Recollecting Forms in the Phaedo

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ABSTRACTAccording to an interpretation that has dominated the literature, the traditionalinterpretation as I call it, the recollection argument aims at establishing the thesisthat our learning in this life consists in recollecting knowledge the soul acquiredbefore being born into a body, or thesis R, by using the thesis that there existforms, thesis F, as a premise.1 These entities, the forms, are incorporeal, immut-able, and transcendent in the sense that they exist separately from material per-ceptibles, which in turn are related to them through participation and by beingcaused by them in some sense. But the properties of transcendence, immutabilityand incorporeality are suf cient to signal forms, and so the thesis that there existforms 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 exegeticalreasons suggest that the traditional interpretation is mistaken. Furthermore, thisinterpretation, as I argue in the second section, fails to credit Plato with a properargument for recollection. In section III, I present an alternative account of theargument for R in the Phaedo. At the same time I defend a more general inter-pretation according to which the metaphysical doctrine Plato offers in the Phaedorepresents a natural continuation of the philosophical position that stands at thecentre of the dialectical conversations we nd in the shorter Socratic dialogues.

I

At 76e7-77a5 Plato offers the following summation of the recollectionargument through Simmias:

I do not think, Socrates, said Simmias, that there is any possible doubt that it isequally necessary ( at ngkh) for both to exist, and it is opportune that ourargument comes to the conclusion that our soul existed before we are born, andequally so (movw enai) that reality of which you are now speaking. Nothingis so evident (nargw) to me personally as that all such things must exist, the

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003 Phronesis XLVIII/3Also available online www.brill.nl

Accepted March 20031 Representatives of this view are W. D. Ross, Platos Theory of Ideas, (Oxford,

1951); R. Hackforth (ed), Platos Phaedo (Cambridge, 1955); J. L. Ackrill Anamnesisin the Phaedo, in E. N. Lee, A. D. P. Mourelatos, R. M. Rorty (eds), Exegesis andArgument, 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, AristotelianSociety (1995) 211-33. Contrast T. Penner, The Ascent from Nominalism (1987), 57ff.

Beautiful, the Good, and all those you mentioned just now. I also believe thatsuf 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, whichaims at demonstrating R, i.e. the thesis that our learning in this life con-sists in recollecting knowledge the soul acquired before being born into abody. It is obvious how the conclusion of this argument implies that thehuman soul pre-existed its bodily birth, or thesis S. To have been able toacquire knowledge before being born into a body, the soul must have beenin existence. But Simmias says actually more. His statement at 76a8-77a2makes it perfectly clear that, according to him, this recollection argumentarrives at the conclusion that it is equally necessary both that our soulsexisted before our birth, and also that the reality comprised by these enti-ties Socrates just mentioned, the good, beautiful and so on exists. If any-thing mentioned previously in the dialogue can be interpreted as referringto forms, then these entities must be forms too. So the conclusion reachedby the argument, as understood by Simmias, is not only the thesis of thepre-existence of our souls but also that of the existence of these entities.Simmias con rms that he understands the recollection argument as hav-ing arrived at this additional conclusion by explicitly stating in the lastsentence 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,

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2 G. M. A. Grube (tr.) Plato: Five Dialogues (Indianapolis 1981).3 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 thesubject of kanw poddeiktai, in which case this subject is the existence of the real-ity comprised by the beautiful, good, etc. If we were supposed not to look for the sub-ject in the previous sentence, we should expect a pronoun at 77a5 that would send uslooking elsewhere. This line has created problems for the traditional interpretation.Hackforth supplies his own translation of 77a5 with a note explaining that the proofto which Simmias refers at 77a5 is of the prenatal existence of the soul; not, ofcourse, of the existence of the Forms, which has been a premise of the proof. (PlatosPhaedo, p. 73, n. 1.) But Hackforths very reason for adding this note is that, even inhis own translation, Simmiass remark suggests clearly that the recollection argumenthas been also for F. Surely, Plato would be perfectly capable of making Simmiasexpress clearly at 77a5 that S is the thesis which received a satisfactory proof, if thisis what he had wanted him to express. There would be no point in summing up theresults of the recollection argument so as to create a grossly misleading impression ofwhat he takes the argument to have achieved. Simmias, as I read him, says here thathe is personally already convinced of the existence of these entities, but that this con-viction, as the nargw with which he characterizes it clearly suggests, was not nec-essarily the result of a discursive proof. So he is now pleased that this conviction isforti ed with such a proof. In any case, it is simply not possible to construe Simmias

Simmias statement is incompatible with the view that the recollectionargument presupposes F. If F is a conclusion of this argument, it cannotsensibly have also been used as a premise.

What Simmias says here cannot be explained as a momentary lapse ofconcentration. He picks up a point that Socrates makes with some empha-sis in the previous paragraph. Beginning at 76d7, Socrates introduces theresult of the recollection argument by saying, among other things, that ifthese entities that we have always been speaking about exist, then it isalso true that our souls pre-existed our bodily birth, which is compatiblewith the traditional interpretation. But he says more. Explicitly stating theposition to which this argument has now brought the discussion (r otvwxei), he asserts at 76e5-6 that it is equally necessary (sh ngkh) thatthese entities exist and that our souls pre-existed our births. What thisstatement implies is not only that if these entities exist then so do oursouls before their embodiment, but also that the former is true if and onlyif the latter is. Interestingly, Socrates goes on to con rm this strongerstatement by saying, in the very last sentence of his summation, that ifthese 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 pre-existed, then those entities exist. It is the recollection argument just offeredthat provides Socrates with grounds for asserting this. As it is already clearfrom the Meno, the recollection thesis from which the pre-existence of oursouls is inferred does not, in itself, presuppose the existence of such enti-ties. So Socrates reason for asserting what he does in the last sentenceof his summation (i.e. that if these entities do not exist, our souls did notpre-exist our births, 76e7), as the remark about equal necessity at 76e5-6clearly suggests, is that he understands the recollection argument as sup-porting the stronger claim that these entities exist if and only if our soulspre-existed our birth.

as saying at 77a5 that what has been suf ciently demonstrated is just S. The subjectof kanw poddeiktai must be sought in Simmias comment (76e8-77a5) toSocrates remark (76e4-7). What Simmias says in this comment, as clearly as we canexpect him to, is that the recollection argument has arrived at the conclusion that it isequally necessary that out soul existed before our birth and that these realities, thegood, etc. also exist. If the subject of kanw poddeiktai at 77a5 is not the exis-tence of these realities, as the immediately preceding sentence suggests, then it mustbe 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 theserealities, the good, etc. also exist. But in this case too, Simmias does say that the exis-tence of these realities has been a conclusion of the recollection argument.

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If the equal mentioned at 74a10 is the form of the Equal, as claimed bythe traditional interpretation, then the good, beautiful, etc. mentioned at76d8-9 must also be forms. So the traditional interpretation has little choicebut to read Socrates as claiming that F is as much a conclusion of thisargument as S is. Also Simmias who says that our argument comes to theconclusion that our soul existed before we are born, and equally so (movwenai) 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 beenthat, 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 wouldnot be the case, contrary to what both Socrates and Simmias maintain.

