Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 2
Plato · en
[Footnote 44: Plato, Menon, p. 84. The sixteenth Dissertation of
Maximus Tyrius presents a rhetorical amplification of this
doctrine--[Greek: pa=sa ma/thêsis, a)na/mnêsis]--in which he enters fully
into the spirit of the Menon and the Phædon--[Greek: au)todi/dakto/n ti
chrê=ma ê( psuchê/--ê( psuchê=s eu(/resis, au)togenê/s tis ou)=sa,
kai\ au)tophuê\s, kai\ xu/mphutos, ti/ a)/llo e)/stin ê)\ do/xai
a)lêthei=s e)geiro/menai, ô(=n tê=| e)pege/rsei te kai\ xunta/xei
e)pistê/mê o)/noma?] (c. 6). Compare also Cicero, Tusc. D. i. 24.
The doctrine has furnished a theme for very elegant poetry: both in
the Consolatio Philosophiæ of Boethius--the piece which ends with
"Ac si Platonis Musa personat verum,
Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur"--
and in Wordsworth--"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,"
&c.
On the other hand Aristotle alludes also to the same doctrine and
criticises it; but he does not seem (so far as I can understand this
brief allusion) to seize exactly Plato's meaning. This is the remark
of the Scholiast on Aristotle: and I think it just. It is curious to
compare the way in which [Greek: a)na/mnêsis] is handled by Plato in
the Menon and Phædon, and by Aristotle in the valuable little
tract--[Greek: Peri\ mnê/nês kai\ a)namnê/seôs] (p. 451, b.). Aristotle
has his own way of replying to the difficulty raised in the question of
Menon, and tries to show that sometimes we _know_ in one sense
and _do not know_ in another. See Aristotel. Anal. Prior., ii.
p. 67, a. 22; Anal. Poster. i. p. 71, a. 27; and the Scholia on the
former passage, p. 193, b. 21, ed. Brandis.
Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Appendixes to his edition of
Reid's Works (Append. D. p. 890 seq.), has given a learned and
valuable translation and illustration of the treatise of Aristotle
[Greek: Peri\ A)namnê/seôs]. I note, however, with some surprise,
that while collecting many interesting comments from writers who
lived _after_ Aristotle, he has not adverted to what was said
upon this same subject by Plato, _before_ Aristotle. It was the
more to be expected that he would do this, since he insists so
emphatically upon the complete originality of Aristotle.]
[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about _à priori_
reasonings--Different from the modern doctrine.]