Memory Processes in the Platonic Dialogs
1. Introduction
Plato’s Words
Plato’s is the best attested voice from the ancient world. There are 35 dialogs and 13 letters attributed to him, some of whose authorship is contested by both ancient and modern scholars. Yet, all the written works known to be produced by Plato in the ancient world have survived to the present. This is an astonishing feat of preservation of the written word and speaks to the high regard people have of Plato and of his writings from ancient times until the present. Several works – Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 1800 BCE); Rig Veda (c. 1500 BCE); the Hebrew bible (c. 800 BCE) – may be more ancient, but those texts are known to be compilations of texts from multiple authors. Plato’s is the most complete voice we have from the ancient world.
For any text to be preserved it must be reproduced and transmitted to future generations. Until relatively recently in the scope of the written word, this transmission occurred through painstaking copying of manuscripts (literally – written [scriptus] by hand [manu]) onto papyrus rolls and later parchment, both of which have a limited shelf life. These texts would need to be copied again and again throughout the ages, preserved against the natural decay of ages, against fire, earthquakes, floods, and the ravages of war. From the time Plato first transcribed his thoughts onto a scroll, Athens lost her independence to Macedon, Alexander the Great came and went; the great Library of Alexandria was build and burned; Caesar assassinated; Cleopatra pressed asp to breast, Augustus turned Rome into an Empire; Rome was sacked by the Visigoths; and the western empire fell. The Greco-Roman world continued in Constantinople for another thousand years before, in 1453, it too fell to the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmed the Conqueror.
Before the city fell, manuscripts preserving the thoughts and deeds of the ancients – including Plato’s works – were smuggled out and found their way to the Italy of the Renaissance, where the Greek texts were translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1462), in the court of Cosimo de Medici in Florence. The Latin translations made these ancient texts available to the learned Western Europeans, where there was a revival in interest in Plato and Platonic philosophy. In 1440, Gutenberg invented a method to quickly reproduce texts using movable metal type, the printing press. The first printed edition of Plato’s complete work was in Florence at a press in the monastery of San Jacopo di Ripoli in 1484-86. Even with the printed edition, the texts continued to suffer the ravages of time and other possibilities of destruction. Yet, the text continued to be preserved, copied or printed, read, studied, and argued over to the present day.
Plato, the Dialogues, and Memory
If we are to understand what any person from the ancient world thought about memory, then Plato’s work is a great place to start. In the 35 dialogs, there are several references to memory throughout. Although a key Greek term for memory – mnēmē – is used by the Tragic Poets and others, the related concept of “recollection” (anamnēsis) is first systematically discussed in Plato[i].
The dialogs that discuss memory at length include Meno, Phaedo, Theaetetus, and Philebus. In the Meno and Phaedo, Plato discusses the philosophical concept of recollection, that is, a process of uncovering what is already known by the soul through directed questions and answers. In the Theaetetus, the discussion attempts to answer the question, what is knowledge? Here, important concepts of the acquisition of knowledge, the retrieval of information, and potential errors of memory are discussed. In the Philebus, memory is identified as that component of wisdom without which we would have no understanding.
[We have already discussed some of the other dialogs where memory is a main topic of discussion. In the Ion, the art of memory is seen as distinct from knowledge and thus in Plato’s view is limited. In the Phaedrus, the art of writing is discussed as an aid, not to memory, but to reminding – a distinction Plato makes between true knowledge and the appearance of knowledge.]
With all these texts available and detailed discussions of memory in several the dialogs at hand, it is important to discuss some of the limitations inherent in the dialogs for our understanding of Plato’s concept of memory. First, the dialogs are literary works of art that depict at least two characters in discussion about a variety of topics. They address philosophical concepts but are not themselves detailed treatises on philosophical issues, like memory. As such, we can only infer Plato’s conception of memory from what is written and, in large part, there are several gaps not addressed in the dialogs. For example, Plato discusses many aspects of memory but does not offer any clues outside of some analogies as to how memory works (if Plato even had a conception of such a process).
