Plato's problem is the term given by Noam Chomsky to the gap between knowledge and experience. It presents the question of how we account for our knowledge when environmental conditions seem to be an insufficient source of information. It is used in linguistics to refer to the "argument from poverty of the stimulus" (APS). In a more general sense, Plato’s Problem refers to the problem of explaining a "lack of input." Solving Plato’s Problem involves explaining the gap between what one knows and the apparent lack of substantive input from experience (the environment). Plato's Problem is most clearly illustrated in the Meno dialogue, in which Socrates demonstrates that an uneducated boy nevertheless understands geometric principles.
Contents |
What is knowledge? What is experience? How do they interact? Is there a correlational, causal, or reciprocal relationship between knowledge and experience? These and other related questions have been at the forefront of investigation by problem solvers, scientists, psychologists, and philosophers for centuries. These questions, but particularly the problem of how experience and knowledge interrelate, have broad theoretical and practical implications for such academic disciplines as epistemology, linguistics, and psychology (specifically the subdiscipline of thinking and problem solving). Gaining a more precise understanding of human knowledge, whether defined as innate, experiential, or both, is an important part of effective problem solving.
Plato was the first philosopher who systematically inquired into issues such as those noted above. He wrote many dialogues, such as Euthyphro and the Apology, but it is from the Meno that the modern instantiation of Plato’s Problem is derived. In the Meno, Plato theorizes about the relationship between knowledge and experience and provides an explanation for how it is possible to know something that one has never been explicitly taught. Plato believed that we possess innate ideas that precede any knowledge that we gain through experience.
As formulated by Noam Chomsky,[1] accounting for this gap between knowledge and experience is "Plato’s Problem." The phrase has a specific linguistic context with regard to language acquisition but can also be used more generally.
Plato was born into an aristocratic Athenian family. When Plato was a young man, Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War, a tragedy he attributed to the democracy (Russell). Plato was principally opposed to democracy, as he believed "democracy passes into despotism" [2]. Several of the political calamities of the day led Plato to propose an ideal form of government in his most famous work, The Republic, which still has profound influences on modern Western political philosophy.
Plato’s early philosophical endeavors involved poetry discussing many ideas, such as the differences between knowledge and opinion, particulars and universals, and God and man. These early dialogues do not utilize conventional notions of reason. Rather, they appeal to the emotions, the allegorical, the spiritual, and the mythological interests of an ancient speculative mind.
Controversy surrounds the early dialogues in how they are to be interpreted. Some claim that Plato was truly trying to discover objective reality through these mystical speculations while others maintain that the dialogues are stories to be interpreted only as parables, allegories, and emotional appeals to religious experience. Regardless, Plato would come to formulate a more rigorous and comprehensive philosophy later in his life, one that reverberates in contemporary Western thought to this day.
Some of Plato’s famous works are Phaedo, the Crito, and, as noted earlier, the Meno. Within these works are found a comprehensive philosophy that addresses epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, theology, and logic. As noted, most of the writing is in the form of dialogues and arguments to pursue answers to difficult questions and concepts. Plato’s teacher and mentor, Socrates, always plays a significant and formative role in these dialogues.
Most of Plato’s philosophical ideas were communicated through his beloved teacher Socrates as a presence in the dialogues. Though Socrates never wrote anything himself, it is evident through Plato’s works that Socrates had an incredible ability to explore the most intense analytical discussions. However, for some there is controversy regarding how much historical fact can be derived from Plato’s Socrates (Russell). Some doubt Socrates ever existed. Others are skeptical as to the accuracy of some of Plato’s dialogues but nonetheless maintain that we can learn a substantial amount of historical information about Socrates from the dialogues. Still others take practically everything Plato wrote about Socrates as veridical history. Regardless, it may be safe to say that Plato never meant to record Socrates verbatim and it may plausibly be concluded that his general ideas were communicated in the dialogues.
One such dialogue of Plato’s that utilized the Socratic Method was the Meno. The participants were Socrates, Meno, Anytus, and one of Meno’s slave boys. The dialogue begins with Meno asking Socrates whether virtue can be taught. Socrates responds by stating that he does not know the definition of virtue. Meno replies by stating the characteristics of a virtuous man, to which Socrates responds that the characteristics of a virtuous man may be the by-products of virtuousness but they by no means define virtue. Meno is obliged to agree; to wit, he tries to modify his explanation of virtue. Socrates counters each attempt by pointing to inconsistencies and circular arguments.
Meno seems to commit two fallacies when trying to define virtue. He either defines it using some form of the word itself, or he defines it using other words that call for definitions and explanations themselves. Eventually, Meno is lead to confess his shortcomings as he tries to define the enigmatic term (the Socratic Method is the mechanism that brings about this confession). Socrates claims that a definition of virtue must consist of common terms and concepts that are clearly understood by those in the discussion.
A crucial point in the dialogue is when Socrates tells Meno that there is no such thing as teaching, only recollection of knowledge from past lives, or anamnesis. Socrates claims that he can demonstrate this by showing that one of Meno’s servants, a slave boy, knows geometric principles though he is uneducated. Socrates states that he will teach the boy nothing, only ask him questions to assist the process of recollection. Socrates proceeds to ask the slave boy a series of questions about the size and length of lines and squares, using visual diagrams to aid the boy in understanding the questions. The crucial point to this part of the dialogue is that, though the boy has no training, he knows the correct answers to the questions – he intrinsically knows the Pythagorean proposition.
