o, 74b7-8). 28 There is controversy about whether the
datives t . . . t refer to perceptibles or persons. In the former case, it is
said, the point made is that any perceptible may seem equal to one thing,
unequal to another. 29 In the latter, the point is clearly that any set of perceptibles that appears equal to some persons appears also unequal to other
persons or even to those to whom it rst appeared equal, if they perceive
it from a different angle. 30 This latter reading represents the most intuitive
rendering of the text. Any Greek reader would take the introductory expression equal sticks and stones to mean sticks and stones that are equal
to each other.31 To express the alternative point Plato could have written
an equal stick or stone, the very same one, sometimes appears . . ., but
it is unclear whether this would be acceptable Greek, since it would fail
to indicate in what relation the stick or stone is equal. There is also a further reason for taking the datives to be masculine. Even if it were possible to read the sentence as saying that any perceptible may seem equal to
Interestingly, this starting position is more in agreement with common sense, and
therefore less committing ontologically, than would be to say that the equal is merely
a name for an idea made up by our imagination, not representing anything in the real
world.
28
In fact, Simmias is asked if the equal ever appears unequal to him. But see
K. W. Mills, Platos Phaedo 74b7-c6, Phronesis 3, 1958, who demonstrates beyond
doubt that the soi with which Socrates refers to Simmias is to be taken as meaning
you as a representative of humanity (p. 50) as opposed to you apart from others.
29
This is the correct reading according to, among others, N. R. Murphy, The
Interpretation of Platos Republic, Oxford 1951, G. E. L. Owen, A Proof in the Peri
Ideon, Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, 1957, A. Nehamas, Plato on the Imperfection
of the Sensible World, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1975.
30
This is the correct reading according to K. W. Mills, Platos Phaedo 74b7-c6,
Phronesis 2, 1957, 129-33, R. Hackforth, Review of the Interpretation of Platos
Republic, Classical Review, n.s. 2, 1952, 159 adopts the latter. As Mills has shown,
part of the point made here would be that for any set of perceptibles, any person to
whom they seem equal might also come to see them as unequal.
31
I owe this point to D. Sedley.
27
197
one thing, unequal to another, it is unclear exactly what argumentative

