Aristotle: On Memory and Reminiscence - review

A rather strange but courageous (considering when it was written) rumination on the nature of memory and recollection. Some of Aristotle’s points lack the clarity that’s usually attributed to him (like in his Poetics, for example), but overall it’s a work worth considering and reading.

The main point I took is that he sees remembering and recollecting as two different faculties, even if they are related. He considers “slow” people to be better at remembering, while “quick-witted and clever” people are better at recollecting. I don’t necessarily agree with this but here’s what he thinks:

“For the persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people have a good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better at recollecting.”

And this is what he thinks about remembering:

“For whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must say within himself, ‘I formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,’ or ‘I formerly had this thought’. Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time.”

Therefore, he says that memory implies a time elapsed, and that “only those animals which perceive time remember”. This seems clear enough, it’s intuitive and I can’t really argue against it.

The word “perception” is key here, because he goes on further explaining that memory isn’t just an intellectual activity, but one that also involves perception:

“Accordingly, memory (not merely of sensible, but) even of intellectual objects involves a presentation: hence we may conclude that it belongs to the faculty of intelligence only incidentally, while directly and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception.”

Thus he concludes that certain animals have memory:

“Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion or intelligence, but also certain other animals, possess memory.”

If this sounds like common sense now, you have to consider that this was written in the 4th century BC—which is way before we had any form of advanced sciences like neurology and brain scans; it was all done through observation by Aristotle, which is a great feat in my opinion.

But what I find more fascinating is his idea of “perception stamps”, as in stronger and weaker memories, and how he made analogies with stamps being sealed on “moist surfaces” vs “hard surfaces”—it’s such a simple analogy but one that works very well in this case:

“The process of movement (sensory stimulation) involved the act of perception stamps in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an impression with a seal. This explains why, in those who are strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no mnemonic impression is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens to (the stucco on) old (chamber) walls, or owing to the hardness of the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all. Hence both very young and very old persons are defective in memory; they are in a state of flux, the former because of their growth, the latter, owing to their decay. In like manner, also, both those who are too quick and those who are too slow have bad memories. The former are too soft, the latter too hard (in the texture of their receiving organs), so that in the case of the former the presented image (though imprinted) does not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.”

To summarize his idea of memory (or remembering), he thinks that “it is the state of a presentation, related as a likeness to that of which it is a presentation; and as to the question of which of the faculties within us memory is a function, (it has been shown) that it is a function of the primary faculty of sense-perception, i.e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.”

In other words, memory is mostly about perception, and it is an activity which will not be immanent until the original experience has undergone lapse of time. And if we take into consideration his idea of “perception stamps” and weaker and stronger memories, this suggests that more often than not what we remember is an altered version of the original event. In other words, our memories aren’t very reliable. That’s a fascinating insight coming thousands of years ago, because it was confirmed by the modern term of “false memory syndrome”, in which certain patients where creating memories of trauma which where factually incorrect because of some shady psychoanalysis and hypnosis done in the 1980’s in US.

Now when it comes to his definition of “recollection”, this is where it gets a bit muddy and unclear.

The way I understand it, he sees recollection as a more of an intellectual activity, one in which you sort through your already “implanted” memories in a deliberate way by investigating. Thus it results that only man has the ability to recollect, because it requires investigation, which is deliberate, which requires intellect:

“It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not identical with those who are quick at recollecting. But the act of recollecting differs from that of remembering, not only chronologically, but also in this, that many also of the other animals (as well as man) have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted with, none, we venture to say, except man, shares in the faculty of recollection.”

I see what he’s saying, but I still don’t see a big difference between remembering and recollecting. Even if there is a difference, it seems too subjective to be taken seriously. It seems like a matter of perception, ironically enough. Recollecting sounds like a more strenuous type of remembering, one that requires more time and effort, but at its core I see it as the same activity, just with different levels of details involved. Recollection is like figuring out how to build a bridge to your destination, Remembering is just seeing the bridge that’s already built.

When we ask “do you remember this?” we usually mean something that is singular and isolated, something that can be explained in a simple way, without too many details; like “yes, I remember going to that restaurant”. While when we ask “can you recollect what you did on that day?”, it requires more deliberation and more details, just judging by the difference in the definition of words, but at its core I see it as the same activity, the same mental faculties are involved. In this sense, yes, it seems like animals wouldn’t be able to “recollect” their memories in a deliberate way, but who is to say that they don’t remember certain details unconsciously—details that would be considered to be “recollected”. I’m not sure about this, I don’t think Aristotle is clear enough, although I do admire his attempts to explain it.

Also, a rather bizzare sounding idea that Aristotle had is that bad memories are caused by too much movement inside the body, hence why infants and old people have bad memories—the former are always growing, while the old are decaying faster:

“Infants and very old persons have bad memories, owing to the amount of movement going on within them; for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the former in process of vigorous growth; and we may add that children, until considerably advanced in years, are dwarf-like in their bodily structure.”

It sounds strange but intuitively it does make some sense. Young undeveloped bodies and brains are too plastic to retain anything long-term, they can’t have lasting “perception stamps”, while the old decaying bodies have more chance of having Alzheimer’s and dementia, which are diseases of a decaying brain, essentially.

This short work of Aristotle’s may seem incomplete and not very scientific, but if you put it into context—how long ago it was written and how little information on memory was back then—his attempt is still impressive and it containts insightful theories about our memory.

Rating: 3/5