Second, in most of the dialogs (including all the dialogs discussed here) the main speaker is Socrates, Plato’s one-time teacher. Or more specifically, the main speaker is the character Socrates that is based on the historical figure put to death by the Athenians in 399 BCE for impiety and corrupting the youth. That is, we never directly hear what Plato thinks about any of the concepts discussed in the dialogs, only what his characters say. Further, as literary works of art, the use of irony obscures the intent of the speakers and/or author. Socrates, for example, says that he has a ‘bad memory’ in many of the dialogs, only to find himself quoting poets at length or philosophical dictates sometime later; that is, he is presented as having a superb memory despite what he says in the text. In addition, Socrates will also relate things that he has heard, or he will tell his listeners about a myth that he himself doesn’t believe. What are we to make of this? And how can we find any coherent doctrine of memory in these texts? This issue has challenged those who seek a unified doctrine of memory in the works of Plato. One scholar’s view is stated as a warning: a reconstruction of a systematic theory of memory in Plato is neither possible nor even advisable because of the incommensurability and difference of the contexts in which memory is treated and discussed[ii].
Third, the dialogs are the ‘published’ works of Plato that are thought to be for public consumption. Plato established a school of philosophy, the Academy, wherein he discussed and taught philosophical concepts with a select group of students. The nature of what was taught in the school and what was presented in the published dialogs may have been distinct. According to Plato in the Seventh Epistle, “no man of intelligence will venture to express his philosophical views in language, especially not in language that is unchangeable, which is true of that which is set down in written characters.” These words have suggested to scholars two forms of Platonic thought: 1) the exoteric doctrines we find in the Dialogs and intended for the general public and 2) the esoteric doctrines discussed in the Academy (one Plato scholar, at least, suggests that the esoteric doctrines are discernable in the dialogs, but they are hidden in a musical structure that forms a backbone of the dialogues; see Kenny 2014). If these two types of doctrines are at play in Platonic thought, then we may never ‘know’ what Plato thought about memory. Yet, our concern here is less on Plato’s true thoughts than on his statements about memory in the published works and what others thought of those works, because it was these dialogues that formed the foundation for ancient concepts of memory and that would influence later thinkers.
A Brief biography of Plato
Plato was born at Athens around 428 BCE, a few years into the Peloponnesian war with Athens’ great rival Sparta and a year following the outbreak of Plague that would take the lives of as many as a third of the population including the leading statesman of the time Pericles. His father, Ariston, traced his lineage to a former king of Athens and his mother, Perictione, to one of the seven sages, the lawgiver and ‘father of democracy’ Solon. Perictione was the sister of Charmides and the niece of Critias, both of whom played prominent roles in the short-lived and brutal oligarchy that ruled Athens from 404-403. Plato’s father died when he was young, and his mother married Pyrilampes, a friend of the Athenian statesman Pericles. Plato is said to have a sister – Potone – and two brother – Glaucon and Adiamentus (his brothers and other relatives make appearances in the dialogs).
Plato would have received an education consistent with his high birth. According to the biographer Diogenes Laertius, as a youth he studied letters, painting, poetry, and gymnastics. Diogenes Laertius relates the story about Plato’s name. Originally born Aristocles (i.e., known for greatness), he was given his name Plato (i.e., platús, “broad, wide”) due either to the size of his forehead or to his shoulder span. In the gymnastic education of Athenian youths, he would have wrestled naked and the span of his shoulders must have made for an imposing figure – at least according to Diogenes Laertius.
Plato was part of a group of Athenian youths that followed the eclectic philosopher Socrates (470-399). A story goes that Plato as a youth wrote poetry and tried his hand at composing tragedies to submit to the annual tragic competitions. He shared these writing with Socrates, who must have persuaded Plato that they held little value; Plato is said to have burned these compositions and turned his attention and talents elsewhere, to the enduring benefit of philosophy. After Athens’s defeat by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (404 BCE), A pro-Sparta oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants replaced the defeated Democrats for rule of Athens. During the oligarch, we are told that Plato’s uncles (Charmides and Critias, members of the Thirty) urged him to join the Thirty under their protection and sponsorship, but he was revolted by their attempts to make Socrates complicit in their crimes. Socrates was called to the Thirty and tasked with bringing one of their enemies to face charges (and face a certain death). Socrates simply ignored the order and thus remained free from the stain of complicity, but it appears that Plato, upon learning of this, stayed away from politics, at least for the short term. The oligarchy was overthrown by resurgent democrats. Charmides and Critias both died in the fighting.