aim it could serve. The point Socrates needs to make is that the reports
of perception regarding the equality of perceptibles are unclear and unstable. Although unre ectively and for practical purposes we often say about
various perceptibles that they are equal, our actual perceptual contact with
them can at any time elicit con icting epistemic responses about whether
they in fact are. Only then would he be able to drive home the point that
perception is inadequate as a means of disclosing the property of equality. He could not be doing so effectively if he were claiming that the
reports of perception are unstable and indeterminate only in some contexts, leaving open the possibility that they may be stable and determinate
in other contexts. And this possibility would be left wide open, if this sentence were merely saying that any perceptible that is equal to some thing
is unequal to another. Unlike the reading in which the same perceptible
pair seems no more equal than it seems unequal, this one allows contexts
where we have a perceptible thing that is equal to another and so, in those
contexts, the two remain stable in this condition, thus being equal, never
mind whether either of them is unequal to others. That would seriously
undermine the recollection argument, in two ways. If there is a context
where perceptibles are and remain equal without appearing both equal and
unequal, Socrates could not so easily drive a wedge between them and the
equal itself.32 He would also have to face the possibility that it is in this
context, and therefore through perception, that we have gotten the knowledge of the equal we are said to possess.
Socrates and Simmias go on to agree that the equals themselves (at
t sa), or equality ( sthw), never appear unequal. Unlike the reports
on the equality of the perceptibles provided by the senses, they never
invite con icting responses about their equality. The question is whether
the phrases in question refer to the form of the Equal. If we are to suppose that they do, we ought also to suppose that Socrates has introduced
the form already and has actually referred to it with the at t son at
74a10. Why then not stick with the same expression, which, as Plato
would surely know, any reader who suspects the presence of forms here
must have understood as being the term that xes the reference of this
particular form, only a dozen lines earlier? Why introduce two new terms
32
Notice also that the property that a perceptible may be equal to one thing, unequal
to another does not distinguish perceptibles from non-perceptibles. For it is obviously
true that a mathematical entity too may be equal to one such entity, unequal to another.
Four is equal to two plus two, but not to ve.
198
PANOS DIMAS
instead? It has been said that this passage claims that the form consists
of two perfectly equal things, and that sthw is the name of the form
whereas at t sa is the reference of this name.33 But nothing in the
Greek suggests that Socrates is speaking of a thing and its name. If anything, it suggests that he is being deliberately non-committal. There is of
course no doubt that Socrates is trying to direct our attention to equality
itself, but this is very different from saying that he expects us at this stage
to think of the form of the Equal.
We are in the middle of an argument trying to show that the equal
is something different from the equal perceptibles. Socrates could not possibly be helping himself to this conclusion by encouraging Simmias to
point to a difference between the form and the perceptibles. The forms are
different from the perceptibles as a matter of doctrine. It is also unlikely
that Socrates would be referring to something other than the form, perfectly equal and distinct from the equal sticks and stones. If he did, the
implication would be that something other than the form has the property
of being different from the equal perceptibles and itself never unequal. As
well as being problematic in itself, this would make it impossible for Plato
to claim that the soul has acquired knowledge of equality before birth,
unless he could also show that this other thing can be known only by a
disembodied soul.
What is this thing, then, that Socrates has in mind when he speaks of
equality or the equals themselves, if it is not the form or some other
particular thing? Presumably not so different from the son, in which case
we need to explain why he uses two new terms to refer to it. The commentator that has been most helpful on this problem is, I believe,
Olympiodorus when he says that what Socrates speaks of here is not the
Forms of course, but the forms in the soul.34 This draws attention to a
crucial point: on the assumption that equality is not something created by
us but a real property, which is Socrates assumption, the fact that we
have knowledge of it and engage it in thought makes it plain that, as a
33
See P. T. Geach The Third Man Argument in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in
Platos Metaphysics, London 1965, and G. Vlastos, Postscript to the Third Man: A
Reply to Mr. Geach, in Allen (ed.), Studies in Platos Metaphysics. Also K. W. Mills,
Platos Phaedo 74b7-c6 [1958].
34
o t fhmi a dai, ll t n t cux edh, L. G. Westerink, Vol. II, Phaedo,
12, 1, 1-2. At 12, 1, 13 Olympiodorus refers to edow as n t cux lgow. Olympiodoruss
Neoplatonist inclinations may be responsible for his use of the term n t cux edow.
But the exegetical point of substance he makes here is clearly intended as an interpretation of the text of the Phaedo.
199
matter of fact, our soul has a conception of it, whatever kind of a thing
it eventually turns out to be. This is precisely what Socrates also draws
attention to when he speaks of a conception of equality we get from perceiving equal things (75a5-8). That our soul can have thoughts about
equality even though it does not have a settled view about what kind of
a thing it is makes it also possible to make equality the focus of our re ection,
and do so, of course, without presupposing a de nite view on its metaphysical status. It is something of this sort that Socrates is doing here, or
so I claim. He uses the expressions equality or the equals themselves
in order to pick out whatever this is that the soul engages when it thinks,
not of this or that particular equal pair but of equality itself. He does this
in order for us to focus our re ection on it. Of course, these expressions
aim quite precisely at picking out a particular reference. But for the
moment, this reference is a hard one to bring to view, which actually provides a reason for Socrates use of two different terms, in addition to the
son he has already used, to draw our attention to it. What he conveys
by using these terms, I propose, is that at this stage of the argument he
presupposes no settled view on the metaphysical status of equality, other
than what he has been presupposing about the other properties he has been
discussing in the shorter Socratic dialogues, namely that it is something
and that we can engage in discussion and thought. Understanding Socrates
in this way offers also a plausible explanation for the seemingly strange
plural at t sa. Whatever the proper metaphysical status and characterization of the equal itself may turn out to be, it seems reasonable that
the way in which we might conceive of ourselves as engaging equality in
thought, particularly when we have not identi ed the proper metaphysical
entity that the soul actually thinks about, is by supposing that we focus
on two perfectly equal entities, mathematical or simply entities constructed
by the imagination. This interpretation commits Socrates to no more than
the two interrelated claims that he explicitly commits himself to. The rst
is that the soul, at some point in its cognitive development, and presumably as a result of its perception of various things it calls equal, becomes
able to think the thought in question. The second is that there exists something it engages and is thereby able to think this thought. No commitment
is as yet implied as to what this may be.35
35
The rst claim is made explicitly by Socrates at 75a5-8, as I read these lines.
The second is implied by the rst, as well as Socrates explicit claim that we have
knowledge of the equal.
200
PANOS DIMAS
Interpreting what Socrates refers to by equality or the equals themselves along these lines matches perfectly the aim of the recollection argument. It is true that Socrates calling what the soul is already in possession
of and which it will be said to recollect through its contact with equal
things knowledge of the equal (74e9; 75b5-6) directs the Platonists
attention immediately to the thing Plato will eventually want to claim this
is a knowledge of, namely the form. But what is there to prevent Socrates
or anyone else from successfully referring to equality,36 without presupposing,
or being at this stage committed to, a de nite view as to what equality
might be? Let it be perfectly clear that the requirements of the argument for
recollection do not necessitate that he has settled on such a view already
at this stage. Socrates does not need to presuppose at the outset that what
we recollect is the form of the equal in order to argue that we recollect a
knowledge of equality that the soul already possesses. All he needs is
point to something he can claim the soul is able to retrieve from within
itself, and which may be contrasted with the equality of the perceptibles
as this is reported by the senses. 37 He also needs to be able to say that
what is thus retrieved by the soul can constitute a knowledge of equality.
The pronouncement of the target of recollection as a knowledge at 74b4,
as well as the repeated references to knowledge throughout the argument,38
supports the interpretation that the immediate focus of Socrates argument,
and what he makes use of in order to arrive at the conclusion that we recollect, is not the existence of the form of the Equal, but that the soul
retrieves something it nds within itself. His characterization of this something as a knowledge of the equal only implies that he takes it to be the
result of successful epistemic contact with something and not an idea the
soul has concocted ctitiously. It says nothing about what sort of a thing
the soul might have made contact with in order to acquire it.
36
If equality is a form, then it may be said that someone who speaks about equality refers to this form, even though he has no idea that equality is a form. So there is
a sense in which Socrates refers to the form of the Equal when he speaks about equality, even though he may, for the sake of argument, want to remain agnostic about
what kind of thing equality is. I will be using the expression refers subjectively to pick
out what Socrates has in mind when he uses the terms equal, equality or, the equals
themselves. (Socrates subjective reference, on my interpretation, is whatever the soul
engages when it thinks not of this or that particular equal pair but of equality itself,
and is to be distinguished from what these terms refer to as a matter of fact.)
37
As for instance in the case where the item constituting the knowledge one has
of Simmias is different from the content of grasping this particular portrait as being
of Simmias. See also note 41 here.
38
74c8; e3; 9; 75b5; c1; 4; 7.
201
There may, however, seem to be a problem. Socrates mentions equality and the equals themselves to contrast the way they appear with the
way equal stones and sticks appear. Sticks and stones are things. Should
we not expect Socrates subjective reference of equality and the equals
themselves also to be thing(s)? Usual symmetry considerations may perhaps incline us to do so. But this case is special. If the subjective reference of son at 74a10 is as has been suggested here, then it is simply
impossible at this stage to point to something in particular as being its
actual reference. The next best option is to direct Simmias and the
readers attention to the son as this is presented to the soul, or rather as
the soul makes it present to itself when it engages it in thought. That the
soul is able to do so has already been granted at 74b2 where it is agreed
that we have knowledge of the son, but also where it is said that the
soul is able to conceive it (75a5-6). Notice further that if Socrates cannot
assign son to its actual reference, which he obviously cannot do if he
speaks of it in the ontologically vague manner suggested here,39 then there
is nothing in the world, available to him at this stage, to compare the
sticks and stones with. He would pretty much have to direct our attention
to something else, as vague and non-committing ontologically, that could
serve this purpose. If we were to suppose that this is what he actually
does, we would have an explanation for the curious fact that he introduces
two different names (at t sa and sthw), in addition to son, for
that with which Simmias is asked to compare the perceptibles. This explanation would in turn lend support to the idea that the subjective reference
of the son at 74a10 is not the form of the Equal, though its actual reference may well be.
But does this not destroy Socrates chances of getting the contrast he
is after? Not at all. As understood here, the sense of Simmias response
that equality or the equals never appear unequal to him is simply that
whenever his soul makes present for itself the equal, as when the soul
engages it in thought, it always responds by actually thinking thoughts
about equality, and never slips into thinking about something else. To
think of something else, the soul will have to make present for itself and
engage something else.40 This point can be more easily generalized to all
39
Speaking of the son as a property in the world in this general way is, arguably,
less committing ontologically than claiming that it is the same (kind of ) thing as the
various equals.
40
Thinking must not be confused with acquiring knowledge of. Equality and
inequality may well be thought by Socrates to be among those things which we get
202
PANOS DIMAS
souls, because it is not vulnerable to the vagaries bedevilling subjective

