Recollection

Anamnesis ('recollection') is Plato's theory (4th c. BCE) that real knowledge is something we are born with. Before entering the body, the immortal soul beheld the eternal Forms, and what we call learning is really the recovery of that forgotten vision. In the Meno, Socrates draws geometry out of an untutored slave boy to show the knowledge was already 'in' him; the Phaedo and Phaedrus tie recollection to the soul's pre-existence and immortality. The idea became a foundational argument for innate ideas, echoing through Augustine, the Renaissance, and modern rationalism.