Abstract

:Beginning with an outline of memory and recollection in Plato and Aristotle, this paper argues that establishing the role of memory and recollection in their mutual relation in Plotinus requires a careful reconstruction. Whereas memory for Plotinus is not a storage of images or imprints that come either from the sensible or the intelligible but rather is a power capable of producing memories, recollection takes the form of a discursive rational rethinking and reproduction of the soul’s experience of the noetic objects. Recollection, then, is a triple motion of the descent, stay, and return of the soul to the intelligible.