epistemic encounters with things outside the soul. If the equal or equals
were such things, one could complain that how they appear to Simmias
may be saying more about him than them.41 But Simmiass general point,
as understood here, is the plausible one that any souls directing its focus
on whatever this is that sustains its thinking the thought of equality commands, at all times, a single response, namely that the soul gets to think
this thought. 42 Thereby, Socrates does actually manage, plausibly, to point
to and compare two different things that the soul has access to: (1) that
which the soul makes present for itself when it thinks of equality and (2)
the reports about the equality of the perceptibles it receives from the
senses. He can also say, as plausibly, that the son thus presented to the
soul is an tern ti from the equals perception puts us in touch with.43
to know by acquiring only one knowledge (97d1-5). Even though we may have learned
about inequality through the same knowledge we learned about equality, it does not
follow that when we think of the one we simultaneous think of the other.
41
On the other hand, the claim that things that are perceived as being equal may,
and do, also appear unequal is so well documented empirically that it is uncontroversial to generalize it beyond Simmias. Precisely because this is so, it would seem controversial to claim that we (all) make contact with something existing outside that
never appears unequal.
42
N. P. White, Platos Metaphysical Epistemology, in R. Kraut (ed.), The
Cambridge Companion of Plato, Cambridge 1992, correctly observes that how an
object appears is not a feature of the object but of the way in which it is thought
about . . . (p. 282). But then White complains that Plato neglects this point when
claiming that the equal never appears unequal. The reason for Whites complaint is
that he attributes to Plato the suspect view that thinking about equality amounts to
actually making epistemic contact with an object, the form of Equality (p. 282). But
the evidence does not prove that Plato does any such thing. Whites reason for claiming otherwise can be that White himself assumes the Socrates intends the reference of
equality or the equals here to be the form of the Equal.
43
I am not convinced by T. Penner, The Ascent from Nominalism, that establishing a non-identity between the equal sticks and the equal simply is Platos argument
for the existence of the Forms (p. 57ff.) Penner claims that Plato argues against nominalism (i.e. against the position that denies the existence of anything other than equal
sticks and things like that) and that establishing a non-identity in this context just is
establishing an existence statement (p. 60ff.). All I can see Plato doing here is laying
out his own view, not arguing against nominalism or even believing that a nominalist position would be so easily dislodged. More importantly, it is entirely unclear why
an argument against nominalism, even if successful, should be thought suf cient to
establish the existence of forms. It is even more unclear why Plato should ever believe
that such a non-identity statement should carry so much ontological weight. His own
Socrates of the early dialogues most likely did not believe in the existence of Platonic
forms, but we would not say that he is a nominalist. Penner actually thinks, correctly
203
Each has a property the other one lacks. The former never elicits con icting responses in the soul, whereas the latter always do. What Socrates
assumes at 74a9-10 is that the former is not made up ctitiously by the
soul but is the result of its having made epistemic contact with something.
The next thing to be done is to argue the central claim that the epistemic contact which has resulted in the souls ability to make present for
itself the thing that sustains its thinking thoughts about equality has taken
place before the soul could actually made use of the senses. Here is the
passage that contains the argument for this claim, with the premises and
the conclusion numbered to facilitate discussion. 44
1. We must then possess knowledge of the equal (son) before that time
when we rst (prton) saw the equal objects and realized that all these
objects strive to be like the equal but are de cient in this.
2. Then surely we also agree that this conception of ours derives from
seeing or touching or some other sense perception, and cannot come
into our mind in any other way, for all these senses, I say, are the
same.
3. Our sense perceptions must surely make us realize that all that we perceive through them is striving to reach that which is equal but falls
short of it; or how do we express it?45
4. Then before we began to see or hear or otherwise perceive, we must
have possessed knowledge of the equal itself if we are about to refer
to my mind, that the forms are not presupposed. But then the ontological implications
read into the non-identity statement are up for grabs. And we have seen at least one
ontologically innocuous reading of it, available already from the earlier dialogues.
44
At 73e1 we are warned that this is a recollection of sorts (nmnhsw tiw). As
the ancient commentators correctly observed, the reason for this quali cation is that
this is not a recollection that announces itself through the characteristic feeling of having recollected. An argument needs to be offered to show that it has taken place.
Damascius remarks that Plato can still call it recollection because not all instances
of recollection produce this characteristic feeling. Di t m sunnoomen nammnhskmenoi ti namimnhskmeya, w n psaiw taw namnsesin; H mlista mn
od n tataiw e. (L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Platos Phaedo,
Vol. II, Damascius, Amsterdam 1977, 19, 1-2.) Olympiodorus observes that the
philosopher does not speak of all recollection, but only of the kind under discussion
(o per pshw namnsevw lgei filsofow ll per tw nn prokeimnhw
(L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Platos Phaedo, Vol. I, Olympiodorus,
Amsterdam 1977, 11, 6, 13-14.)
45
Possibly a better way to render (3) is this: Our sense perceptions must surely
make us realize that all that we perceive through them is striving to reach the equal
itself but falls short of it. But this does not affect my interpretation (see n. 49).
204
PANOS DIMAS
our sense perceptions of equal objects to it, and realized that all of
them were eager to be like it, but were inferior.46
None of the occurrences of the son here has to be taken as having a subjective reference that extends beyond what we have identi ed so far. As
did the context in which it rst appeared at 74a9-10, (1) and (4) imply
commitment to the view that there exists an objective property in the
world that goes by the name equal and to which we respond epistemically. Its ontological status and nature is not addressed. Further, what constitutes the conception of the equal that we are said to have in (2) is the
subjective reference of equality or the equals themselves, as interpreted
here, i.e. the equal as the soul makes it present to itself when it engages
in thought. Hence, (2) makes not the embarrassing claim that we get cognitive access to the form in this life exclusively through an unmediated
transition prompted by seeing, touching, etc., but the plausible one that it
is through perception that the soul comes to think of equality during its
embodied life. Since nothing is available to the interlocutors that could
serve as the actual reference of the son, the thing that the equality of the
perceptibles is said to fall sort of in (3) is the son as the soul makes it
present to itself, mentioned also in (2).47 The son thus represented is also
that to which the equality of the perceptibles is said in (1) and (4) to be
de cient by comparison. 48
(1) does not claim that we were able to discover the de ciency of perceived equality the rst time we perceived equal things. Actually, it
says that we must have had knowledge of equality before the rst time
(prton) we saw equal things and realized (nenosamen) that they are
de cient. More reasonably the prton refers not to the rst time we perceived equals, but the rst time we perceived them and realized the de ciency
of perceived equality compared to whatever this is that the soul focuses
on when it thinks of equality. Therefore (1) leaves open the possibility of
74e9-75b8, translation by G. M. A. Grube.
This remains true even if we were to render stin son at 75b1-2 as the equal
itself instead of the way Grube renders it in (3). The equal itself would still be the
property under the name equality, whatever its metaphysical status, as this property
is represented in thought apart from how equal perceptibles may present themselves
to the senses.
48
And what the perceptibles are said at 74d3-7 to be wanting (nde) in comparison to. I take the son at 74d6 to be elliptically predicating ?ov of something whose
reference is not xed. As I read this sentence, it says do they seem to us to be equal
in the same way as that which is [equal]? (ra fanaitai mn otvw sa enai
vsper at stin [son], 74d5-6).
46
47
205
our having had many perceptions of equal things before arriving at this
realization. It also leaves open the possibility that one may never arrive at
it, regardless of how many perceptions of equal things one may have had.
Thereby, (1) ensures that the soundness of the recollection argument does
not depend on the improbable prospect of anyones actually having compared the equality of the perceptibles with equality itself in ones rst perception of equal things. It also ensures that the conclusion of the rec-ollection
argument that learning is recollection of previously acquired knowledge
can be true independently of whether anyone actually realized that the
equality of the perceptibles is de cient and was able to offer this argument,
or ever became otherwise aware that learning amounts to recollection.
The next thing to notice is that (1) does not say that we become aware
of the de ciency of the equality of the perceptibles by simply perceiving
that they are de cient. As suggested by the nenosamen this awareness
is thought to have been arrived at by re ection on our perceptions of the
equality of perceptibles. Socrates actually argued at 74b7-c9 that the
equality of perceptibles as reported by the senses is different from equality itself. He began that argument by asking Simmias to consider (skpei)
whether stones, sticks and things like that ever appear simply equal (74b79). Having previously invited Simmias to re ect on his perceptions of
equality and having participated in that same re ection himself, it would
be odd that Socrates should now simply announce that this result is actually given to us in perception. We may safely assume, then, that (1) makes
merely the simple and plausible claim that in order to arrive at the realization that perceptibles never actually appear straightforwardly equal, we
need to have prior knowledge of equality.
It was argued at 74b7-c9 that the perceptual reports on the equality of
perceptibles elicit con icting responses about whether they are in fact
equal. This de ciency is mentioned again at 74d4-7 and is the one referred
to in (3).49 The perceptibles strive toward equality in the sense that perception of them occasionally provides grounds for saying that they are
equal. However they fall sort of it because these same perceptions also
provide grounds for saying that they are unequal. Notice that (3) states in
full generality that all 50 that we make contact with through the senses
49
ll mn d k ge tn asysevn de nnosai . . . (75a11). The ll mn d
at the begining of this line simply announces the premise, as does the ll at 75a5.
See also C. J. Rowe, Plato: Phaedo, 172.
50
The all in pnta t n taw asysesin cannot plausibly mean everything we
perceive. More reasonably, it means all these cases where perception inclines the soul
to apply the predicate equal to perceptibles.
206
PANOS DIMAS
(pnta t n taw asysesin) is striving to reach that which is equal but