The language in which Socrates introduces the premise of the argumentmay wrongly be taken as evidence that what is being referred to is aPlatonic form. As he puts it at 74a9-11, we say that there is somethingequal, different from the equal things, the equal itself (famn po ti enaison: teron ti, at t son). But we would not interpret Socrates asbeing committed to the existence of a form of death when he says at 64c2do we think that death is something? (gomeya ti tn ynaton enai).Though the type of language used at 74a9-11 does eventually become thevehicle for expressing the doctrine of the forms, it is common already inthe earlier Socratic dialogues. So Meno and Protagoras, in the dialoguesnamed after them, respond to questions about virtue and justice as doesSimmias here about equality.5 Of course what Socrates does at 74a9-11in talking about t son, which he does not do in the earlier dialogues, isto add the quali cation teron. He also includes the formula at.6 Theselocutions, it may be said, signal a Platonic form because they are remi-niscent of those used previously in the Phaedo, commonly thought to bereferring to forms. We say there is a thing (famn po ti enai) such asthe just itself (dkaion at), the beautiful and the good, it is said at

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4 On the basis of the recollection argument, Socrates and Simmias say, they mayassert that each of S and F are true and in the same way, or that S is just as true asF is. If F was a premise, the logical relation between the two would be FS. Butthen F and S could not have been be true in the same way, since S could not be truewithout F, but F could be true without S. As it happens, Socrates and Simmias pointsabout equal necessity, as read by the traditional interpretation, is that the recollectionargument 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.

65d4-5. Further on Socrates mentions size, health and strength (65d11-12).If that earlier passage introduces Platonic forms, then it is reasonable that74a9-11 should do so too. It is time to take a careful, critical, look at thatearlier passage.

The setting of the dialogue is a discussion reported to have taken placehours before Socrates death. When the just, beautiful, good, etc. are rstmentioned, Socrates presents views on the special way in which thephilosopher leads his life. Plato says that he was not present at that con-versation (59b10). We cannot therefore expect an exact reproduction ofwhat Socrates said, as he said it in these last hours of his life. By thusremoving himself from the actual scene, Plato creates suf cient dramaticspace in which he may present philosophical ideas that are not Socrates,but his own, and at the same time also to portray the philosophical lifeand activity of this in uential teacher, in the language that Plato, himselfnow reaching maturity as a philosopher, is beginning to develop. For eventhough Socrates may not have described his own life and activity as aphilosopher in the way Plato does on his behalf in this passage, there islittle room for doubt that the life and activity portrayed there is meant tobe Socrates. Phaedo, the narrator, we are told in the very rst line of thePhaedo, was present when the conversation took place. To put emphasison the fact that, in the context of this dialogue at least, we are to under-stand the narrator as being himself present at the scene, Plato even givesus Phaedo having his hair stroked by Socrates. However careful Plato mayhave been in supplying himself with dramatic licence to introduce philo-sophical ideas of his own, he has at the same time been as careful in tyingthis dialogue to the actual scene of Socrates death. The philosophical lifeportrayed in this passage cannot be other than that of Socrates as dis-played in the earlier dialogues, even though the terms of the portrayal maybe more distinctly Platonic. Just as importantly the philosophical positionunderpinning the views Socrates presents on the philosophical search forknowledge must be recognizable to the reader of the earlier dialogues asSocratic. Describing the philosophers search in terms that could not havebeen applied to Socratess own philosophical searches, and placing thesein 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. Whatwe have here, it seems more reasonable to suppose, is Plato not only por-traying Socratess philosophical life and character as he saw it, but alsoacknowledging that the position underpinning Socrates philosophicalactivity provides the foundations for his own. In the context of theargument for immortality, there could hardly be a better contribution to

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immortalizing Socratess soul than by showing how his views, as reportedin the earlier dialogues, will live on through Platos own developmentsand re nements.

If this interpretation is on the right tracks, we should expect Plato toprovide some indication of how his metaphysical views evolve out of thephilosophy of the earlier dialogues, and not simply to make Socrates putthe doctrine of the forms to theoretical work right from the start. It mayperhaps seem that Socrates, already from the begining of the philosophi-cal conversation at 61c, rests on assumptions and adopts a style of pre-sentation that is unfamiliar from the early dialogues. He takes death to bethe separation of the soul from the body and says that in tending to thesoul in the special way that practising philosophy requires, the philoso-pher has actually been preparing for death already while living. Merelythat death amounts to the separation of the soul from the body does notentail commitment to the souls survival after death. But Socrates assumessuch survival straight off and con rms that he does when he says towardthe end of this section that one is more likely to attain knowledge deadthan alive (66e-67a). While this goes beyond the commitment of the Apology,we need not here have anything more than an indication on Platos partthat he intends to go further than his teacher, preparing the reader for thefact that this dialogue will gradually become richer in commitment thanwhat we have seen from Socrates previously. Socrates present assump-tion, though stronger, is not incompatible with the Apology, where theposthumous survival of the soul is considered a possibility. Just as impor-tantly, whatever Socrates may hold about the souls surviving our deathin the earlier dialogues, the fact that he seems committed to it in thePhaedo does not in any way make what he says about the philosophicallife in search for truth incompatible with the activity and ontological com-mitment displayed in those dialogues. His remarks concerning this philo-sophical activity do not presuppose that our soul survives our death. Thatis why Cebes, though he accepts everything Socrates says about the searchfor truth can still, and does, remain doubtful about the thesis of the soulssurvival, asking Socrates for arguments to support it (69e6-70b9). Socratesin his turn will not try to prove it by arguing that it is entailed by theviews he has expressed on the search for knowledge, but will go on tooffer additional arguments instead.

The assumption that the philosophers soul will continue in its searchfor truth after death may be Platos, as the subsequent arguments for itmost likely are. But the activity said to be displayed by the philosopherssoul in its search for truth can still be the activity we have watched

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Socrates display in the early dialogues. The picture proposed by the pre-sent paper is one of continuity: Plato begins the Phaedo with the presup-positions, methodology and level of ontological commitment that de nethe philosophical character of those dialogues. With this as his point ofdeparture, he proceeds in the remaining of the dialogue to develop a com-prehensive metaphysics. What may seem to stand in the way of such aninterpretation is that Socrates presentation of the souls search at 64e-66aincludes, as we have noticed, terminology that could be part of a moreinvolved metaphysical doctrine than we have ever encountered previously.This could be taken as proof that the metaphysical doctrine of the formsis at work already here. Serious though as it may be, this considerationcannot be allowed to deliver all by itself the nal verdict on such animportant issue, particularly when there is a perfectly reasonable expla-nation for the terminology used in Socratess presentation one whichleaves intact the claim that the theoretical commitments presupposed bythe activity this terminology characterizes are, in substance, Socratessown. The earlier dialogues display Socrates actually engaging in thisactivity; 64e-66a merely characterizes the presuppositions that providethose displays with their distinctive philosophical thrust and content. It isentirely reasonable that such a characterization should be offered in a dif-ferent language and with a terminology not found in the actual displayswhere the presuppositions are at work. What we need to do is look beyondthe style of presentation and go into what is actually being said to seewhether the views Plato makes Socrates present on the requirements thatattaining knowledge imposes on the inquirer, and the ontological com-mitment implied by them, contain anything more than what we encounterin Socrates earlier searches.

The true philosopher, Socrates says, despises the pleasures of the bodyand turns his attention to the soul. He does so because his aim is truthand the bodys concern for pleasures is disruptive. But there is alsoanother way in which the body disrupts the philosophers search, one inti-mately connected with Socrates views on the methodological require-ments posed by such a search.

The bodys way of making epistemic contact with the world is by mak-ing use of the senses. Unfortunately, the senses cannot be trusted (65a9-b7). Only in reasoning (logzesyai) will the truth about reality reveal itself(65c2-3). In the context of the souls search for knowledge, for reasonsconnected both with the unreliability of the senses and with the impetu-ousness of the bodily demands for pleasure, Socrates claims that the soulreasons best (logzetai kllista) itself by itself (at kay atn; 65c7).

