What one perceives to be learning, then, is the recovery of what one has forgotten. Socrates' response is to develop his theory of anamnesis and to suggest that the soul is immortal, and repeatedly incarnated knowledge is in the soul from eternity (86b), but each time the soul is incarnated its knowledge is forgotten in the trauma of birth. The conclusion is that in either instance, there is no point trying to gain that "something" in the case of Plato's aforementioned work, there is no point in seeking knowledge. Therefore, if the converse is true, and one knows the attributes, properties and/or other descriptive markers of this thing, one should not need to seek it out at all. In other words, one who knows none of the attributes, properties, and/or other descriptive markers of any kind that help signify what something is (physical or otherwise) will not recognize it even after coming across it. In Meno, Plato's character (and old teacher) Socrates is challenged by Meno to explain how someone could find out what the nature of virtue is if they did not already know anything about it. Plato develops the theory of Anamnesis in his dialogues Meno, Phaedo, and Phaedrus. In Plato's theory of epistemology, anamnesis ( / ˌ æ n æ m ˈ n iː s ɪ s/ Ancient Greek: ἀνάμνησις) is the recollection of innate knowledge acquired before birth, the claim that learning consists of rediscovering knowledge from within.
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