falls short of it, thereby con rming our interpretation of 74b7-8 that
Socratess claim as regards the perceptibles is that there is no context in
which any of them remain stable in the condition of being equal.
As pointed out in (1), the souls ability relevantly to compare the equality of the perceptibles with something else implies that it has access to
something else, a knowledge of the equal acquired by the soul prior to
this comparison. According to (2), it is the souls contact with the perceptibles that is responsible for its getting to think of equality in its
embodied life. The thing that the soul focuses on in order to be able to
think the thought to which perception of equal things directs the soul is
what the soul is said in (1) to be comparing the reports of this perception
with. However, although perception is said to be responsible for making
the soul think this thought, it is not thought of as providing what the soul
focuses on in order to think it. We are not explicitly told the reason for
this here, but it can hardly be other than that, as argued at 74b4-7, the
two things the soul has access to (i.e. equality as perceived and equality
as engaged in thought) are different. Since perception, the only thing that
makes the soul come to think of equality in this life, is not the source of
what the soul focuses on in order to think this thought, it is inferred in
(4) that this must be the result of a knowledge the soul acquired before it
was able to use the senses.
This argument has delivered a conclusion that satis es the conditions
for recollection, as Plato laid them out at 73c6-d1. First, it provides
grounds for the claim that upon the prompting of perception, the soul
recovers a knowledge that it nds within itself. But also, it provides
grounds for claiming that the content comprising this knowledge is not the
same as the content of the knowledge in which grasping the reminding
item consists; it is different (o m at pistmh ll llh, 73c8). 51
51
J. L. Ackrill, Anamnesis in the Phaedo, understands this condition as requiring
that the other item has to be such that the thought of it is not already given in the
thought that the reminding item is so-and-so or such-and-such and he complains that
the example of being reminded of Simmias by seeing his portrait is in blatant breach
of it (185). Also D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, Plato is right to point out
that if we are to be reminded of x by y, then we must have a recognition of y that
does not involve knowledge of x, otherwise we have the absurd result that in recognizing y we are already thinking of x, and so recollection of x is impossible (57, my
emphasis). But this is not what Plato points out, which is a good thing because if he
did, he would be denying the possibility of being reminded of Simmias by seeing his
portrait, and this is what would really be absurd. 73c8 states simply that in order to
have an instance of recollection, the knowledge one is reminded of cannot have the
207
So Plato feels entitled to the conclusion that the senses cause the soul to
recollect a knowledge about equality the soul must have acquired before
its embodiment.
Let us now sum up the deduction. The starting position of the argument, as understood here, consists in two facts: we have thoughts about
equality, and we perceive things we say are equal. It is then argued that
what the soul can access and focus on to entertain thoughts about equality is different from the reports about the equality of perceptibles in a way
that permits the claim that the two cannot have come to be in the soul
through the same epistemic source. Being the source of the reports about
the equality of perceptibles, perception is said to be what makes the
embodied soul think of equality. But perception is not responsible for supplying what the soul engages in order to think this thought. So it is
inferred that the soul is itself able to supply it by recovering from within
itself. Since what the soul recovers from within itself is not thought to be
the result of the souls imagination, it is inferred that it is a knowledge of
equality the soul acquired in a disembodied state.
Other than the assumption that what the soul focuses on in order to
think of equality is not something the soul has made up, but the result of
knowledge the soul has acquired, this argument hinges on the crucial point
that this knowledge is not something the soul can acquire through perception. This is also the point at which the argument may seem to be most
vulnerable. For even though one may be willing to grant that perception
is not the source of this knowledge directly, it is not clear why one should
also grant that it could not be its source indirectly. Why does Plato not
consider the possibility that the soul may be able to construct something,
not out of thin air, but on the basis of the reports of perception, some-
same content as the knowledge (assuming, with Plato, that we can call it that) in which
the actual grasping of the reminding item consists. If we include the context in which
a piece of knowledge is obtained among the parameters that determine its content, we
can even say, with Olympiodorus, as I believe we must, that it is possible to be
reminded of Socrates by seeing Socrates himself again (e tiw plai Svkrthn
yeasmenow ka ayiw atn dn met t pilaysyai ato ew nmnhsin ly)
(L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Platos Phaedo, Vol I, 11, 6, 4-5). For
this to happen, we need only retrieve a knowledge with a different content, namely
the knowledge of Socrates obtained independently from and prior to the knowledge
we now get as we grasp the man in front of us as being Socrates. That this is indeed
what we do, when we are reminded of Socrates by seeing him, is evident also from
the fact that we might also think that he now looks very different from the way he
looked when we rst got to know him.
208
PANOS DIMAS
thing which, though based on these reports, shows itself on re ection to

