  Not all appeals to the divine involve this sort of direct communication. (Indeed, Socrates’s reference to a “voice” is quite extraordinary.) But the leading figures in ancient Greek philosophy were equally committed to some kind of divine role in cognition. Plato’s theory of recollection presupposes that the human mind somehow has built into it a grasp of the Forms, suggesting that at some point the soul must have received some kind of illumination. Indeed, Plato’s arguments for recollection anticipate the two lines along which medieval views would later develop. The Meno focuses on a priori, rational insight, as illustrated by the slave’s ability to see for himself the validity of a geometrical proof. The Phaedo in contrast focuses on universal properties — Equality, for instance, as compared with two equal sticks (74a) — contrasting the changeable imperfection of the physical world with the exemplary perfection of the Forms. Medieval philosophers from Augustine on, although largely lacking in firsthand knowledge of Plato, would argue for illumination along both of these lines.