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The purpose of the locution at kay atn, as made plain at 65c5-9and 65c9-d2, is to get it across that in its search for truth the soul mustdevote itself completely to reasoning, remaining as far as possible unin-terrupted by the senses and the bodys lusts. Nothing is said or impliedabout the immortality or continuing existence of the soul. More impor-tantly, nothing is said with which we are not familiar from Socrates ear-lier dialectical investigations. While inquiring into what courage, piety,virtue or beauty really are, Socrates tries, as much as the situation per-mits, to focus the dialectical exchange on reasoning pure and simple,putting to one side the testimonies of the senses and urging his interlocu-tors to do the same. He does not tell those interlocutors, most of whomare not philosophers, to search with the soul at kay atn, but he doesinstruct them to look away from how the senses present whatever theyseek to de ne and try instead to reach the answer through reasoning. Platomay be using this locution here to acquaint the reader with a term thatwill gradually acquire a (semi-) technical sense in his forthcoming meta-physical scheme. But also and most de nitely, he uses it to serve theimmediate purpose of characterizing for the bene t of Socrates philoso-pher-interlocutors and the reader, succinctly and explicitly, the crux of onepart 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 notabout this courageous action or person, that beautiful thing or colour. Heseeks knowledge of that which is common in everything beautiful, invirtue of possessing which it has become beautiful; and similarly withcourage. Perceivable features of the empirical manifestations of courageor beauty do not gure in the content of the knowledge of courage andbeauty that Socrates seeks. As he explains, there exist all too many numer-ically distinct manifestations not sharing any given such feature. Socratesseeks knowledge of courage or beauty itself. As importantly, he takes itfor granted, in a way that he does not offer us evidence of having con-sidered in any detail, that these things he seeks knowledge of, courage,piety, virtue, beauty, etc. exist. That is why he is convinced that the taskof trying to discover the truth about them has point. In the Protagoras hemakes this assumption explicit when he says, and Protagoras agrees, thatjustice is something (330c1). In the Hippias Major, he makes it explicitabout the beautiful, the good and the just (287c1-8). All the while, whathe takes it for granted exists is not simply particular just, good, beautifulthings but justice, goodness, beauty. So he is committed to the existenceof the properties he inquires about; a commitment that extends, in some

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as yet unexamined way, beyond the perceptible particulars to which theseproperties become attributed.

Socrates continues, in the Phaedo, on the theme of philosophical inves-tigation by turning his attention to the realities constituting the objects towhich the soul is to direct its investigative effort, alone by itself. As hedid in the Protagoras (330c1) and the Hippias Major (287c1-8), but nowpursuing a different line of argument, he reminds these interlocutors thatwe say that there is such a thing as the just itself (famn ti enai dkaionat; 65d4-5),7 the beautiful and the good, properties that have guredprominently in his early investigations. In addition he mentions size,health and strength, which have not gured in the same way in thoseinvestigations something that perhaps signals Platos intent to extend thephilosophical search for knowledge beyond the domain of value. This widen-ing of scope is possible because what is true of the properties on whichthe earlier dialogues focus will also be true of those to which the inves-tigation is now to be extended: their true nature is not revealed by thebodily senses. Socrates does not need here to explain why he holds thisbecause he has already done so on several occasions in the earlier dia-logues, at least as regards the value properties. In the Hippias Major heargues that it is useless trying to reveal the true nature of beauty by point-ing to perceivable features of beautiful things. It is always possible forany such feature to be present in one thing and absent from another thatwe say is beautiful. The answer to the question what is beauty? willremain elusive, if we try to hunt it down through the senses, and so theinvestigation must avoid all perceivable features and focus instead onbeauty itself by itself. Having argued this previously, Socrates in thePhaedo merely states that we must prepare ourselves best and most accu-rately to do what Hippias was unprepared to do, namely go after the thingwe investigate itself by itself (at kay at, 65e2-66a3). The locutionat kay at characterizes the other part of the Socratic methodology:the object of the philosophical search must be engaged with apart fromhow particulars appear to the senses (65d-66a). As we are promptly remindedat 66a1-4, the rst part of this methodology is that the soul must searchthrough pure reasoning alone and by itself (at kay atn).8 The locu-tions at kay at and at kay atn are symmetrical. The former

7 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 66d7-e2.

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makes about the souls objects of investigation precisely the point the lat-ter makes about the mode in which it is to engage them. Ideally, the soulmakes no use of the senses, and any perceptual testimony they supply onwhat it investigates is left out of account. In a less than ideal setting, thesoul must try to concentrate solely on its reasoning powers just as it musttry to focus on the object it investigates alone and by itself, avoiding asmuch as possible the confusing perceptible features of its various empir-ical manifestations.

Nothing is said or implied here about the metaphysical status of theseobjects at which the soul directs its investigative focus. Indeed, it wouldseem that less ontologically committing language is used to characterizethem than the expressions using parts of enai that are used in theHippias Major 287c-d about the good, just, beautiful, expressions thatindicate explicit commitment to the reality of the things characterized bythem. And it would be premature to interpret Plato as committing himselfalready at this stage to health, mentioned at 65d12 in the same context asthe good, beautiful and just but never again mentioned in the dialogue, asbeing a form. No doubt, Plato has an obligation to deal theoretically withthe unexamined ontological presuppositions on which the earlier investi-gations have been resting. Imprecise expressions such as we say thatthere is such and such a thing cannot be tolerated for ever, and soanswers must be offered to the obvious questions concerning the ontolog-ical status of these things. But precisely because these questions are obvi-ous and important, they must be addressed openly, not summarily throughcasual mention of a stupendous metaphysical theory that the unsuspectingreader of the Phaedo is totally unprepared for and likely to miss at theseinitial 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 with-out at the same time discussing their distinctive metaphysical properties.It is not that they are not discussed in the Phaedo. The crucial propertiesof transcendence, immutability and incorporeality are introduced explic-itly for the rst time actually at 78c10-79a11, shortly after the recollec-tion argument. They are not just casually mentioned as if brought in froma familiar doctrine to play some part in an argument. They are introducedin a vividly inferential style and exhaustive detail, and they even form thebasis of a comprehensive metaphysical deduction. It is explained rst thatthe equal itself or the beautiful itself is invisible, remains in the same statenever varying from time to time, for it is simple by itself (monoeidw) andthereby admits of no change. This mode of being is then contrasted with

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that of material entities and, on the basis of this contrast, Socrates asksSimmias to join him in putting it down that there are two kinds of exis-tence, the invisible and the visible, the former immutable, the latter everchanging. Since this is done in the Phaedo anyway, why is it not done inthe vicinity of 65d, where the just, beautiful and good are rst mentioned,if they are introduced as forms? What prompts Socrates to introduce theseproperties at 78c-79a is Cebes request for proof that the soul will not getscattered after death (77c1-5), which is exactly the request Cebes hadmade at 70b1-4. If the forms were introduced by 70b, as the traditionalinterpretation maintains, why does not Socrates use their properties todemonstrate the continuing existence of the soul when Cebes asked for itthe rst time, instead of postponing it until 79d1-7? The answer, I pro-pose, is that the forms are not yet introduced at 70b. Before the recollec-tion argument, the just, beautiful, good, etc. are understood as the type ofthings the truth about which the investigations in the shorter Socratic dia-logues were trying to discover. Socrates con rms this at 78c10-d2, wherehe asks Cebes to go back to the things they were discussing earlier (65dand 75c-d) and of whose essence they are trying to give an account intheir dialectical exchanges (rvtntew ka pokrinmenoi).9 The expressionrvtntew ka pokrinmenoi cannot fail to bring to mind the shorter Socraticdialogues, 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 thewe in we say that there is something that is equal at 74a9-10 mostlikely refers, are all friends of the forms, the son must be referring to aform. This is not so. The theoretical commitments of the interlocutors can-not settle the question whether Socrates and Simmias introduce the sonas a Platonic form or in the innocuous sense we have been used to fromthe shorter Socratic dialogues. Even though Plato is convinced that theforms exist, he may still want to publish an argument for their existence.That is what philosophers do. An argument for R that presupposes F isexcessively esoteric. If, as we may suppose, F is not yet widely knownand the Phaedo takes aim at putting it on the scene, Plato cannot assumethat the uninitiated reader will understand that son signals reference tosuch entities as the forms, particularly since this reader has not beenoffered reason to take the similar language of 64e-66a as doing anythingmore than characterizing Socrates approach in the earlier investigations.