There are contemporary contexts that provide input for the various questions posed here: how to account for the gap between experience and knowledge, what are some of the sources of knowledge, or how much knowledge is possessed prior to experience or without conscious awareness. There are many areas in contemporary linguistics and psychological research that have relevance to these epistemological questions. Linguistic analysis has provided some strong evidence for innate cognitive capacities for language and there are many areas of cognitive psychology that yield hard data from investigations into sources of knowledge. In addition, there are some claims in the Meno that have connections to current research on perception and long-term memory (LTM).
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Chomskian linguistics (an inclusive, though perhaps informal, label for the theories and methodologies of linguistic study spearheaded by Noam Chomsky, meant to encompass his extensive work and influence in the field) includes everything from Chomsky’s earliest work in transformational grammar to more recent work in the Minimalist Program. More exactly, it is the study of the structure of language, or grammar. Chomskian linguistics is defined by a particular theoretical foundation and methodological approach that sets it apart from other linguistic perspectives, such as those described by functional grammar or structuralism (per Leonard Bloomfield) for example. This particular approach to the study of language is also often referred to as Generative linguistics, which is attributed to Chomsky and his early generative grammar work.
Who do you think that Jack will kiss first? Who do you think Jack will kiss first?
Who do you think will kiss Jill first? *Who do you think that will kiss Jill first?
There have been studies of perception and attention that support the idea that there is an abundance of knowledge available to an individual at any given moment (Blake & Sekuler, 2006).
These studies point to the fact that even though we only attend to and process limited information, we have a vast amount of knowledge at our disposal through our highly unrestricted sensory registers. It is the selective attention, perception, and higher order cognitive processing that limits these inputs and it is precisely these processes that make up our conscious awareness. Thus, in order to formulate some explanations for Plato’s Problem, our conscious awareness limits our experience; nevertheless, it seems as though some stimuli that are sensed by our sensory registers, although seemingly rejected by conscious awareness, are actually retained and abstracted into our memories for further processing. All of our fully functioning perceptual faculties enhance, supplement, and optimize our experiences.
Another area of research in contemporary cognitive psychology that helps explain the gap between knowledge and experience are the investigations into Long-term memory (LTM) (Solso, MacLin & MacLin, 2005). LTM has essentially unlimited capacity and the duration of information in LTM has been shown to be very long. When it comes to retrieving information from LTM, though, there is a distinction to be made; one has an enormous amount of information available at any given moment as encapsulated by one’s conscious experience, but there is actually only a small portion of information available for access at any given time.
This LTM availability/accessibility dichotomy is analogous to a more contemporary explanation of Plato’s doctrine of reminiscence, which postulates that an individual has innate knowledge as a result of information carried over from past lives. While evidence for or against immortality is outside the bounds of scientific research, one can see similarities between LTM availability/accessibility and the doctrine of reminiscence. LTM availability is highly unrestricted and practically unlimited as a storage system while LTM accessibility corresponds to what we can actually recall at any given moment. Plato, through his doctrine of reminiscence, would say that knowledge available through reminiscence is practically unrestricted but we are not cognizant of many of those ideas because they have yet to be recalled.
Further, psychologists generally distinguish between two types of memory. Endel Tulving (1993) distinguished between episodic and semantic memory. Episodic memory is usually tied to people, places, and events whereas semantic memory encompasses procedures, facts, ideas, abstractions, and principles. It is posited that semantic memories are originally connected to episodic memories but episodic memories generally decay while semantic memories are retained and abstracted into LTM. One explanation for this is that there is a biological predisposition to seek out and abstract semantic knowledge for practical and survival purposes while the experiential episodic memories are less significant (perhaps irrelevant).
Having discussed Plato’s philosophy, linguistics, perception, and some cognitive structures, various implications that arise from the research and theorizing can be touched on. The debate surrounding how to define knowledge goes back to the origin of humanity. In historical philosophy, the debate has been between rationalism and empiricism. In contemporary psychology, the debate is between biology (nature) and environment (nurture).
Rationalism is a philosophical and epistemological perspective on knowledge that claims, at its most extreme, that reason is the only dependable source of knowledge; moreover, rationalists assert that a priori knowledge is the most effective foundation for knowledge [4]. Empiricism, on the other hand, argues that no knowledge exists prior to experience; therefore, all knowledge, as well as thought, comes from experience. The nature vs. nurture debate is not identical, yet one can detect the similarities, or parallels, to the rationalism vs. empiricism debate. Those who claim that thought and behavior result from nature say the cause is genetic predisposition while those who argue for environment say that thought and behavior are caused by learning, parenting, and socialization.
In contemporary philosophical, linguistic, and psychological circles, it is rare that anyone maintains an unwavering stance on either of these extremes, most fall toward the middle. For many, the ideas of "nature and nurture" or "innateness and environmental input" are no longer perceived as mutually exclusive. For those who research such topics, much points to a necessarily interactive relationship in order for thought and behavior to occur.
In Plato’s philosophy, innate ideas are revealed through the Socratic Method of investigation. In linguistics, universal grammar must have input from the environment (primary linguistic data) in order for children to achieve an individual grammar (output). Biologically, our perceptual faculties are pre-wired, but they require environmental stimuli in order to develop correctly. The neurological structures in our brain that represent the location of LTM are also biologically pre-wired, yet environmental input is needed in order for memory to flourish.
All of these ideas speak to the crux of Plato's Problem, which is how to account for the gap between knowledge and limited experience. For some scientific and philosophical disciplines, the answer to this conundrum is innateness, or biological pre-wiring. Innate knowledge is what bridges the gap between the limited information one gleans from the environment (poverty of the stimulus) and one's actual knowledge.