  There is little reason to think that Plato espouses a holism of knowledge of the sort discussed above. Plato never says that the mathematician or the philosopher needs to know all the truths of mathematics or ethics to know some Form. Moreover, while Plato does prescribe a course of study in the Republic designed to promote one's dialectical abilities, and while it is agreed by both holists and intuitionists, those who allow for atomic or acquaintance-like knowledge of a Form, that the same Forms are the basic objects of knowledge, it does not follow that Plato thinks that there is only one way to secure knowledge of the Forms. If there are different paths to knowledge, or different ways to know a given Form, then Plato's epistemology is liable to appear to be both holistic and acquaintance-like. As for when and where Recollection is operative, or whether Plato allows that a philosopher (or scientist) can know anything about the physical world, it is left to each reader of the dialogues to judge whether Plato is committed to gulfs between both the ordinary concepts of most humans and the special concepts of the few philosophers, as well as between the perfect Forms and the seemingly imperfect physical world. Since a Platonic dialogue is a dialectical conversation designed to summon the mind of the reader towards philosophizing, it is appropriate that each reader struggle to discover for himself What Knowledge Is.