9 I read at ousa w lgon ddomen to enai ka rvtntew ka pokrinme-noi at 78d1 as this reality (or set of realities) of whose essence we give an accountin questioning and answering with C. J. Rowe. Plato: Phaedo, p. 183.

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But if Plato argues that there is a plausible sense in which the equal isdistinct from the various equal things and that the knowledge we have ofit is not obtained from them, he offers an interesting argument that aimsat a controversial conclusion, but has premises that would be acceptableto most. He would also be extending a serious invitation to those who arenot already convinced of the existence of Platonic forms to take the rec-ollection claim seriously. As importantly, Plato will be making public theconsiderations that motivated him to take the step from the position of theearlier dialogues that he must have at some point found appealing to onethat is so much richer in ontological commitment. This is no more thanshould be expected of him.10

To sum up. At 76d7-77a5 Socrates and Simmias offer their summationof the recollection argument by presenting the claims for which theybelieve it provides warrant. Simmias actually says that this argument hasproved the existence of certain entities. They both claim that it has pro-duced the conclusion that the thesis concerning their existence and S standor fall together. An argument for R premised on F could not account forwhat Simmias says, or provide warrant for these claims. Plato has obvi-ously realized, as many of his commentators have not, that there is littlephilosophical plausibility in an argument for recollection that presupposesthe existence of the forms as a premise. Properly to understand this, weneed to examine the philosophical merit of the recollection argument asinterpreted by proponents of the traditional interpretation.

II

According to an in uential account defended by several adherents of thetraditional interpretation, the philosophical aim of the recollection passagein the Phaedo is to account for concept-formation and thus explain ourability 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 some-thing different (tern ti) from the equal things, as he ought to have done if he wasborrowing 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 acceptedthat it is. It has also been said that Simmiass emphatic endorsement of Socrates pointat 74b1 is another sign that it is Platonic forms he has in mind. (D. J. ScottRecollection and Experience, 56ff.; D. Bostock Platos Phaedo, 71). But, as I haveargued, Simmiass personal feelings cannot settle the issue, which is con rmed by thefact that Socrates ignores them and proceeds to argue the tern ti point.

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The conclusion suggested earlier [i.e. in the Phaedo] was that perception cannotbe 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 distinguishequal from not equal or beautiful from ugly, we are able to do so onlyrelative to some perceptible object or other. At the perceptual level, thiscapacity is tied up with this or that particular thing. But we are also ableto attain a level of apprehension where we deal with the notions equal,beautiful, etc. as removed and disengaged from this or that perceptibleobject. We use these notions to describe perceptibles to others, speak aboutbeauty, for instance, without focussing on this or that thing, engage inphilosophical re ection about it and so on. On this view, recollection isthat in terms of which Plato explains our passage from the perceptual tothe conceptual level. Since everyone whose mental capacities are not impairedforms concepts, everyone recollects to some degree. Exactly how conceptsare supposed to be formed is not clear.12 But conceptual thought is placedover and above our ability to orient ourselves successfully in the realm ofexperience. Therefore, entering the conceptual level of apprehension throughrecollection of prenatal knowledge of the forms represents a move beyondthe 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 observedalready, it may be attributing to Plato an incoherent theory. Whateveraccounts for concept formation, it must in any event be the case that theconcept is formed on the basis of something that is not already understood

11 F. M. Cornford, Platos Theory of Knowledge, London 1935, 109. Other versionsinclude N. Gulleys, Platos Theory of Recollection, Classical Quarterly, 4, 1954,197ff.; D. Bostocks, Platos Phaedo, 66ff. C. Osborne, Perceiving particulars and rec-ollecting 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 viewthat one forms concepts rst and only later, in a logically and temporally distinctprocess, learns to apply them. J. L. Ackrill, Anamnesis in the Phaedo offers by farthe more subtle and critical version of the view in question.

12 Hence N. Gulley, Platos Theory of Recollection, says simply that Whatappears to be envisaged here is an immediate transition from the sensible to the intel-ligible world, the argument relying on a contrast between sensation and a conceptuallevel of apprehension. Plato is apparently saying that the fact that we attain this con-ceptual level in describing what is given in sense-experience constitutes recollectionof forms (198).

13 D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, pp. 53-73 argues this point well.

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as falling under that concept.14 But I am more interested in drawing atten-tion to a different problem. If Platos aim is to explain concept-formation,it is peculiar that he should completely ignore the possibility that we mayform concepts on the basis of perception without having to recollect forms.We need an account that would explain why Plato adopted such a con-tentious thesis without even considering an alternative, possibly simplerexplanation.

Not only is such an account not forthcoming, the actual claim that rec-ollection is meant to explain concept-formation is riddled with problems,too obvious to have escaped Platos notice. In addition to presupposingthat the forms exist, this claim presupposes also that our souls knew themin a disembodied state, which would seem to be completely eliminatingthe chances of demonstrating the pre-existence of the soul in a non ques-tion-begging way. Even worse, the assumption that the soul knew theforms in a disembodied state does not bring any closer the conclusion thatwe form concepts by recollecting. Having known the form of the Equalbefore our birth and forgotten it is no guarantee that our coming to formthe concept of equality in this life is the result of recollecting that previ-ous knowledge. Even though our souls may possess a forgotten knowl-edge of the forms, we may still be forming concepts on the basis of perceptionalone without recollecting that past knowledge. The recollection passagedoes not offer psychological evidence suggesting that we do actually re-collect the form of the Equal. On what basis, then, does Plato claim thatwe do, or that we form concepts by doing it? Though this interpretationcredits Plato with two dubious assumptions, it still fails to present himwith an argument that we form concepts through recollection.15

14 This point was rst made by J. L. Ackrill, Anamnesis in the Phaedo: Theremay be a lurking danger for Platos program. For if reminding is to explain concept-formation, 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 argu-ment. D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience (57), offers the objection as groundsfor preferring his own, different, interpretation.

15 Hence M. M. McCabe, Platos Individuals, Princeton1994, herself a proponentof the concept-formation view, says that the reason Plato never considers the equalitself as being simply a universal or an idea I got into my head (p. 59) is that, hadhe done so, his argument concerning its origin could not proceed by denying induc-tion and then postulating the theory of recollection (p. 58, my emphasis). McCabedeserves credit for sensing that presupposing the forms makes recollection a postulate,not the conclusion of an argument.

