Thank you, ac12. Although I knew that the theory of recollection was prominent in the Meno, you are right that in that context it is not directly linked to our knowledge of the Forms. And I was having trouble locating recollection in the Republic, soI should have been more careful with my assertion that it was there since apparently my memory has failed me on that point.
Yes, a large portion of the Republic is about this educational program leading up to a sort of "capstone" of learning dialectic, which is how the philosopher kings learn the Forms. I see the two ways of learning the Forms as complementary and not as a necessary disjunct between the (possibly) early period Meno, and the middle period Republic and Phaedo; but yes, this is a subject of debate amongst philosophers.
The reference to our souls communing...
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with the Forms prior to birth is found not in theRepublic, but in the Phaedo at 72e and following. I'm sorry I was not more careful.
I'm afraid that the answer on this page is not quite accurate. The theory of recollection (anamnēsis) does not appear anywhere in Plato's Republic. The earliest version of it can be found in the Meno (which doesn't introduce the Forms, but which can be read as a proleptic dialogue) and the most fully articulated version is in the Phaedo (72a-78e).It's also discussed in the Phaedrus.
It is important that to emphasize this because the epistemology of the Republic introduces new ideas and is importantly different from the epistemology of the Phaedo. The Allegory of the Cave and the Divided Line metaphor introduce the two-level metaphysics and the corresponding epistemology. In Book VII of the Republic, we are told that it is dialectic that allows us to access the forms. Lines 521-252 of the Republic explain the process. Only philosophers are capable of dialectic whereas recollection is arguably accessible to all human beings.
Whether these are opposed or complementary accounts of how we know the Forms is the object of much philosophical debate. However, the bottom line is that Plato mentions at least two ways in which the forms are known — recollection and via an educational program that that culminates in dialectic.
In the Republic, Plato claims that the Forms initially become known to humans before birth. We spend our lives recollecting their natures, and we commune with them again after our deaths. Prior to being born, Plato holds that we spent eternity past learning the Forms and their natures through communing with them in their realm. The doctrine or recollection that he espouses holds that we then spend our lives remembering the natures of the Forms that we knew. This notion of innate knowledge claims that the things that we experience in the real world are shadows of the eternal Forms that they participate in, or copy. So we can look at two sticks of unequal length and realize that they are unequal, without having ever actually seen two sticks of exactly equal length. Although our experience of the world is imperfect, we understand that experience in the context of a latent knowledge of the Forms of universals such as Truth, Justice, and Equality. Even though we may never have seen true examples of these things (that is, in this world all examples of universals are defective in some respect), we have an understanding of what they are due to our communion with the Forms in our pre-life. Thus we are able to see faulty ethics, injustice and ugliness and recognize them for what they are. Plato also holds that after our deaths we will return to the realm of the Forms and again contemplate their natures.
The ancient Greek philosophers were more interested in these abstract universals I mentioned above than in the nature of artifacts, but sometimes in an effort to make a concept easier to understand a teacher will explain “nature” in terms of a man-made or physical object, such as a chair or a tree.
Important works by Plato that address the concept of recollection are the Republic and the Meno. I've included links to the eNotes study guides for these works.