be different from them?
The answer to this question is to be found, I suggest, in Platos views
on the epistemic value of these reports. To consider seriously that they
could provide the required basis, he would have to believe that they are
epistemically stable, able to supply the soul with the type of information
that can put it in a position from which it will eventually manage to discern the property of equality, and thereby be able to present for itself this
property accurately. Does Plato think that the senses can do this?
The evidence shows that he does not. We have already observed Platos
views on the senses contribution to knowledge here in the Phaedo during our discussion of 64e-66a. Later on he says that, when attempting to
investigate things through the senses, the soul becomes dizzy and confused as if drunk (79c2-8). The Republic offers a clearer indication of how
little epistemic value Plato attaches to the reports of the senses and an
explanation why. At 523a10-b4 Socrates distinguishes between two types
of sense perception. The rst he describes as of a kind that urges thinking to look into it (diakeleumena tn nhsin); the other as of a kind that
does not. We need not here concern ourselves with this distinction, only
what with it is that makes a perception be of the former type, according
to Plato. The reports of the senses in these cases, Plato writes, make the
soul go off into opposite perceptions at the same time (523b9-c1).
Big/small, thick/thin and hard/soft are mentioned as examples of properties the perception of which is said to be of this type (523e3-6). Plato
could as well have included equal/unequal, or greater/smaller, and might
have done, if he had not already done so in the Phaedo.52 There are obvious ways in which all these pairs differ from the pair equal/unequal. But
the way Plato writes about our perceptions of equals at 74b and 75ab
leaves no doubt that he considers this pair also to be among those that
cause the soul to go off into opposite perceptions. In precisely the way
he takes it to be true of anything perceived as thick that it can also be
perceived as thin, he takes it also to be true of any pair of things that is
perceived as equal that it can also be perceived as unequal. Why does he
think that?
We are told at 524a6-b2, that perceptual contact delivers confused (topa)
reports that make the soul bewildered (poren). It is impossible to make
any sense of them. Indeed, these reports are said to be so confusing that
they even fail to inform us about whether these pairs designate one thing
52
Greater/smaller is mentioned at 75c9.
209
or two things, whether they are separate or mixed up together (524b7-c8).