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In an interesting account advanced recently, Scott, also an adherent ofthe traditional interpretation (which claims that the recollection argumentestablishes that learning is recollecting by assuming the theory of formsas a premise), avoids some of these problems by denying that the aim ofthe recollection passage in the Phaedo is to account for concept-forma-tion. The ordinary concepts equal, beautiful, etc. that we all use daily,we form empirically on the basis of perception. No prenatal knowledgeof the forms contribute to that. Instead, Platos claim in the Phaedo is saidto be that recollection is the process through which some humans, the realphilosophers, achieve fully- edged philosophical knowledge of the actualforms in this life.16

According to Scott, the recollection argument assumes the formsstraight off and uses this assumption in the premises.17 Since recollec-tion in this interpretation is reserved for those who acquire fully- edgedphilosophical knowledge of the forms and amounts simply to this, it fol-lows also that the discussants cannot reasonably be thinking of themselvesas 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 Platoarticle in the recent edition of the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. For a simi-lar 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 philosophi-

cal knowledge of the equal is con rmed at 76b-c where Simmias says that perhaps noone but Socrates has knowledge of the entities previously mentioned. D. Sedley, PlatonicCauses Phronesis 43/2, 1998, 127-8, n. 15, borrowing an idea from Scott, says thatthis comment re ects the fact that they are now speaking of the entire range of theforms including the problematic goodness, beauty, etc. suggesting that this disclaimerof knowledge may not mean to include the form of the equal. But the Greek suggeststhat whatever comment Simmias makes about these entities at 76b-c, he makes aboutthe equal too. The at with which Socrates refers to the entities about whichSimmias makes this comment (76c2) picks up the totvn pntvn from 75d4, the ref-erence 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. Itis in order to make this argument for each case that it is pointed out that perhaps noone 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 philo-sophical 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 stillplausibly characterizable as knowledge, as for instance the state of having practicalrule of thumb knowledge of it or the knowledge mathematicians have. It is not asunproblematic to say that there is a comparable epistemic state to be in as regardsother forms. In the event the disclaimer at 76b-c is inclusive of the equal, this con-

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have already recollected. At 74c13-d7, he describes in detail a mentalevent that he claims occurs often as we make perceptual contact withequal things. The reason he describes this event is to make the claim thatit occurs also and commonly in what everyone would regard as typicalrecollection cases. The claim that perceptual contact with equal things sharesa type of mental event with typical recollection cases is central in his argu-ment 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 toidentify a mental event occurring to them that constitutes a sign that theyrecollect the equal. But Scotts interpretation cannot allow that the dis-cussants can do so, unless they implicitly also claim to have fully- edgedphilosophical knowledge of the form. But whether or not the equal isincluded in their disclaimer of knowledge of entities such as the good,beautiful, etc. at 76b-c, they cannot be interpreted plausibly as claiminganywhere in the dialogue philosophical knowledge of the equal, which iswhat recollecting it would be according to this interpretation. Had theydone so, they would be claiming to have the highest knowledge possibleand therefore, implicitly, also that they have views on how they acquiredit. It would be just too strange that Simmias should have fully- edgedphilosophical knowledge of the form of the equal, but would need to beconvinced now, through argument, that he has actually recollected it.

Still, it is a distinct advantage of Scotts interpretation that it attributesto Plato an argument for recollection (p. 61). Socrates offers the argu-ment for the thesis that we must have known the equal before we wereborn, at 74e9-75b6. Here is how Scott presents it.

(1) Then we must previously have known the equal, before that timewhen we rst, on seeing the equals, thought that all of them werestriving to be equal but fell short of it.

(2) Yet we also agree on this: we havent derived the thought of it, norcould we do so, from anywhere but seeing or touching or some otherof the senses I am counting all these as the same.

(3) But of course its from ones sense perceptions that one must thinkthat all the things in the sense perceptions are striving for that whichis equal, yet are inferior to it . . .

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sideration would also explain how the discussants can have said without con ict, rstthat they have knowledge of what the equal is and now that no one but maybe Socrateshas knowledge of it.

19 As indicated also by the present tense plural of psxv at 74d4 (psxomn titoioton), the verb used to refer to the occurrence of recollection (cf. 73d6).

(4) Then it must surely have been before we began to see and hear anduse the other senses that we got knowledge of the equal itself, of whatit is, if we were going to refer the equals from our sense perceptionsto it, supposing that all things are doing their best to be like it, butare inferior to it.

(5) Now we are seeing and hearing, and were possessed of our othersenses, werent we, just as soon as we were born?

(6) But we must, were saying, have got our knowledge of the equalbefore 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 formof the Equal. Still, it is clear that the premises of this argument cannotpreclude the possibility that we actually come to know the form of theEqual after the embodiment of our souls. All that follows from thepremises 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 tothink before we were born, as opposed to discovering it after. Aware ofthis dif culty, Scott claims that Plato assumes among the premises, withoutmentioning it, that any sense perception that prompted us to think of theform . . . would also prompt us to make the comparison between form andparticulars.21 We can see how this helps the argument reach the desiredconclusion. Any comparison presupposes some knowledge of the thingscompared. Comparing the particulars with the form any time our sensingthem makes us think of it implies that we did so also the rst time thatsensing them made us think of the form. But we can only sense after weare born and it is only through sensing that we can come to think of theform in this life. Since we cannot think of the form without also compar-ing it with the particulars, then, the supposition is, we must have acquiredthe knowledge presupposed by this comparison before we were born.

There are two problems here. The rst one, as Scott admits, is that thisassumption is dubious. Still, Scott maintains that in a previous passagePlato commits himself to it:

when the recollection is caused by similar things, must one not of necessity alsoexperience this: to consider whether the similarity to that which one recollects isde cient in any respect or complete? (74a5-7).22

20 D. J. Scott, Recollection and Experience, pp. 61-2.21 Ibid., 62, Scotts emphasis.22 Ibid.

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But this passage does not even suggest that Plato includes such anassumption among the premises for the recollection argument. What itsays is that if one has forgotten all about, say, Simmias and happens toremember him from seeing his portrait, one will also get thoughts aboutthe portraits resemblance to him. Plato expresses a view on what occurswhen people actually recollect. He cannot, then, include this among thepremises of the recollection argument, unless he is confused. The purposeof 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 heincluded among its premises a proposition which, according to him, canbe true only if the conclusion is true.23

The second problem is that, even after including this assumption, thepremises as offered by Scott are still unable to support the conclusion thatthe soul of the philosopher must have known the form before its embod-iment. All that follows is that it compares the form with the perceptiblesany time perception makes it think of it. It does not follow that the soulcannot learn the form in this life and then compare it with the percepti-bles every time they make it think of it. To eliminate this possibility, weneed to interpret premise (2) as claiming not simply that it is via percep-tion that cognitive access to the form is gained in this life, but also thatthe only way this access can be gained is through a direct and unmedi-ated transition caused by perception. Other means, as for instance a tran-sition mediated by re ection on the ordinary concepts equal, beautiful,etc. concepts which we are said to have acquired empirically, would haveto be excluded. Otherwise, the philosopher could, compatibly with thesepremises, discover the form in this life through re ection and, having doneso, compare it with the perceptibles any time perception makes her thinkof it. On this interpretation, then, Plato has to eliminate what seems themost reasonable means of arriving cognitively at the form of the Equal inthis life, namely by pursuing further the thoughts about equality that per-ception has prompted one to think.24 Now notice that while the recollec-

23 Quite apart from all this, it is also a mistake to understand this passage as evensupporting the claim that any sense perception that prompted us to think of theform . . . 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 recollectSimmias, we compare this portrait with Simmias. It does not say that we compare theportrait with him every time looking at the portrait makes us think of him not unlesswe read in it the dubious claim that every time perception of Simmias portrait makesus think of him constitutes an instance of recollecting him.

24 There is a further possibility that needs to be excluded, namely that perception

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tion argument is conducted with reference to the equal only, its results areexplicitly 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 ofthe good, the just, the pious, etc. The same argument, then, suitablyadapted, shows that we recollect these too. Reasonably so, since it wouldbe strange to claim either that we only recollect the equal and not the oth-ers, or to generalise so casually a conclusion proved about only one ofthem, if other arguments are needed to prove it for the other ones. But itis hardly plausible to construe Plato as claiming that, in this life, our onlypath to the forms themselves is an unmediated transition from the per-ceptibles, caused by the senses. For one thing, we would have consider-able dif culties making sense of this claim with respect to forms such asthe Good, the Just or the Pious. Just as importantly, we would have evengreater dif culties making such a claim compatible with all the evidenceshowing that Plato himself has had to engage in extended philosophicalre ection to arrive at the forms. It is just not believable that Plato shouldargue for recollection by claiming that the philosophers only path to theforms in this life is an unmediated transition caused by perception.

