Editing Plato (section)

=== The Soul ===
{{See also|Plato's theory of soul}}
For Plato, as was characteristic of ancient Greek philosophy, the soul was that which gave life. Plato advocates a belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the [[afterlife]]. In the ''Timaeus'', Socrates locates the parts of the soul within the human body: Reason is located in the head, spirit in the top third of the [[torso]], and the appetite in the middle third of the torso, down to the [[navel]].{{sfn|Dorter|2006|p=360}}

Furthermore, Plato evinces a belief in the theory of [[reincarnation]] in multiple dialogues (such as the ''Phaedo'' and ''Timaeus''). Scholars debate whether he intends the theory to be literally true, however.{{sfn|Jorgenson|2018}} He uses this idea of reincarnation to introduce the concept that knowledge is a matter of [[Anamnesis (philosophy)|recollection]] of things acquainted with before one is born, and not of observation or study.{{sfn|Baird & Kaufmann|2008}} Keeping with the theme of admitting his own ignorance, Socrates regularly complains of his forgetfulness. In the ''Meno'', Socrates uses a geometrical example to expound Plato's view that knowledge in this latter sense is acquired by recollection. Socrates elicits a fact concerning a geometrical construction from a slave boy, who could not have otherwise known the fact (due to the slave boy's lack of education). The knowledge must be of, Socrates concludes, an eternal, non-perceptible Form.