Actually, at 523e3-7 it is said in so many words that what the senses disclose about these properties is so defective and inadequate that the soul
cannot extract any worthwhile information about them from it. That is
why Plato does not consider the possibility that the reports of the senses
could be taken as a basis which the soul could use to arrive, by itself, at
a conception of these properties. It is his low esteem of the epistemic value
of perception, not simply that its reports are different from that with which
the soul compares them, that leads him so effortlessly to the conclusion
that the source of this content cannot be perception.
Since Plato is convinced that the senses are incapable of delivering any
worthwhile reports about these properties, it might seem peculiar that he
holds that they can nonetheless direct our mind to them. If their reports
about equality, for instance, are so confused, how can they make us produce judgments at all about various perceptibles that they are equal or
unequal? It would indeed be peculiar, if Plato thought that our senses
ability to make us do this is independent of the fact that our souls already
possess a knowledge of equality. Does he think that?
Plato does not address this issue explicitly, but we may discern how he
would answer this question by looking carefully at his example in which
the soul recollects Simmias after seeing a portrait of him. There can hardly
be any doubt that this is carefully chosen. Although Plato has offered several examples before it (73d3-e7), none of these illustrate the principle of
being reminded by similars. This example is the only one that does, and
is assigned to the special place of last on the list (73e9-10), the one to
remember as we go on to read the recollection argument. The reason is
clear. As many commentators have noticed, this is not just any example
of recollection, but one that is meant to exhibit Platos conception of the
metaphysical as well as the epistemological relationship between forms
and perceptibles. It is perfectly tting that we should nd the answer to
our question by looking closer at this example. One thing that is clear is
that if we were looking at Simmias portrait without ever having known
Simmias previously, there is no way we would be able to recollect him.
What is more interesting is that we would also be unable to see what we
are looking at as a portrait of Simmias. On the other hand, if we had
known Simmias but forgotten him and looking at his portrait made us recollect him, it would be only because we were able to see the portrait as
being of him. But what enables our perception of the portrait to see it as
being of Simmias is precisely our past knowledge of him. Possessing this
knowledge, then, accounts not only for the fact that we are reminded of
210
PANOS DIMAS
Simmias now, but also for the crucial fact, which is actually what makes
us recollect, that we see the portrait we are looking at as being of him.53
This case displays a key psychological feature, one of a purely causal
nature and part and parcel of what it is to recollect. The forgotten item x,
although forgotten, does in some way cause us to identify features of item
y that we presently make epistemic contact with, thus making it be the
case that y causes us to recollect x. In the present example, the souls past
knowledge causes it to see the portrait as being of Simmias, and the fact
that it so sees it causes the soul to retrieve its forgotten knowledge of him.
Since we are no doubt invited to conceive of the way in which equal
things remind us of our knowledge of equality along the lines of this
example, we are also invited to exploit these two key features in our
understanding of how we recollect equality. Recollection, as all Platos
examples clearly demonstrate, is a causal mental phenomenon, in the way
just described here, and Plato surely knows that. Indeed, his mere choice
of name for the souls learning in this life and the way he speaks of recollection as something that happens to us (psxomen) at 73d6 and 74d4
should be suf cient proof that he does not mind exploiting the causal
nature of recollection for the purposes of the argument.
By claiming that we recollect past knowledge of equality Plato is actually making a double claim. The claim he makes explicitly is that perception of things that incline the soul to see them as equal causes it to
recover a knowledge of equality it already possesses. Implicitly, Plato also
claims this: the very knowledge the soul is caused to recover through its
encounters with the various perceptible manifestations of equality is also
what accounts for its epistemic capacity to respond as it does when
becoming perceptually exposed to them. That is why Plato does not hesitate to assign to the senses the important task of directing the soul to the
content it needs to focus on in order to think of equality. The senses
reports cannot by themselves disclose traces of the property of equality in
the particulars, or the property itself, precisely as perceiving Simmias portrait cannot by itself disclose that the portrait is of Simmias, or Simmias.
53
It may also be that, looking at the portrait, we are reminded of Simmias not
because we see the portrait as being of Simmias, but because something else, whatever, in it reminds us of him. And it may be that we are reminded of him even though
we never actually come to see this portrait as being of Simmias, or did so only after
these things reminded us of him and then looked back at the portrait having Simmias
in mind. Whatever the case, it would still be true that what makes this something
remind us of Simmias in the rst place is seeing it in the light of our past, albeit forgotten, knowledge of him.
211
However, coupled with the souls forgotten knowledge of equality these

