This paper aims to rethink Plato’s claim that “all learning is recollection” (Meno 81d). The general plan of research that will be presented in this paper is to take seriously the structural analogy presented by Plato (focusing mainly on the Meno and only secondarily on the Phaedo and the Phaedrus). In addition to the interpretation of Plato this needs a conceptual analysis of both recollection and learning. The former is largely based on Aristotle’s De Memoria et Reminiscentia (and some new interpretations of it, Bloch 2007; Perälä 2010; not forgetting Sorabji 1972) and the latter on some philosophically oriented definitions of learning in modern research (McClellan 1976, 1982; Uljens 1997). Plato’s view has often been argued to be a variant of innateness (e.g. Scott 1995). This is in a sense undoubtedly correct. The problem with this kind of an interpretation is that this easily emphasises literal elements in the interpretation of anamnesis. When Plato’s mythically presented view is placed along other theories of innateness, like that of Leibniz, or to more dispositional approaches concerning the prerequisites of learning found already in Aristotle, it is appears to be a cumbersome and metaphysically loaded idea. The questions of innateness have developed to new level because of development in biology and the research on early learning (see e.g. Elman et al. 1998; Sober 1998; Carruthers et al. 2005; Mameli 2009); Plato’s visions seem to be badly outdated from this perspective. The comparison of learning and recollection is, however, very interesting and has many philosophically intriguing features. Particularly approaches that see Plato’s writing about anamnesis as a catch-all call for human abilities to develop knowledge based on previous knowledge (like Thomas 1980; see also Hintikka 1969) seem to open up avenues for interesting comparisons. Another interesting set of questions arises if the theories which argue that Plato does not present anamnesis as a serious theory (Weiss 2001; Ebert 2007) are given due attention. If the analogy is simply taken as a kind of a joke there is much that could be learned from it about learning; but if the serious and joking elements are tied together (Scott 2006; Ionescu 2006) the analogy is interesting from the point of view of learning. The main critical new insight of the research in this paper is both in ancient Greece (particularly in connection with the concept dunamis) and in the definition of learning in modern educational science there is an interesting process–product ambiguity (see Hintikka 1974, 6–8 for ancient Greece; and Uljens 1997, 27–28 for modern educational theories). The conceptual pattern to be inquired into in this paper is that the thesis that “learning is recollection” could be fruitfully interpreted with keeping this ambiguity in mind. Accordingly learning is recollection because the fact that the learner has learned means that he or she is able to recollect in the wide sense of activating again “from him- or herself” the item he or she has learned.

The method of this paper is philosophical analysis based on close reading of Plato’s text, particularly the Meno; various translations into English are also used. In this analysis the results of the last quarter of century of philosophical and philological analysis of Plato's theory of anamnesis and Socratic Method by e.g. Vlastos, Penner, Benson and Scott will be taken into account – which is rarely done in educational research.

The expected findings of the research result on clarification of the concept of learning. In addition, the research aims to enhance our understanding of Plato’s philosophy and particularly his view on learning and anamnesis.