The Democrats proved politically unfavorable too. In 399, Socrates was brought to trial for impiety and for corrupting the youth. He was found guilty and put to death. Plato was present at the trial of Socrates, but, he relates in the Phaedo that, he was not present at the execution due to illness. Following Socrates execution, Plato is said to have left Athens for a period, traveling around the Greek world. He traveled to Sicily where he engaged with followers of Pythagoras and eventually made it to the court of the Syracusan tyrant Dionisius I. DL tells us that after discoursing on the evils of tyranny to the tyrant, Plato closely avoided execution himself and was sold off as a slave. A supporter later provided a ransom and sent him back to Athens.
Once safely returned to Athens, Plato founded his school of philosophy, the Academy, on the grounds of the hero Academus around 388 BCE. It was here, as the head of the Academy, that Plato lectured on philosophy, presumably wrote the bulk of his dialogs, and trained others in philosophy, including Aristotle.
Plato’s Philosophy
Theory of Knowledge. How can we know anything about the world around us? We appear to experience the world through our senses – we see the plane tree shading the stream; we hear the murmuring brook as waters flow over rocks; we feel the cool breeze against our skin; and we smell the lilies scattered among the grasses. To what extent can we trust that the world we experience through our senses in the real world out there? That might seem like an odd question to ask – are not our senses a reliable indicator of the world in which we live? It appears to be so, yet there are innumerable instances when our senses seem to mislead. For example, on a hot summer day, we see what appears to be water off in the distance only to realize, as we approach, that what we took to be water only an illusion. There are other instances, such as when we dream or hallucinate that we see and hear things that are not there. If our senses, then, are an unreliable indicator of the real world, then how can we know anything about the world?
An additional problem with sense perception is that different people may experience the same thing differently. The great sophist Protagoras said that man is the measure of all things. In the Theaetetus, Socrates takes Protagoras’ statement to mean that things are such as they appear to you and are such as they appear to me. That is, based on sense perception, reality is relative to the beholder. The cool flow of water over my feet may be intolerably cold to you. Who is right? Is the water refreshingly cool or unbearably cold?
For Plato, there are two distinct worlds: The World of Appearance (what we experience through our senses) and the World of Reality (what actually exists). The World of Appearances is an unreliable source of knowledge about the world. In Plato’s theory of knowledge (epistemology), knowledge must necessarily be of what is (the World of Reality); it must be infallible, certain, and unchanging[iii]. In the words of Professor Steven Goldman of Lehigh University, knowledge must be Universal, Necessary, and Certain. That is, knowledge must consist of truths that are universal: true for everyone, everywhere, every time; truths must be necessary: inevitable and cannot be denied; and must be certain: infallible, that about which one cannot be wrong. For Plato, the example par excellence is mathematics. Two times Two equals four is a Universal Truth that cannot be denied (even if one wills it to be otherwise, like Dostoevsky’s Underground Man]).
Plato was greatly influenced by the Ionian philosopher Heraclitus (c535-475 BCE). Heraclitus observed the world around him and saw continuous change – You cannot step into the same river twice. The every-flowing river changes from moment to moment (as do you). How can the World of Appearances be a reliable guide to reality if it is in constant flux? These issues perplexed Heraclitus who turned to seeking Truth within (I searched myself) and identified the Logos, the word or reason, as the stability in a world of change, in a world where everything was coming into being and going out of being. This is the world of Becoming.
Another influence on Plato’s conception of knowledge was the Eleatic philosopher Parmenides (475 BCE). Using reason alone, he postulated that there existed only one universal substance – the One. How can the world of the diversity of things we see before us and that we experience every waking moment really be a single unified thing? Parmenides begins with denying the existence of what is not. “What every is is and what is not, is not.” This denial of the nonexistent, then, deductively leads to the impossibility of motion (i.e., nothing can move without some void to move into; and void, which is what is not, cannot exist) and without motion, nothing can change. Without change or separation from one thing to the next, there can only be one universal substance, the One – a universal, unchanging, ever-present reality that constitutes The World of Reality.
Both Heraclitus and Parmenides suggested that the World of Appearances is distinct from the World of Reality and only the latter is where you can find knowledge that is universal, necessary, and certain.
