Aristotle on Memory

Richard Sorabji, a noted philosopher in his own right, here offers a new edition of his 1972 translation of De Memoria here with commentary, summaries, and three essays comparing Aristotle’s accounts of memory and recollection. For this edition, Sorabji has also provided a substantial new introduction taking into account scholarly debates over the intervening thirty years, particularly those over the role of mental images in the imagination. 

“Sorabji has produced a first-class book on an important topic. All Aristotelians, and anyone with an interest in any aspect of memory, will be in his debt.”—Jonathan Barnes, Isis

“Anyone concerned with Aristotle’s psychology, theory of mind, or rhetoric, anyone interested in mnemonic systems, and anyone trying to work out for himself a theory of memory, should read Aristotle’s treatise On Memory, with the comments by Richard Sorabji.”—International Studies in Philosophy
 
“Sorabji’s book is a sample of care, intelligence, and subtlety that the Anglo-Saxon philosophers do not hesitate to invest in such enterprises. . . . The notes seem to leave no detail, no textual difficulty unilluminated.”—Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale

Richard Sorabji, a noted philosopher in his own right, here offers a new edition of his 1972 translation of De Memoria here with commentary, summaries, and three essays comparing Aristotle’s accounts of memory and recollection. For this edition, Sorabji has also provided a substantial new introduction taking into account scholarly debates over the intervening thirty years, particularly those over the role of mental images in the imagination. 

“Sorabji has produced a first-class book on an important topic. All Aristotelians, and anyone with an interest in any aspect of memory, will be in his debt.”—Jonathan Barnes, Isis

“Anyone concerned with Aristotle’s psychology, theory of mind, or rhetoric, anyone interested in mnemonic systems, and anyone trying to work out for himself a theory of memory, should read Aristotle’s treatise On Memory, with the comments by Richard Sorabji.”—International Studies in Philosophy
 
“Sorabji’s book is a sample of care, intelligence, and subtlety that the Anglo-Saxon philosophers do not hesitate to invest in such enterprises. . . . The notes seem to leave no detail, no textual difficulty unilluminated.”—Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale

Richard Sorabji is emeritus professor of philosophy at King’s College, London, and fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is the author of Time, Creation and the Continuum; Matter, Space, and Motion; Animal Minds and Human Morals; Emotion and Peace of Mind, and Self: Ancient and Modern Insights, the last forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press. He is also general editor of seventy volumes to date of The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, and coeditor of The Ethics of War: Shared Problems in Different Traditions.