reports become epistemically ef cacious, as does our perception of the
portrait of Simmias when coupled with our forgotten knowledge of him.54
Socrates then says that insofar as this argument has shown that we recollect a knowledge we have of the equal, it has also shown the same thing
about the good, the just, the beautiful 55 and all those entities they qualify
with the formula sti56 when they are ask and answer questions (rvtntew ka pokrinmenoi, 75d2-3). Simmias says at 77a5 that the recollection argument has proved the existence of these entities. According to both
Simmias and Socrates at 76e-77a, as we saw in the rst section here, the
recollection argument concludes that the existence of these entities and the
pre-existence of our souls stand or fall together. At 92d6-e2, Simmias
refers to an argument (logos) on learning and anamnesis that he says was
based on a hypothesis which he has convinced himself is worth accepting. In his presentation of this hypothesis at 92d7-e2, he assigns exactly
the same credence to the pre-existence of the soul and the existence of
the reality bearing the seal sti, saying that the one is as certain as the
other. If the recollection argument has had anything to do with him convincing himself that this hypothesis is worth accepting, which seems reasonable, it must be because it has given equal support to both theses.57
These statements at 92d-e constitute explicit con rmation that the recollection argument delivers a conclusion about these entities that is not entailed,
but goes beyond, what is claimed about them in the premises. By so doing,
it proves things about them.
54
This has nothing to do with concept-formation. The concept-formation interpretation is as accurate as saying that recollecting past knowledge of Simmias by seeing any
odd portrait of him amounts to forming the concept Simmias. If we are interested to
know how Plato might have conceived of what we would call concept-formation, we
might just have to ask him how the soul got to know the forms in the rst instance.
55
As the reader can easily see, the recollection argument as presented here, suitably adapted for each case, will yield exactly the same result with respect to each one
of these properties.
56
For possible ways in which the sti may be and has been rendered see C. J.
Rowe, Plato: Phaedo, p. 175.
57
On the hypothetical method (85c-d; 100a) one puts down the strongest hypothesis as true and accepts what agrees with it, rejecting what is not. The recollection argument is what has made this and not its denial the strongest hypothesis. Simmias rejects,
therefore, the harmony thesis that disagrees with it. He mentions both theses, even
though he only needs the one on pre-existence, thus con rming that the recollection
argument has concluded with both.
212
PANOS DIMAS
My interpretation accounts for this by claiming that the premise concerning the equal is of the same type as the assumption about the just,
beautiful, etc. made in the early dialogues. The issue of its ontological
status is not settled, since no theoretical effort has gone into settling it. As
we might say in the language of 92d-e, it is accepted as a strong hypothesis. The content of this hypothesis is merely that the equal itself is an
objective constituent of the world we can have knowledge of. This is in
perfect agreement with the level of ontological commitment in the earlier
dialogues, which is what we reminded of when Socrates says in the beginning of his summation of the recollection argument at 76d7 that if these
entities we have always been speaking about exist. What the recollection
argument has now done is to prove something new about the equal that
was not part of the original hypothesis and which may be extrapolated to
the other entities. Accepting as true what agrees with the initial hypothesis about the equal, it follows now that it, and the other entities to which
conclusions about it may be extrapolated, possess certain metaphysical properties that could not be attributed to them before the recollection argument. It is not that the entities entering at the premises are different from
those exiting at the conclusion. They are the same, which might also be
a reason for there not being a sharp terminological change demarcating
the periods before and after the introduction of the forms. The difference
is simply that at the point of exit their being is more precisely determined
and so more can be said about them than was possible at the point of
entry. Other than saying that the argument has also delivered a conclusion about these entities, Socrates does not immediately go on to explain
the way in which this differs from the premise. Understandably so, since
the reason for introducing this argument was not these entities but the preexistence of the soul. However, he suf ciently signals this further achievement of the argument by summing it up as he does, and lays out the
properties of these entities a page later when they are required for the
proof of the continuing existence of the soul at 78c-79. He does so here
and not at 70b, when Cebes rst asked for this proof, because he did not
have them then. What delivered them is the recollection argument, which
is the main event that has taken place between 70b and 78c.
It remains to be seen whether the argument thus interpreted can deliver
the conclusion that it is equally necessary that the soul preexisted its bodily birth and that there exist entities with speci c metaphysical properties
attributable to them because of the argument. Knowledge is a two-place
relation, requiring, with equal necessity, that there exists a knower and
something known. The conclusion of the recollection argument is a knowl-
213
edge claim, which is why Socrates and Simmias say at 76e-77a that it is
equally necessary for the soul, the knower, and the realities always being
talked about ( yrulomen e, 75d8), the things known, to exist. Both
theses are derived in the same way, by implication from the conclusion
of the argument that the soul must possess knowledge before its embodiment. But this knowledge claim is special, and so it implies special things
both about the knower and about the known. With respect to the former
it implies that the soul must have existed before its embodiment. In this
state it does not possess a perceptual apparatus and so it cannot make
epistemic contact with anything sensible. Still to acquire knowledge it
needs to make contact with something, which must, therefore, exist separately from anything sensible. With respect to the thing known, then, the
knowledge claim that constitutes the conclusion of the recollection argument implies the existence of imperceptible, transcendent entities (79a3-6).
But if to be perceptible is to be corporeal, as we may suspect Plato
assumes, the imperceptibility of these entities implies also that they are
incorporeal.
It was a central part of the recollection argument that the soul cannot
have acquired its knowledge of equality from the perceptibles because
they present themselves sometimes as equal, sometimes as unequal. But
it did acquire this knowledge before birth. Therefore the imperceptible,
transcendent things it made contact with then in order to acquire it cannot be such that they are sometimes in this state, sometimes in that (llot
llvw). This pretty nearly implies that they are immutable as explained
at 78d2-7.
We have derived the properties of these entities that stand at the centre of the two-realm doctrine as explained at 78c10-79a11 by thinking
through and working out the implications of the conclusion of the recollection argument. From this same conclusion we may also derive the core
of the thesis of participation laid out at 100cff. The fact that perceptibles
can put us in a position to recollect these entities presupposes that there
must be a relationship between the two such that perception of the former
causes the soul to gain access to its forgotten knowledge of the latter.
Though different from the perceptibles, having knowledge of these entities makes it possible to refer (nafromen, 76d9-e1) the perceptibles to
them with epistemic bene t. But this epistemological relationship can
obtain only if there also holds a metaphysical one that permits it. It must
be due to the actual makeup of these two types of beings and the way in
which they are ontologically related that knowledge of the one of them
has implications for our knowledge of the other.
214
PANOS DIMAS
What holds the entire dialogue together, dramatically and argumentatively, is the proof of the immortality of the soul. The recollection argument
is explicitly introduced to support this thesis. But its part in supporting it
would be negligible, if the Platonic forms were presupposed. True, the recollection thesis is combined at 77c-d with the argument from opposites,
but it is clearly signalled that the result of this combination is unconvincing. The stronger argument at 78d-80b does not make use of the preexistence thesis, but of the entities with the properties presented at
78d-79b and the methodological considerations regarding the acquisition
of knowledge laid out at 64e-65a. When the deeper worry comes up that
this argument only proves the soul to be long-lasting (95b-d), Socratess
nal and most involved derivation makes use of the doctrines of participation and of the forms as causes. Recollection plays a part in refuting
the harmony thesis but even this receives an alternative, more potent refutation that does not involve the pre-existence claim.
If the connecting thread of the dialogue is the proof of immortality, the
formal doctrine is the backbone of that proof. The part played in that proof
by the recollection argument is anything but negligible, if its contribution
is in developing the formal doctrine. As understood here, the recollection
argument does precisely this, developing further the argument from the
earlier dialectical conversations. On this developmental view, the formal
doctrine does not enter the scene ready made and unannounced at the
begining of the dialogue, curiously attributed to Socrates. It takes shape
throughout the Phaedo by developing the claims of earlier dialogues, summarised at the begining of this one and reaf rming Platos commitment to
them. The most remarkable feature of those earlier exchanges is the grasp
Socrates and many of his interlocutors display of the concepts they attempt
to de ne. By their own admission, they have no knowledge of them and
their empirically acquired beliefs are of no help; still, they are able purposefully to reason their way through the various proposals and criticize
them appropriately. In the recollection argument of the Phaedo, Plato re ects
on this peculiar cognitive capacity of being epistemically responsive to
crucial properties of the objective world such as goodness, justice, beauty
or equality, even though we do not have knowledge of them. He accounts
for it by arguing that our soul has had privileged epistemic access to these
properties themselves in a disembodied state. This idea, central in the doctrine of recollection, commits him to a rich metaphysics, making recollection instrumental for the conception and development of this metaphysics,
not a consequence of it.
The University of Oslo

