An Historical Sketch of the Conceptions of Memory among the Ancients

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William Henry Burnham. An Historical Sketch of the Conceptions of Memory among the Ancients

An Historical Sketch of the Conceptions of Memory among the Ancients

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Biographical Note of the Author

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William Henry Burnham

Published by Good Press, 2019

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In Plato we find a more modern psychology. According to him the thinking power of the mind, the understanding, is above the mere power of sense perceptions. It is this power which compares and considers, notes similarities and contrasts, unity and plurality, and forms ideas of relation between Being and Non-Being as well as relations of number and proportions. Among the elements of this power, recollection (ἀνάμνησις) is of prime importance. This rests upon the association by similarity and simultaneity.[4]

Plato distinguishes the passive retention (μνήμη) of perceptions from active memory (ἀνάμνησις),[5] and suggests as a definition of memory, “the power which the soul has of recovering, when by itself, some feeling which it experienced when in company with the body.” He attempts no explanation of memory of memory; but in the Theaetetus puts the following words into the mouth of Socrates:

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