Aristotle on Memory and Recollection

Bloch (philosophy, U. of Copenhagen) provides a new critical edition of Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia, and in doing so also provides new insights into some of the most basic concepts in Aristotelian philosophical methodology. He offers a new English translation with commentary on textual matters, an essay on Aristotle's theories of memory and recollection from the text, and an essay of the tradition of the Aristotelian theories with emphasis on the Latin medieval tradition. As he works through the translation and essays he makes a solid case that previous editions did not work at his own high degree of precision; this precision avoids forcing scholars to make decisions about variant readings without a completely solid foundation of evidence. Bloch's essay on the ways in which our understanding of memory differ from those of Aristotle is particularly exciting and should be widely read. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

David Bloch, Ph.D. (2006), University of Copenhagen, is a research fellow at the University of Copenhagen. He has published a monograph (in Danish) on Aristotle's De Generatione et Corruptione and a number of articles on both philosophical and philological subjects.