SPACE, TIME AND PHANTASMS IN ARISTOTLE, DE MEMORIA 2, 452B7-25.

For whenever one actually remembers he always says in his soul that he heard or saw or thought this before. (De Memoria 1 449b22-3)

Aristotle thinks that in order to remember, (1) one must be cognizant of a phantasma used as a copy of that of which it is a phantasma, and (2) one must be cognizant of the time at which the original (i.e. now remembered) experience occurred (449b22-3, 450b25-451 a8). In De Memoria 1, he uses the first half, (1), of this schematic account in order to explain certain kinds of mis-rememberings. For instance, he says that mad people sometimes conjure up fantastic images and take them to be memories of past experience; such episodes are mis-remembering, because these people use that which is not a copy as if it were a copy (451a8-11). In De Memoria 2, Aristotle returns to the topic of mis-remembering (although it may now be more accurate to call it mis-recollecting(1)) and here he uses the second half, (2), of his schematic account, together with the first, in order to explain additional sorts of mistakes. He claims that we sometimes recall the image of an event and properly use it as a copy, but we get the time wrong (thinking, for example, that an event occurred a week ago, when actually it occurred yesterday), and thus we fail to remember; further, he claims that we sometimes get the time right, but fail to use an image as a copy of the events which occurred during that time. In each case we fail to remember; for in order to remember we must both use an appropriate copy as a copy and (more or less) accurately cognize the time (452b27-9).

In De Memoria 1, Aristotle discusses the mechanisms involved in remembering. Here his focus is on the first half of the schematic account: in remembering we employ phantasmata which are bodily marks (tupoi) that are carved in the matter of the heart or proton aisthetikon.(2) Each mark is a sort of picture which represents items such as geometrical figures and particular persons, such as Coriscus (450a1-2, a29-30; 450b29-451a2). With the (re-)introduction of the second half of the schematic account in De Memoria 2, Aristotle claims that, in remembering, we not only employ `the change connected with the thing', we also employ `the change connected with the time' (4526234). Thus, in addition to the type of phantasma described as a sort of picture in De Memoria 1 (which he now terms a `change connected with the thing'), he emphasizes the role of a second type: a change connected with the time. I will call phantasmata of the former type (like the mark which stands for Coriscus) event-signatures, and those of the latter type (like the mark which stands for a-week-ago) time-signatures.(3) The De Memoria 2 account of time-signatures will be my primary interest in this essay.

Here Aristotle uses letters of the alphabet which no doubt refer to points on a diagram. The diagram itself does not appear in any manuscript (strictly, not one of Aristotle's diagrams is preserved within the manuscript tradition), but it has been masterfully reconstructed by J. L. Beare and W. D. Ross, working independently.(4) Since this reconstruction was first proposed, no fewer than four interpretations of the role of the diagram have appeared in print.(5) I shall argue that not one of these interpretations proves to be adequate and I shall offer a new interpretation.

For the purposes of commentary, I divide the Greek text into three sections,(6) provide an English translation and append the diagram (Figure 1) below.

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[[sections]A] (452b7-15)

[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

[[sections]B] (452b15-22)

[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

[[sections]C] (452b23-5)

[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

[[sections]A] The most important point is that one must know the time, either by a measure or indefinitely. Suppose there is something by which one judges more and less . Probably as magnitudes. For one discerns things that are large and distant [[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] not by extending one's thought there, as some have said of sight (for even if they do not exist they can be thought of in the same way), but by virtue of an analogous change. For in thought there are similar shapes and changes. In what way then will thought differ when it discerns large things, rather than(7) when it discerns smaller ones? For all the inner things are smaller things and analogous to those without.

[[sections]B] Perhaps [[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]] just as it is possible in the case of forms [[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]](8) to grasp something different but analogous in oneself, so is this possible in the case of distances [[GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]]. It is just as if someone undergoes the change AB BE, and then he produces [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. Since A[Gamma] and [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] are analogous . So why does he construct [GREEK TEXT NOT …