​REMINISCENCE (from Lat. reminisci, to remember), the recognized translation of the Greek ἀνἀμνησις, which is used technically by Plato in his doctrine that the soul recovers knowledge of which it had direct intuition in a former incorporeal existence. The doctrine may be regarded as the poetical precursor of modern a priori theories of knowledge and of “race-memory” and the like. In common language “reminiscence” is synonymous with “recollection.”