Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE CRITICAL TEXTS OF ANTIQUITY
- Introduction
- PART II THE PRACTICE OF MEMORY DURING THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY TO THE CHRISTIAN MONASTIC CENTURIES
- Introduction
- PART III THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SCHOLASTIC UNDERSTANDING OF MEMORY
- Introduction
- PART IV ARISTOTLE NEO-PLATONISED: THE REVIVAL OF ARISTOTLE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOLASTIC THEORIES OF MEMORY
- Introduction
- PART V LATER MEDIEVAL THEORIES OF MEMORY: THE VIA ANTIQUA AND THE VIA MODERNA.
- Introduction
- Conclusion: an all too brief account of modern theories of mind and remembering
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE CRITICAL TEXTS OF ANTIQUITY
- Introduction
- PART II THE PRACTICE OF MEMORY DURING THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION FROM CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY TO THE CHRISTIAN MONASTIC CENTURIES
- Introduction
- PART III THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SCHOLASTIC UNDERSTANDING OF MEMORY
- Introduction
- PART IV ARISTOTLE NEO-PLATONISED: THE REVIVAL OF ARISTOTLE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOLASTIC THEORIES OF MEMORY
- Introduction
- PART V LATER MEDIEVAL THEORIES OF MEMORY: THE VIA ANTIQUA AND THE VIA MODERNA.
- Introduction
- Conclusion: an all too brief account of modern theories of mind and remembering
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Memory cannot be treated separately from a more inclusive theory of knowing. There appears to be a tendency in some but not all modern discussions to try to extract remembering from other operations of mind. Personally, I do not believe this should be pursued if we are ever to give a satisfactory account of what memory is for us and how it works. At any rate, it must by now be clear that ancient and medieval theories of memory are intricately linked to an epistemology. And we now are in a position to discuss one of the most sophisticated theories of knowing and remembering to have emerged from the medieval concern to describe how man uses language to understand both the present and the past: that of Peter Abelard. Even if the ancients and medievals located memory in one of the temporal lobes of the brain (the medieval version of Penfield's experiments), its function could not be dealt with meaningfully without informing memory with reason. Perhaps what is most startling in the writings of Abelard is his ability to elucidate knowing and remembering primarily by means of an analysis of the logic of language and how it works. Meaning is generated by the mind's activities through the use of signs or universals, be they images, words or ideas. Mind's present active attention enables us to consider the past through words and images, so that the past is given meaning, without which attention it has none.
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- Ancient and Medieval MemoriesStudies in the Reconstruction of the Past, pp. 231 - 232Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992