Descartes held the following view of declarative memory: to remember is to reconstruct an idea that you intellectually recognize as a reconstruction. Descartes countenanced two overarching varieties of declarative memory. To have an intellectual memory is to intellectually reconstruct a universal idea that you recognize as a reconstruction, and to have a sensory memory is to neurophysiologically reconstruct a particular idea that you recognize as a reconstruction. Sensory remembering is thus a capacity of neither ghosts nor machines, but only of human beings qua mind-body unions. This interpretation unifies Descartes's various remarks (and conspicuous silences) about remembering, from the 1628 Rules for the Direction of the Mind through the suppressed-in-1633 Treatise of Man to the 1649 Passions of the Soul. It also rebuts a prevailing thesis in the current secondary literature—that Cartesian critters can remember—while incorporating the textual evidence for that thesis—Descartes's detailed descriptions of the corporeal mechanisms that construct sensory memories.
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Chapter
Petrescu, Lucian;
(2009)
Descartes and the Internal Senses. On Memory and Remembrance
(/isis/citation/CBB001021828/)
Thesis
Jorgensen, Larry M.;
(2007)
Continuity and Consciousness in Leibniz's Philosophy of Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB001561521/)
Book
Rossi, Paolo;
(2000)
Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language
(/isis/citation/CBB000101788/)
Article
Schäfer, Daniel;
(2003)
Gulliver Meets Descartes: Early Modern Concepts of Age-Related Memory Loss
(/isis/citation/CBB000340372/)
Thesis
Hwang, Joseph Wook;
(2008)
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Sensory Perception
(/isis/citation/CBB001561236/)
Book
Gaukroger, Stephen;
Schuster, John;
Sutton, John;
(2000)
Descartes' Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB000100216/)
Article
Paola Giacomoni;
(2018)
The Light of the Emotions: Passions and Emotions in Seventeenth-Century French Culture
(/isis/citation/CBB641156448/)
Book
Rosa, Raffaella De;
(2013)
Descartes and the Puzzle of Sensory Representation
(/isis/citation/CBB001553072/)
Chapter
Gouk, Penelope;
(2012)
Clockwork or Musical Instrument? Some English Theories of Mind-Body Interaction Before and After Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001201643/)
Article
Dougherty, M.V.;
(2005)
Descartes's Demonstration of the Impossibility of Error in the Apprehension of Simples
(/isis/citation/CBB000670373/)
Article
Gary Hatfield;
(2017)
Descartes: New Thoughts on the Senses
(/isis/citation/CBB088587028/)
Article
Federico Boccaccini;
Anna Marmodoro;
(2017)
Powers, Abilities and Skills in Early Modern Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB647362818/)
Book
Brady Wagoner;
(2017)
The Constructive Mind: Bartlett's Psychology in Reconstruction
(/isis/citation/CBB770758175/)
Article
Hansberger, Rotraud;
(2011)
Plotinus Arabus Rides Again
(/isis/citation/CBB001033815/)
Article
Grush, Rick;
(2003)
In Defense of Some “Cartesian” Assumptions Concerning the Brain and Its Operation
(/isis/citation/CBB000340564/)
Book
Sherman, Claire Richter;
(2001)
Writing on Hands: Memory and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB000100309/)
Book
Thomas Harrison;
A. Cevolini;
(2018)
The Ark of Studies
(/isis/citation/CBB315998866/)
Book
Sean Silver;
(2015)
The Mind Is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought
(/isis/citation/CBB683914404/)
Article
Jorgensena, Larry M.;
(2011)
Leibniz on Memory and Consciousness
(/isis/citation/CBB001211007/)
Chapter
Yeo, Richard;
(2010)
Memory and Empirical Information: Samuel Hartlib, John Beale and Robert Boyle
(/isis/citation/CBB001031892/)
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