These two accounts that take their point of departure from the tradi-tional interpretation fail to provide Plato with a decent argument for rec-ollection. The concept formation account claims in effect that recollectionis a postulate. The account by Scott presents him with an argument, but onethat is question-begging, possibly in more than one respects, and attrib-utes to Plato views that it is not clear are his own. Just as importantly,neither of them succeeds in accounting satisfactorily for the philosophicalmotivation behind recollection. If Plato is convinced independently thatthe forms exist and can be known by human souls anyway, exactly whatis the philosophical gain of insisting that perception makes us recollect aknowledge our souls had of them before they were born into a body? Whynot say more simply that with perception as stepping stone we can bothform concepts and (some or all of us) discover these entities and attainknowledge of them, partially or fully, during this life? Unless we nd

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of many equal things can make the soul discover the form in this life by way of suchan unmediated transition. For the desired conclusion to follow, the premises need toassert that the transition effected by perception must be to a knowledge of the formthat 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 againseem to be smuggling the conclusion into the premises.

answers to these questions, the recollection thesis in the Phaedo wouldseem hopelessly ad hoc, motivated simply by the fact that it is able todeliver the further thesis that our souls pre-existed their bodily birth.

III

I will now offer an interpretation of the recollection argument that is lesslikely to be embarrassed by these questions, one that tries to make sense ofSimmias explicit assertion at 77a5, implied also by Socrates remarks at76e5-8, that this argument has also proved the existence of the good, beau-tiful, etc. I argued in the rst section that when Socrates says in the ini-tial stages of the dialogue that attaining truth requires that ones reasoningalone by itself focusses on the reality under investigation in and of itself,he merely characterizes the philosophical activity he displayed in the earlydialogues. By accepting Cebes invitation to argue that the soul will sur-vive the bodys death (69e6-70b4) he signals that he is about to breaknew ground. We are also reminded at 73a-b that the doctrine Socrates isabout to argue was already introduced in the Meno. In that dialogue, re-collection enters the scene to solve a problem raised by the long sectionbefore it, which could well have been one of the earlier dialogues. Remindingus of that previous argument for recollection now may well be a sign that,in the Phaedo too, the passage precipitating recollection (65d-e), to whichthe argument for it is linked with the famn po enai that also introducesthe just at 65d4, takes its point of departure from the position of theshorter Socratic dialogues in order to develop it further.

Socrates begins the recollection argument at 74a9-10 by saying aboutthe equal that we say that there is something, . . . the equal itself (famnpo ti enai son, . . . at t son 74a9-10). As he has often done previ-ously with other properties, he makes explicit a commitment that thereexists something named the equal. Not a phantom made up by us out ofthin air, but an objective property in the objective world, quite apart fromhow the senses may be reporting about it (74a11-12). Explicitly assertingthat there exists some such thing might be taken to imply the further claimthat one has knowledge of it. Be this as it may, Socrates and Simmias doclaim to possess knowledge of the equal at 74b2-4. Not fully- edgedphilosophical knowledge, but suf cient to know and be able to express thejudgment that the same sticks and stones that seem equal may also seemunequal.25 So they implicitly also claim that our epistemic faculties some-

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

how make contact with the property that goes by this name. As a resultof this contact it is possible for the soul to come to possess a knowledgeof this property, but also engage it in other ways, as it does when it thinksthoughts about it.26 This way of characterizing the starting position of theargument has, of course, ontological implications, but not of a kind thatwould prevent it from being acceptable by most in a commonsensical

of fully- edged philosophical knowledge of the form of the equal. At 75c10-d1 weare told that the same argument can demonstrate that the soul possesses prenatalknowledge of the good, beautiful, etc. This implies that the interlocutors ought to beable to run the same argument with respect to these other properties also, and so theymust 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 knowledgeof them. The pistmeya at stin need not be saying anything more than thatwe know what equality itself is, i.e. apart from how it is presented to the senses, aswe evidently do, since we are able to form the judgment we do about the perceptibleequals. In one respect, the knowledge claim made about the equal here is no differentfrom saying that we have knowledge of courage or beauty, suf cient to engage in aconstructive conversation about it (and to say about perceptibles, as is said in theHippias Major, that they are both beautiful and not beautiful). But there is also animportant 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, whichthough far from being as in depth as philosophical knowledge, it is still much rmerthan any non-philosophical knowledge of those other ones can be. This well knownsuperior rmness of the non-philosophical knowledge that may be had of the equal isno doubt why Plato runs the recollection argument with it and not the others, sincedoing so makes it possible for him to get away with saying about the former, as hecould not if he were to say about the latter, that we know what it is and leave it atthat without further explanation.

26 As for instance the thought of equality to which perception is said at 75a5-8 (asI will be reading these lines) to be directing the soul. In the cases where the contactof the souls epistemic faculties with the property in question result in the soulsacquiring knowledge of it, we may distinguish between the thing known and theknowledge that the soul comes to possess. I will occasionally be saying that thisknowledge represents in the soul the thing of which it is a knowledge, but I do notthereby mean to attribute to Plato a representational view of knowledge. All I meanto signal by representation here is that through this knowledge, the soul has cogni-tive 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 representsit in the soul partially, i.e. such that the soul has partial access to it. So if mathemat-ical knowledge of equality may be had independently of philosophical knowledge ofit, possession of such knowledge represents equality in the soul merely in the sensethat the soul is able to access equalitys mathematical aspects. Having knowledge ofsomething would also make it possible to think of that something. Fully- edged knowl-edge of it would enable the soul to have thoroughly clear thoughts about it, partialknowledge of it would make the souls thoughts about it less clear.

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manner.27 For nothing is said about the metaphysical constitution of thisproperty which is said to exist.

The stakes get raised when Socrates goes into the reasons for assert-ing, as he has done at least implicitly with other properties previously,that equality differs (is tern ti) from the various perceptible things wemay 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 (tmn sa . . . t d o, 74b7-8).28 There is controversy about whether thedatives t . . . t refer to perceptibles or persons. In the former case, it issaid, 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 per-ceptibles that appears equal to some persons appears also unequal to otherpersons or even to those to whom it rst appeared equal, if they perceiveit from a different angle.30 This latter reading represents the most intuitiverendering of the text. Any Greek reader would take the introductory ex-pression equal sticks and stones to mean sticks and stones that are equalto each other.31 To express the alternative point Plato could have writtenan equal stick or stone, the very same one, sometimes appears . . ., butit is unclear whether this would be acceptable Greek, since it would failto indicate in what relation the stick or stone is equal. There is also a fur-ther reason for taking the datives to be masculine. Even if it were possi-ble to read the sentence as saying that any perceptible may seem equal to

27 Interestingly, this starting position is more in agreement with common sense, andtherefore less committing ontologically, than would be to say that the equal is merelya name for an idea made up by our imagination, not representing anything in the realworld.

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 beyonddoubt that the soi with which Socrates refers to Simmias is to be taken as meaningyou 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, TheInterpretation of Platos Republic, Oxford 1951, G. E. L. Owen, A Proof in the PeriIdeon, Journal of Hellenic Studies 77, 1957, A. Nehamas, Plato on the Imperfectionof 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 PlatosRepublic, 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 towhom they seem equal might also come to see them as unequal.

