  Of special importance in this initial description is the ‘for us’ and the identification of learning (mathesis) with recollection. There is no way to determine whether ‘we’ here are the close, philosophical confidants of Socrates, or the human race. Part of the solution to the problem of who recollects will hinge on how we understand the claim that learning is nothing other than recollection. On the broad reading, recollection concerns the application of concepts in all thought (see, most recently, Bedu-Addo 1991).  That is, since learning is a dynamic process whose termini are roughly our first thoughts and talk about the world, on the one hand, and knowledge of Forms on the other, and since in thinking and talking about the world we must apply concepts, recollection is viewed as a doctrine of innate ideas whose effects are felt almost immediately in the conscious mind.