Plato's Theories of Knowledge: Anamnesis and the Cave

Plato's Theory of Anamnesis: Recollection

The theory of Anamnesis addresses a fundamental difficulty in the pursuit of knowledge: how can one search for something that is either already known (which would be useless) or completely unknown (in which case, how would one know what to look for or how to recognize it)?

Plato's answer is that what we seek to know is, in fact, already known to us; the act of searching is merely an act of recollection. This theory presupposes that the soul and body are two persistently distinct natures.

Plato illustrates this belief through the Myth of the Chariot. He states that the soul, before its fall, contemplated the World of Ideas. The fallen soul, having descended from that world, reached its current state, incarnated in a body. This body, in a way, encloses the soul, ensuring that its initial and crucial experience of the World of Ideas is forgotten. However, this forgetting is neither complete nor definitive. Through contact and knowledge of things in this world, we can recover the true reality. Through the senses, one knows opinions, but not true reality. Plato used this theory to argue for the immortality of the soul.

Plato's Dialectical Theory: Allegory of the Cave

The Myth of the Cave expresses the condition of those who lack education and those who possess it in this intelligible world. Imagine an underground cavern, with one opening to the light. Some men were chained from childhood, facing a wall. Shadows projected onto this wall were their only perceived reality.

Consider what would happen if one of them were unchained and forced to face the light of the fire; he would struggle to adjust to that light. If he were then forced to leave the cave and look at things in the sunlight, he would be dazzled. However, after a while, he would eventually perceive that the sun produces the seasons and, in some way, all the things he sees.

If this man were to return to the cave, he would eventually learn to appreciate the shadows more clearly, recognizing them as imperfect copies of true models. Such a person would be the most fit to rule.

Knowledge, therefore, is the ascent from the sensible world to the intelligible world. This ascension is an entire educational process that frees one from the chains of the material world, where intelligence is solely interested in the world of sense and practical matters, allowing it to rise to the intelligible world where intelligence reaches its fullness.