After requiring them to explain that doctrine - that we human beings already have knowledge within us, which we learned in a previous bodiless state of existence, and which teaching can help us recall - I asked them whether they found Plato's view on knowledge plausible. I also asked them to consider whether it might work for certain types of knowledge but not others (even Plato thinks there are at least some things we can say that know that we didn't learn in a previous life).
Without necessarily buying into the entire Platonic backstory for where innate knowledge comes from, quite a few students did find the idea of some of our knowledge being within us prior to any process of learning plausible. Some argued that to be the case for ethical truths or principles. Many more pointed towards instincts - both in human beings and animals - as examples or modes of innate knowledge. Quite a few of those connected those promptings towards or away from things and actions to evolution or DNA.
One one level, this example of instinct isn't a bad one. What instinct tells us is innate rather than explicitly or formally learned. And it does seem like knowledge in a way. That something should be done or avoided, for example. That's not, as instinctual, propositional - but what an instinct urges could certainly be expressed in propositional terms.
The real question that my students aren't yet asking - but could be (since we discussed it in class) and should be - is whether what remains at the level of instinct would really count as knowledge for Plato. He sets the bar for what counts as knowledge - and who can be said to have knowledge - very high. Instinct - and the person who has and acts upon instinct - won't really fit the bill for knowledge.
Now, opinion or belief (doxa). . . that's another possibility isn't it. . .
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