Given the limitations of sense perception, how are we to know anything about the world? In Epistle VII, Plato mentions three instruments by which knowledge is imparted: the name, the definition, and the image. The name of a thing or concept refers to what it is, what it looks like. In the Dialogs, we see Socrates asking others to help him first define the terms under discussion: What is Piety? What is Courage? What is virtue? What is Knowledge? What is Justice? To get a definition of these terms, Socrates engages in the dialectic, a series of questions and answers – reasoned arguments. For example, in the Euthyphro, Socrates encounters Euthyphro, who is prosecuting his own father for the death of a servant. Euthyphro tells Socrates that even through it is his own father that he is prosecuting, he is obliged to this action through piety. Socrates then asks, what is Piety? To which Euthyphro provides the answer: that which is loved by the gods. Socrates follows up this answer with another question: Is it pious because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is pious? Through many of the dialogs, the series of questions and answers will last the whole of the dialog and in the end, there will be an impasse (or an aporia in Greek), where neither Socrates nor his interlocutors come to agree on the definitions of the terms under discussion. In the Apology, Socrates states that he engaged in the dialectic with the poets, the artists, the statesmen, and the wisemen (the Sophists) about their own knowledge and each time came away with the belief that their claims to knowledge are unjustified – they don’t know what they are talking about. If, said Socrates, the Delphic oracle that Socrates is the Wisest of Men is true, it is because Socrates at least knows that he does not know. The impasse reached at the conclusions of some of the dialogs, therefore, should be viewed as an advancement in the interlocutors’ knowledge – at least they know that they do not know. Or at least, that may be the intent. In some of the aporetic dialogs the main interlocutors does appear wiser than before (e.g., Theaetetus) whereas in others they do not (e.g., Meno).
Theory of Forms. The world of appearances is in constant flux. As such, one cannot have knowledge of the world appearances. According to Aristotle, Plato’s Heraclitan view that there could be no knowledge obtained by sense perception was modified through the influence of Socrates [987b]. Socrates emphasis on definitions underlie his quest to find universals in the realm of ethics. A general definition of sensible things is impossible, because they are in constant flux. Plato postulated that behind the world of particulars and of appearances were eternal, unchanging Ideas or Forms. A golden retriever is distinct from a Boston terrier, which is distinct from a Rhodesian ridge back. How can all of these types of dogs maintain their particular uniqueness and yet all be called ‘dogs’? According to the Theory of Forms, each particular breed of dog ‘participates’ in the Form of a dog, which we can call ‘dog-ness’. That is, a particular dog contains something of ‘dogness’ in it. Similarly, there may be many things that are beautiful – the flowing blond curls of Alcibiades, the ornate emblazon of a shield, the chryselephantine statute of Athena Parthenos of Phidias. How are all of these particulars beautiful? Each participate in the Form of Beauty. The particulars themselves are not universal, but the forms are. Thus, according to the Theory of Forms, knowledge is of the universal Forms, not of the particulars.
Our sense experience of particulars misleads us. In order to gain true knowledge, we must understand the Forms that lie behind appearance. Herein lies the true definitions. In Book VII of the Republic, Socrates relates the Allegory of the Cave to illustrate how misleading the world of appearance is and how sensible objects participate in the Forms. We are to imagine men deep down in a cave in the absence of sunlight. These men have been chained to a rock in the cave since birth. The chain prevents them from moving around and therefore their eyes are directed towards a wall of the cave. Behind these men there is a large fire that gives off light. As others pass between the fire and the chained men, their shadows drift across the cave wall. Some of the people carry objects, whose shadows, too, drift with that of the men. The chained men only see the shadows and believe them to be real. Now, one of the chained men becomes free of his chains and can see that it is other men and the objects they carry, and not their shadows, that are real. He further escapes the cave, blinded by the sun, the true light. The sun reveals what is real. The man then returns to the cave with the task of educating his chained companions about the falsity of the appearances they see as shadows cast upon the cave wall and that a reality lurks behind these appearances. This reality is taken to be the world of Forms.
Knowledge, then, is knowledge of the eternal, unchanging Forms; the world of appearances cannot be known. How can we know the world of the Forms? Through the dialectic and through rational thinking. Wherein lies memory? Is there a Form of memory? No. Memory is a process of recounting the Forms only know to the soul.