31 I owe this point to D. Sedley.

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one thing, unequal to another, it is unclear exactly what argumentativeaim it could serve. The point Socrates needs to make is that the reportsof perception regarding the equality of perceptibles are unclear and unsta-ble. Although unre ectively and for practical purposes we often say aboutvarious perceptibles that they are equal, our actual perceptual contact withthem can at any time elicit con icting epistemic responses about whetherthey in fact are. Only then would he be able to drive home the point thatperception is inadequate as a means of disclosing the property of equal-ity. He could not be doing so effectively if he were claiming that thereports of perception are unstable and indeterminate only in some con-texts, leaving open the possibility that they may be stable and determinatein other contexts. And this possibility would be left wide open, if this sen-tence were merely saying that any perceptible that is equal to some thingis unequal to another. Unlike the reading in which the same perceptiblepair seems no more equal than it seems unequal, this one allows contextswhere we have a perceptible thing that is equal to another and so, in thosecontexts, the two remain stable in this condition, thus being equal, nevermind whether either of them is unequal to others. That would seriouslyundermine the recollection argument, in two ways. If there is a contextwhere perceptibles are and remain equal without appearing both equal andunequal, Socrates could not so easily drive a wedge between them and theequal itself.32 He would also have to face the possibility that it is in thiscontext, and therefore through perception, that we have gotten the knowl-edge of the equal we are said to possess.

Socrates and Simmias go on to agree that the equals themselves (att sa), or equality ( sthw), never appear unequal. Unlike the reportson the equality of the perceptibles provided by the senses, they neverinvite con icting responses about their equality. The question is whetherthe phrases in question refer to the form of the Equal. If we are to sup-pose that they do, we ought also to suppose that Socrates has introducedthe form already and has actually referred to it with the at t son at74a10. Why then not stick with the same expression, which, as Platowould surely know, any reader who suspects the presence of forms heremust have understood as being the term that xes the reference of thisparticular 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, unequalto another does not distinguish perceptibles from non-perceptibles. For it is obviouslytrue 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.

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instead? It has been said that this passage claims that the form consistsof two perfectly equal things, and that sthw is the name of the formwhereas at t sa is the reference of this name.33 But nothing in theGreek suggests that Socrates is speaking of a thing and its name. If any-thing, it suggests that he is being deliberately non-committal. There is ofcourse no doubt that Socrates is trying to direct our attention to equalityitself, but this is very different from saying that he expects us at this stageto 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 pos-sibly be helping himself to this conclusion by encouraging Simmias topoint to a difference between the form and the perceptibles. The forms aredifferent from the perceptibles as a matter of doctrine. It is also unlikelythat Socrates would be referring to something other than the form, per-fectly equal and distinct from the equal sticks and stones. If he did, theimplication would be that something other than the form has the propertyof being different from the equal perceptibles and itself never unequal. Aswell as being problematic in itself, this would make it impossible for Platoto 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 adisembodied soul.

What is this thing, then, that Socrates has in mind when he speaks ofequality or the equals themselves, if it is not the form or some otherparticular thing? Presumably not so different from the son, in which casewe need to explain why he uses two new terms to refer to it. The com-mentator that has been most helpful on this problem is, I believe,Olympiodorus when he says that what Socrates speaks of here is not theForms of course, but the forms in the soul.34 This draws attention to acrucial point: on the assumption that equality is not something created byus but a real property, which is Socrates assumption, the fact that wehave knowledge of it and engage it in thought makes it plain that, as a

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33 See P. T. Geach The Third Man Argument in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies inPlatos Metaphysics, London 1965, and G. Vlastos, Postscript to the Third Man: AReply 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. OlympiodorussNeoplatonist 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 inter-pretation of the text of the Phaedo.

matter of fact, our soul has a conception of it, whatever kind of a thingit eventually turns out to be. This is precisely what Socrates also drawsattention to when he speaks of a conception of equality we get from per-ceiving equal things (75a5-8). That our soul can have thoughts aboutequality even though it does not have a settled view about what kind ofa 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 meta-physical status. It is something of this sort that Socrates is doing here, orso I claim. He uses the expressions equality or the equals themselvesin 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 thisin order for us to focus our re ection on it. Of course, these expressionsaim quite precisely at picking out a particular reference. But for themoment, this reference is a hard one to bring to view, which actually pro-vides a reason for Socrates use of two different terms, in addition to theson 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 hepresupposes no settled view on the metaphysical status of equality, otherthan what he has been presupposing about the other properties he has beendiscussing in the shorter Socratic dialogues, namely that it is somethingand that we can engage in discussion and thought. Understanding Socratesin this way offers also a plausible explanation for the seemingly strangeplural at t sa. Whatever the proper metaphysical status and charac-terization of the equal itself may turn out to be, it seems reasonable thatthe way in which we might conceive of ourselves as engaging equality inthought, particularly when we have not identi ed the proper metaphysicalentity that the soul actually thinks about, is by supposing that we focuson two perfectly equal entities, mathematical or simply entities constructedby the imagination. This interpretation commits Socrates to no more thanthe two interrelated claims that he explicitly commits himself to. The rstis that the soul, at some point in its cognitive development, and presum-ably as a result of its perception of various things it calls equal, becomesable to think the thought in question. The second is that there exists some-thing it engages and is thereby able to think this thought. No commitmentis as yet implied as to what this may be.35

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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 haveknowledge of the equal.

Interpreting what Socrates refers to by equality or the equals them-selves along these lines matches perfectly the aim of the recollection argu-ment. It is true that Socrates calling what the soul is already in possessionof and which it will be said to recollect through its contact with equalthings knowledge of the equal (74e9; 75b5-6) directs the Platonistsattention immediately to the thing Plato will eventually want to claim thisis a knowledge of, namely the form. But what is there to prevent Socratesor anyone else from successfully referring to equality,36 without presupposing,or being at this stage committed to, a de nite view as to what equalitymight be? Let it be perfectly clear that the requirements of the argument forrecollection do not necessitate that he has settled on such a view alreadyat this stage. Socrates does not need to presuppose at the outset that whatwe recollect is the form of the equal in order to argue that we recollect aknowledge of equality that the soul already possesses. All he needs ispoint to something he can claim the soul is able to retrieve from withinitself, and which may be contrasted with the equality of the perceptiblesas this is reported by the senses.37 He also needs to be able to say thatwhat 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 rec-ollect, is not the existence of the form of the Equal, but that the soulretrieves something it nds within itself. His characterization of this some-thing as a knowledge of the equal only implies that he takes it to be theresult of successful epistemic contact with something and not an idea thesoul has concocted ctitiously. It says nothing about what sort of a thingthe 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 equal-ity refers to this form, even though he has no idea that equality is a form. So there isa sense in which Socrates refers to the form of the Equal when he speaks about equal-ity, even though he may, for the sake of argument, want to remain agnostic aboutwhat kind of thing equality is. I will be using the expression refers subjectively to pickout what Socrates has in mind when he uses the terms equal, equality or, the equalsthemselves. (Socrates subjective reference, on my interpretation, is whatever the soulengages 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 hasof Simmias is different from the content of grasping this particular portrait as beingof Simmias. See also note 41 here.

38 74c8; e3; 9; 75b5; c1; 4; 7.

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There may, however, seem to be a problem. Socrates mentions equal-ity and the equals themselves to contrast the way they appear with theway equal stones and sticks appear. Sticks and stones are things. Shouldwe not expect Socrates subjective reference of equality and the equalsthemselves also to be thing(s)? Usual symmetry considerations may per-haps incline us to do so. But this case is special. If the subjective refer-ence of son at 74a10 is as has been suggested here, then it is simplyimpossible at this stage to point to something in particular as being itsactual reference. The next best option is to direct Simmias and thereaders attention to the son as this is presented to the soul, or rather asthe soul makes it present to itself when it engages it in thought. That thesoul is able to do so has already been granted at 74b2 where it is agreedthat 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 cannotassign son to its actual reference, which he obviously cannot do if hespeaks of it in the ontologically vague manner suggested here,39 then thereis nothing in the world, available to him at this stage, to compare thesticks and stones with. He would pretty much have to direct our attentionto something else, as vague and non-committing ontologically, that couldserve this purpose. If we were to suppose that this is what he actuallydoes, we would have an explanation for the curious fact that he introducestwo different names (at t sa and sthw), in addition to son, forthat with which Simmias is asked to compare the perceptibles. This expla-nation would in turn lend support to the idea that the subjective referenceof the son at 74a10 is not the form of the Equal, though its actual ref-erence may well be.

