UNSW PHILOSOPHY SEMINAR The Phaedo’s Recollection Argument and the Soul's Disposition to Know Speaker: Matthew D. Walker (Yale-NUS College) The recollection argument in Plato’s Phaedo is among the most famous of the various arguments for psychic immortality that Socrates spends his final day discussing with his friends. The argument (Phd. 72e-76d) moves from the hypothesis that learning is recollection to the conclusion that our souls existed before birth, possessing wisdom, and that our souls may be immortal. Some scholars have proposed that the argument assumes that the soul possesses either innate knowledge states or innate cognitive contents; other scholars have proposed that the argument assumes only that the soul once possessed knowledge prenatally, but subsequently lost it at birth, with the result that the soul lacks any innate knowledge at all. Against such interpretations, I sketch an alternative account of the recollection argument, according to which the argument holds that the soul innately possesses a specific potentiality for knowledge, and, indeed, for wisdom. If Socrates accepts such dispositional innatism, then the sort of immortality that the recollection argument supports may differ radically from what usual readings -- and Socrates' friends -- suppose. Bio: Matthew D. Walker is an Associate Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. He works principally in ancient Greek philosophy and comparative ethics. He is the author of Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation(Cambridge University Press, 2018); “Aristotle’s Eudemus and the Propaedeutic Use of the Dialogue Form” (winner of the 2021 Journal of the History of Philosophy article prize); and other articles and chapters on Aristotle, Confucius, Hume, Mengzi, Plato, and Zhu Xi. He is currently at work on a book on immortality in Plato’s Symposium and Phaedo [Image] 24th April 2023 [Image] 12:30pm-2pm [Image] Kensington Campus, room 209 Morven Brown [Image] Teams link here<https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_Nzk5YzE4MTktZmNlZi00NDM5LWFlMTQtMGNlODhmYTc2MWQx%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%223ff6cfa4-e715-48db-b8e1-0867b9f9fba3%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22fe058e47-4a62-41cb-872a-be04358c242c%22%7d>
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