Knowledge as Recollection: (ii) Demonstration (82a8–86c6)

Abstract

In an earlier section, a great deal was made of the fact that Socrates’ refutation of the Eristics’ dilemma does not even pretend to begin de novo. To have attempted to do so would have been too great a concession to the view that, in learning, the mind is a tabula rasa. Socrates’ interrogation of the Slave-boy proceeds on the basis of knowledge the boy already acknowledgedly has. Although the emphasis is on the new knowledge acquired rather than on the knowledge already possessed, as we have tried to maintain, the knowledge from which the boy begins, no less than the new knowledge he acquires, is “in him.” It is to this feature of innateness that the doctrine of anamnēsis is addressed.