But does this not destroy Socrates chances of getting the contrast heis after? Not at all. As understood here, the sense of Simmias responsethat equality or the equals never appear unequal to him is simply thatwhenever his soul makes present for itself the equal, as when the soulengages it in thought, it always responds by actually thinking thoughtsabout equality, and never slips into thinking about something else. Tothink of something else, the soul will have to make present for itself andengage 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 thevarious equals.

40 Thinking must not be confused with acquiring knowledge of. Equality andinequality may well be thought by Socrates to be among those things which we get

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souls, because it is not vulnerable to the vagaries bedevilling subjectiveepistemic encounters with things outside the soul. If the equal or equalswere such things, one could complain that how they appear to Simmiasmay be saying more about him than them.41 But Simmiass general point,as understood here, is the plausible one that any souls directing its focuson whatever this is that sustains its thinking the thought of equality com-mands, at all times, a single response, namely that the soul gets to thinkthis thought.42 Thereby, Socrates does actually manage, plausibly, to pointto and compare two different things that the soul has access to: (1) thatwhich the soul makes present for itself when it thinks of equality and (2)the reports about the equality of the perceptibles it receives from thesenses. He can also say, as plausibly, that the son thus presented to thesoul 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 learnedabout inequality through the same knowledge we learned about equality, it does notfollow 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 uncontrover-sial to generalize it beyond Simmias. Precisely because this is so, it would seem con-troversial to claim that we (all) make contact with something existing outside thatnever appears unequal.

42 N. P. White, Platos Metaphysical Epistemology, in R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion of Plato, Cambridge 1992, correctly observes that how anobject appears is not a feature of the object but of the way in which it is thoughtabout . . . (p. 282). But then White complains that Plato neglects this point whenclaiming that the equal never appears unequal. The reason for Whites complaint isthat he attributes to Plato the suspect view that thinking about equality amounts toactually making epistemic contact with an object, the form of Equality (p. 282). Butthe evidence does not prove that Plato does any such thing. Whites reason for claim-ing otherwise can be that White himself assumes the Socrates intends the reference ofequality or the equals here to be the form of the Equal.

43 I am not convinced by T. Penner, The Ascent from Nominalism, that establish-ing a non-identity between the equal sticks and the equal simply is Platos argumentfor the existence of the Forms (p. 57ff.) Penner claims that Plato argues against nom-inalism (i.e. against the position that denies the existence of anything other than equalsticks and things like that) and that establishing a non-identity in this context just isestablishing an existence statement (p. 60ff.). All I can see Plato doing here is layingout his own view, not arguing against nominalism or even believing that a nominal-ist position would be so easily dislodged. More importantly, it is entirely unclear whyan argument against nominalism, even if successful, should be thought suf cient toestablish the existence of forms. It is even more unclear why Plato should ever believethat such a non-identity statement should carry so much ontological weight. His ownSocrates of the early dialogues most likely did not believe in the existence of Platonicforms, but we would not say that he is a nominalist. Penner actually thinks, correctly

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Each has a property the other one lacks. The former never elicits con ict-ing responses in the soul, whereas the latter always do. What Socratesassumes at 74a9-10 is that the former is not made up ctitiously by thesoul 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 epis-temic contact which has resulted in the souls ability to make present foritself the thing that sustains its thinking thoughts about equality has takenplace before the soul could actually made use of the senses. Here is thepassage that contains the argument for this claim, with the premises andthe conclusion numbered to facilitate discussion.44

1. We must then possess knowledge of the equal (son) before that timewhen we rst (prton) saw the equal objects and realized that all theseobjects strive to be like the equal but are de cient in this.

2. Then surely we also agree that this conception of ours derives fromseeing or touching or some other sense perception, and cannot comeinto our mind in any other way, for all these senses, I say, are thesame.

3. Our sense perceptions must surely make us realize that all that we per-ceive through them is striving to reach that which is equal but fallsshort of it; or how do we express it?45

4. Then before we began to see or hear or otherwise perceive, we musthave 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 implicationsread into the non-identity statement are up for grabs. And we have seen at least oneontologically 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). Asthe ancient commentators correctly observed, the reason for this quali cation is thatthis is not a recollection that announces itself through the characteristic feeling of hav-ing 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 instancesof recollection produce this characteristic feeling. Di t m sunnoomen nammnhs-kmenoi ti namimnhskmeya, w n psaiw taw namnsesin; H mlista mnod n tataiw e. (L. G. Westerink, The Greek Commentaries on Platos Phaedo,Vol. II, Damascius, Amsterdam 1977, 19, 1-2.) Olympiodorus observes that thephilosopher 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 surelymake us realize that all that we perceive through them is striving to reach the equalitself but falls short of it. But this does not affect my interpretation (see n. 49).

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our sense perceptions of equal objects to it, and realized that all ofthem 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 sub-jective reference that extends beyond what we have identi ed so far. Asdid the context in which it rst appeared at 74a9-10, (1) and (4) implycommitment to the view that there exists an objective property in theworld that goes by the name equal and to which we respond epistemi-cally. Its ontological status and nature is not addressed. Further, what con-stitutes the conception of the equal that we are said to have in (2) is thesubjective reference of equality or the equals themselves, as interpretedhere, i.e. the equal as the soul makes it present to itself when it engagesin thought. Hence, (2) makes not the embarrassing claim that we get cog-nitive access to the form in this life exclusively through an unmediatedtransition prompted by seeing, touching, etc., but the plausible one that itis through perception that the soul comes to think of equality during itsembodied life. Since nothing is available to the interlocutors that couldserve as the actual reference of the son, the thing that the equality of theperceptibles is said to fall sort of in (3) is the son as the soul makes itpresent to itself, mentioned also in (2).47 The son thus represented is alsothat to which the equality of the perceptibles is said in (1) and (4) to bede cient by comparison.48

(1) does not claim that we were able to discover the de ciency of per-ceived 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 arede cient. More reasonably the prton refers not to the rst time we per-ceived equals, but the rst time we perceived them and realized the de ciencyof perceived equality compared to whatever this is that the soul focuseson when it thinks of equality. Therefore (1) leaves open the possibility of

46 74e9-75b8, translation by G. M. A. Grube.47 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 theproperty under the name equality, whatever its metaphysical status, as this propertyis represented in thought apart from how equal perceptibles may present themselvesto the senses.

48 And what the perceptibles are said at 74d3-7 to be wanting (nde) in compari-son to. I take the son at 74d6 to be elliptically predicating ?ov of something whosereference is not xed. As I read this sentence, it says do they seem to us to be equalin the same way as that which is [equal]? (ra fanaitai mn otvw sa enaivsper at stin [son], 74d5-6).

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our having had many perceptions of equal things before arriving at thisrealization. It also leaves open the possibility that one may never arrive atit, regardless of how many perceptions of equal things one may have had.Thereby, (1) ensures that the soundness of the recollection argument doesnot depend on the improbable prospect of anyones actually having com-pared the equality of the perceptibles with equality itself in ones rst per-ception of equal things. It also ensures that the conclusion of the rec-ollectionargument that learning is recollection of previously acquired knowledgecan be true independently of whether anyone actually realized that theequality 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 awareof the de ciency of the equality of the perceptibles by simply perceivingthat they are de cient. As suggested by the nenosamen this awarenessis thought to have been arrived at by re ection on our perceptions of theequality of perceptibles. Socrates actually argued at 74b7-c9 that theequality of perceptibles as reported by the senses is different from equal-ity itself. He began that argument by asking Simmias to consider (skpei)whether stones, sticks and things like that ever appear simply eq