Panos Dimas, Recollecting Forms in Phaedo, Phronesis, 48, No.3 2003

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Panos Dimas, Recollecting Forms in Phaedo, Phronesis, 48, No.3 2003

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Recollecting Forms in the Phaedo

According to an interpretation that has dominated the literature, the traditional

Accepted March 2003

The argument referred to is the one Socrates offers at 74a9-77a, which

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

Simmias statement is incompatible with the view that the recollection

If the equal mentioned at 74a10 is the form of the Equal, as claimed by

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

65d4-5. Further on Socrates mentions size, health and strength (65d11-12).

immortalizing Socratess soul than by showing how his views, as reported

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

The purpose of the locution at kay atn, as made plain at 65c5-9

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

as yet unexamined way, beyond the perceptible particulars to which these

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

Although in our dealings with the sensibles we are able to distinguish

F. M. Cornford, Platos Theory of Knowledge, London 1935, 109. Other versions

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

In an interesting account advanced recently, Scott, also an adherent of

have already recollected. At 74c13-d7, he describes in detail a mental

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, pp. 61-2.

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

answers to these questions, the recollection thesis in the Phaedo would

The pistmeya at stin at 74b1 cannot be intended to signify possession

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

manner.27 For nothing is said about the metaphysical constitution of this

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

one thing, unequal to another, it is unclear exactly what argumentative

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

souls, because it is not vulnerable to the vagaries bedevilling subjective

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

(pnta t n taw asysesin) is striving to reach that which is equal but

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

thing which, though based on these reports, shows itself on re ection to

Greater/smaller is mentioned at 75c9.

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

or two things, whether they are separate or mixed up together (524b7-c8).

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

However, coupled with the souls forgotten knowledge of equality these

RECOLLECTING FORMS IN THE PHAEDO

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen