The soul is an important issue present in the Platonic texts The Meno and Phaedrus; each one has similarities and differences from each other, which are going to be present in the following paper. I’ll develop the text by explaining how both texts have views on the conception of the soul, the conception of the soul seems to be based on the same foundation yet it differs in certain key ways. Looking at certain similarities, first I’m going to explain how in both texts the soul is immortal, then I will go on into explaining the meaning of the soul being immortal which is the theory of recollection, next I’ll be explaining about the structure of the soul since in the Phaedrus it’s present while in the Meno is not and I will also show that the
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This theory is perceived in both texts yet the Meno focus more into this theory than the Phaedrus since in the Meno the whole point is recollection in contrast with the Phaedrus, which is not since we don’t have perfect recollection because it all depends where we are in the hierarchy. As Lorenzo Colombani explains about the theory of recollection in the Meno, “one’s soul already possesses all possible knowledge, though it forgot it. It is possible to remember it, which is what learning consists in. Thus, one never learns anything new, but only remembers something he already knew, which is what learning consists in.”(Colombani, Lorenzo. "Plato's Theory of Recollection in Short." Plato's Theory of Recollection in Short.) Here it’s explained how Plato considered that the knowledge of concepts like virtue, can not be explained from the merely experimental or perceptual experiences and goes on to clarify that when we know a truth of this kind (virtue) we are really not learning something new but instead our soul is just remembering a truth that it had access before incarnating and living in the material …show more content…
This is present in the example of the slave in the Meno; “You see, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but all I do is question him. And now he thinks he knows the length of the line on which and eight-foot figure is based. (…) Watch him now recollecting things in order, as one must recollect.” (Meno, Plato. Pag. 73) Thanks to the timely questions of Socrates the slave was able to prove the mathematical theorem. Then the process of recollection of the truth is a dialectical process that is only possible by two means; first, the sensible perception of things in this world brings man a way to remember real things (ideas) that populate the intelligible world where previously the soul inhabited. Second, because in the world of ideas they are organized in a hierarchical and interrelated way, the individual may remember the rest of the ideas by a process of intellectual
This theory is perceived in both texts yet the Meno focus more into this theory than the Phaedrus since in the Meno the whole point is recollection in contrast with the Phaedrus, which is not since we don’t have perfect recollection because it all depends where we are in the hierarchy. As Lorenzo Colombani explains about the theory of recollection in the Meno, “one’s soul already possesses all possible knowledge, though it forgot it. It is possible to remember it, which is what learning consists in. Thus, one never learns anything new, but only remembers something he already knew, which is what learning consists in.”(Colombani, Lorenzo. "Plato's Theory of Recollection in Short." Plato's Theory of Recollection in Short.) Here it’s explained how Plato considered that the knowledge of concepts like virtue, can not be explained from the merely experimental or perceptual experiences and goes on to clarify that when we know a truth of this kind (virtue) we are really not learning something new but instead our soul is just remembering a truth that it had access before incarnating and living in the material …show more content…
This is present in the example of the slave in the Meno; “You see, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but all I do is question him. And now he thinks he knows the length of the line on which and eight-foot figure is based. (…) Watch him now recollecting things in order, as one must recollect.” (Meno, Plato. Pag. 73) Thanks to the timely questions of Socrates the slave was able to prove the mathematical theorem. Then the process of recollection of the truth is a dialectical process that is only possible by two means; first, the sensible perception of things in this world brings man a way to remember real things (ideas) that populate the intelligible world where previously the soul inhabited. Second, because in the world of ideas they are organized in a hierarchical and interrelated way, the individual may remember the rest of the ideas by a process of intellectual