Day 14: Phaedo 73b-78c

One small remark, and a related small question:

73c ff.: In this passage, perception seems to be quite a complex psychological event. Plato twice emphasizes that comparative thoughts about sizes and shapes arise directly from sense perception, and that these comparative thoughts themselves already involve reference to the Forms. (Clearly, we are not supposed to be literally perceiving the Forms, or the Forms in things, but our knowledge of the Forms informs our perception to a high degree.) For instance, Plato asks, "Whence have we acquired the knowledge of [the Equal itself]? Is it not from the things we mentioned just now, from seeing sticks or stones or some other things that are equal ...?" (74b). And again a few lines later, he says: "it is definitely from the equal things, though they are different from that Equal, that you have derived and grasped the knowledge of equality" (74c).

My question is: Just how much is going on in perception here? On one reading, this passage tells us we literally see equality and inequality in particular things, and that this is only possible because perception involves some small bit of recollection (which must mean that perception happens against a background of rational thought). On a more minimal reading, Plato is only saying that perception gives us the material for comparative judgments of equality (for instance), and that recollection is involved at the level of judgment. But if the latter, then why all the emphasis on perception as, itself, the first stimulus or occasion for recollection? (Secondary question: What might the role of the Forms in sense-perception tell us about the so-called "Two Worlds Doctrine" debate?)