Aquinas on the Intentionality of Memory
摘要
Memory is as intentional as perception, imagination, and other forms of cognition. But what is it about? Aquinas mentions two types of objects: sensory memory is about earlier perceived particulars, whereas intellectual memory is about earlier apprehended universals. Commentators therefore often understand him as postulating two separate memories, each of them dealing with its own object. The paper challenges this interpretation and argues that Aquinas takes human memory to be unified: it is about a single object and makes it present both under a particular and a universal aspect. The paper spells out this double aspect theory by showing (i) how an earlier acquired and reactivated sensory representation makes memory of the particular aspect possible and (ii) how a reactivated concept categorizes an object, thereby revealing its universal aspect. Full-fledged human memory involves the simultaneous use of a sensory representation and a concept and therefore captures both aspects. There can be forms of memory that lack the sensory or the conceptual aspect, as the paper shows, but they are forms of deficient memory.