Meno (cont.) EP 9 Learning as Recollection

Socrates believes he has solved Meno's Paradox by denying that a person can never know that they have found what they are inquiring about. Socrates theorizes that if inquiring about what one does not know is a process of recollecting what one has already learned, then it is possible to inquire about what one does not know. Socrates assumes that recollection is the only way to explain how it is that the ignorant child (Meno's slaveboy) is able to correctly answer Socrates' questions about the properties of a geometrical shape. Did the boy learn these answers in a previous life? Are his answers innate? Or does Socrates' example prove only that the boy has the ability to reason?