Plato’s Dualism. In the Greek spoken during Plato’s time, the word psuke meant life force, breath, or what we translate as ‘soul’. (ψυχή psykhḗ, of ψύχειν psýkhein, “to breathe”). The word was onemonpoetic. Try it. The initial ‘p’ and ‘s’ are sounded together (not a sound we have in the English language). To make the sound you press your lips together and push air through (what linguist call a bilabial stop) followed by the ‘s’ (an alveolar fricitive). In one respect, the soul is what distinguishes the living from the non-living, the animate from the inanimate, a body from a corpse. In the Laws, Plato attributes the source of bodily movement to the soul (46d 5-7). According to Aristotle, Thales of Miletus attributed the soul to the magnet as the magnet could move iron (De Anima 1.2, 405a19-21). The immaterial soul, therefore, is distinct from the physical body and is the animating force, without which we cease to be. The immaterial soul is the seat of the virtues (courage, temperance, justice, prudence) emotions, and intelligence; the physical body, the seat of the vices. The immaterial soul is immortal; the physical body transient.
In the Republic, Socrates describes the soul as consisting of three distinct parts. This tripartite soul includes a rational, emotional, and appetitive component. The rational soul, also called mind (nous), is the part of the soul that is capable of thought and remembering. In the Phaedrus, Socrates provides an analogy of the soul as a charioteer and two horses (246a). The charioteer represents the rational part of the soul, who controls and steers the two horses: one good, representing emotion, who loves honor with temperance and modesty; the other bad, representing baser appetites and sensual pleasures. The soul, therefore, represents the harmony produced by the actions of the rational part controlling the other two parts. [Sigmond Freud would later directly take up Plato’s tripartite soul as components of his tripartite system of the id, the ego, and the superego].
Another component of Plato’s psychology is that the soul is immortal. In the Phaedo, there is an enumeration of the proofs for the immortality of the soul (70d-103c). It is here in the Socrates’ attempt to prove the immortality of the soul that he discusses what we might call innate ideas – the idea of equality, for example, doesn’t appear to need prior experience in order to be appreciated. It is in this context that Plato describes his theory of reminiscence, that through appropriate questions and answer, you can demonstrate knowledge without apparent learning. From whence does this knowledge come if it wasn’t learned? Socrates concludes that it must have been learned at some point by soul in a previous incarnation and therefore serves as a proof for the immortality of the soul. This is taken up more fully in the Meno.
Plato’s concept of the soul was deeply influenced by Pythagorean thought, which believed in the transmigration of the soul – the movement of the soul from one body to another after the former has perished. The soul sheds its body as we do clothes and takes up a new body in a cycle of reincarnations. In the Republic, Socrates describes the afterlife and the fate of the soul after death as told by Er, a man who returned from death without drinking of the river Lethe, allowing him to remember what he saw.
After death, the soul departs for the world below taking only nurture and education. The soul is guided along the river Acheron to the shores of the Acherusian late, where the souls of the many await their appointed time before they are sent back to the world above to be born into a new body, sometimes that of a lower animal, sometimes that of another human. In the underworld the wicked are punished and the virtuous rewarded. Plato describes that souls choose their reincarnation bodies: some chose animals, some chose tyrants. The souls of the masses tend to choose bodies wholly different from their previous incarnations. After this, they drink of the river Lithe – the river of Forgetfulness – and forget it all. The wise souls drink in moderation, whereas those of the masses imbibe copious amounts of the amnesiac waters. The wise soul, therefore, may have easier access to the soul’s memory in the next incarnation.
Plato and memory
An examination of Plato’s thoughts on memory will reveal similarities and differences to our modern concepts. The fundamental questions addressed in the dialogs are perennial, as relevant today as they were in Plato’s time. What is the relationship between sense perception and memory? How do we acquire knowledge? Do we learn from experience or do we have innate knowledge, as other animals have instincts? Why do we remember some things and forget others? Does forgetting represent a failure to acquire, store, or retrieve memory? What accounts for memory errors? What’s the difference between remembering and reminding?
In the following sections, we will explore how Plato addresses each of these questions and more. Plato’s concepts of memory are best seen within the context of the dialogs themselves. To build this context, I provide general overviews and introduction to the individual dialogs under discussion (i.e., the Meno, Phaedo, Theaetetus, and Philebus), including the overarching theme or question being addressed. Memory is never the main theme of any of the dialogs but serves as an integral component of virtue (the de facto theme of the dialogs). In the Meno, Socrates makes an enigmatic statement: all learning is but recollection. To learn about Plato’s thoughts on memory begins with remembering Plato; and so, we begin with recollection.
[i] Memory, Oxford Philosophical Concepts, p. 44, Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Memory, Oxford Philosophical Concepts, p. 44-45, Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
[iii] see Coplestone, V1. p.143.
Nathen Murawski 