Indeed...

Indeed, we remember it only due to our sense perception of this or that specific human being (p. 60) who reflects that abstract reality in the material world. Thus, universal conceptions are prior to sense perception. And perception is not realized except through the process of retrieving and recollecting such universal conceptions. Rational knowledge is not related to particular things in the sensible realm. Rather, it is only related to those abstract universal realities.

This theory is based on two philosophical propositions. One of them is that the soul exists prior to the existence of the body in a world higher than matter. The other is that rational knowledge is nothing but knowledge of the fixed abstract realities in that higher world - the Platonic technical term for these realities being 'archetypes'. Both propositions are false, as was pointed out by critics of Plato's philosophy.

For the soul, in the rational philosophical sense, is not something that exists in an abstract form and prior to the existence of the body. Rather, it is the result of a substantial movement in matter. The soul begins with this movement as material, characterized by material qualities and subjugated to the laws of matter.

By means of this movement and process of completion, it acquires an immaterial existence not characterized by material qualities and not subject to the laws of matter, even though it is subject to the general laws of existence. This philosophical notion of the soul is the only one that can explain the [present] issue, and give a reasonable clarification of the relation between the soul and matter or the soul and the body.

As for the Platonic notion, which supposes that the soul has an existence prior to that of the body, it is most incapable of explaining this relation, of justifying the link that exists between the soul and the body, and of clarifying the circumstances under which the soul falls from its own level to that of matter. Besides, it is possible to explain rational knowledge - with the notion of the archetypes put aside in the field of discussion - (p.