← Excerpt
Memory's Self-Paradox
Augustine of Hippo
Confessions

The author explores the paradox of memory, questioning how the mind can contain and identify the concept of forgetfulness without contradicting its own function.

...orgetfulness when we remember it, is not present to the memory by itself but by its image: because if it were present by itself, it would not cause us to remember, but to forget. Who now shall search out this? who shall comprehend how it is? Lord, I, truly, toil therein, yea and toil in myself; I am become a heavy soil requiring over much sweat of the brow. For we are not now searching out the regions of heaven, or measuring the distances of the stars, or enquiring the balancings of the earth.
It is I myself who remember, I the mind. It is not so wonderful, if what I myself am not, be far from me. But what is nearer to me than myself? And lo, the force of mine own memory is not understood by me; though I cannot so much as name myself without it. For what shall I say, when it is clear to me that I remember forgetfulness? Shall I say that that is not in my memory, which I remember? or shall I say that forgetfulness is for this purpose in my memory, that I might not forget? Both were most absurd.
What third way is there? How can I say that the image of forgetfulness is retained by my memory, not forgetfulness itself, when I remember it? How could I say this either, seeing that when the image of any thing is impressed on the memory, the thing itself must needs be first present, whence that image may be impressed? For thus do I remember Carthage, thus all places where I have been, thus men's faces whom I have seen, and things reported by the other senses; thus the health or sickness of th...
6

Augustine of Hippo

Confessions

Memory of Forgetfulness

This excerpt directly continues Augustine's exploration of the paradox of remembering forgetfulness, using the same intricate reasoning about how memory contains both memory and forgetfulness, thus extending the parent's theme.

...s image, but the image itself is present to me, calling it to mind. I name memory, and I recognise what I name. And where do I recognise it, but in the memory itself? Is it also present to itself by its image, and not by itself? What, when I name forgetfulness, and withal recognise what I name? whence should I recognise it, did I not remember it? I speak not of the sound of the name, but of the thing which it signifies: which if I had forgotten, I could not recognise what that sound signifies.
When then I remember memory, memory itself is, through itself, present with itself: but when I remember forgetfulness, there are present both memory and forgetfulness; memory whereby I remember, forgetfulness which I remember. But what is forgetfulness, but the privation of memory? How then is it present that I remember it, since when present I cannot remember? But if what we remember we hold it in memory, yet, unless we did remember forgetfulness, we could never at the hearing of the name recognise the thing thereby signified, then forgetfulness is retained by memory. Present then it is, that...
Who now shall search out this? who shall comprehend how it is? Lord, I, truly, toil therein, yea and toil in myself; I am become a heavy soil requiring over much sweat of the brow. For we are not now searching out the regions of heaven, or measuring the distances of the stars, or enquiring the balancings of the earth. It is I myself who remember, I the mind. It is not so wonderful, if what I myself am not, be far from me. But what is nearer to me than myself? And lo, the force of mine own memo...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

Pride's Memory Conquest

Nietzsche presents memory as yielding to pride, suggesting that memory is unreliable and malleable, which challenges Augustine's introspective trust in memory as a means to self-knowledge.

...rality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. 65. The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has to be overcome on the way to it. 65A. We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not PERMITTED to sin. 66. The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed, deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men. 67. Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense of all others. Love to God also! 68.
"I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually--the memory yields.
69. One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand that--kills with leniency. 70. If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs. 71. THE SAGE AS ASTRONOMER.--So long as thou feelest the stars as an "above thee," thou lackest the eye of the discerning one. 72. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men. 73. He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. 73A. Many a peacock hides his tai...

Augustine of Hippo

Confessions

Memory of Forgetting

Augustine offers a mechanistic explanation for how forgetfulness can be remembered: it is retained in memory through its image, even though its presence would normally efface memory, addressing the 'how' of the parent's paradox.

...image of any thing is impressed on the memory, the thing itself must needs be first present, whence that image may be impressed? For thus do I remember Carthage, thus all places where I have been, thus men's faces whom I have seen, and things reported by the other senses; thus the health or sickness of the body. For when these things were present, my memory received from them images, which being present with me, I might look on and bring back in my mind, when I remembered them in their absence.
If then this forgetfulness is retained in the memory through its image, not through itself, then plainly itself was once present, that its image might be taken. But when it was present, how did it write its image in the memory, seeing that forgetfulness by its presence effaces even what it finds already noted? And yet, in whatever way, although that way be past conceiving and explaining, yet certain am I that I remember forgetfulness itself also, whereby what we remember is effaced.
Great is the power of memory, a fearful thing, O my God, a deep and boundless manifoldness; and this thing is the mind, and this am I myself. What am I then, O my God? What nature am I? A life various and manifold, and exceeding immense. Behold in the plains, and caves, and caverns of my memory, innumerable and innumerably full of innumerable kinds of things, either through images, as all bodies; or by actual presence, as the arts; or by certain notions or impressions, as the affections of the...

Blaise Pascal

Pensees

Mind-Body Paradox

Pascal shifts the discussion from the specifics of memory to the broader, more fundamental mystery of the mind-body union, suggesting that this is the true enigma of human existence.

...y from destruction, that they fear the void, that they have inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, all of which attributes pertain only to mind. And in speaking of minds, they consider them as in a place, and attribute to them movement from one place to another; and these are qualities which belong only to bodies. Instead of receiving the ideas of these things in their purity, we colour them with our own qualities, and stamp with our composite being all the simple things which we contemplate.
Who would not think, seeing us compose all things of mind and body, but that this mixture would be quite intelligible to us? Yet it is the very thing we least understand. Man is to himself the most wonderful object in nature; for he cannot conceive what the body is, still less what the mind is, and least of all how a body should be united to a mind. This is the consummation of his difficulties, and yet it is his very being.
Modus quo corporibus adhærent spiritus comprehendi ab hominibus non potest, et hoc tamen homo est.[35] Finally, to complete the proof of our weakness, I shall conclude with these two considerations.... 73 [But perhaps this subject goes beyond the capacity of reason. Let us therefore examine her solutions to problems within her powers. If there be anything to which her own interest must have made her apply herself most seriously, it is the inquiry into her own sovereign good. Let us see, th...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Beyond Good and Evil

Distrust of Self

Nietzsche expresses a profound distrust in the very possibility of self-knowledge, questioning whether we can ever settle questions about the self through introspection, which meta-questions the parent's endeavor.

...st thou! But give me, I pray thee---" What? what? Speak out! "Another mask! A second mask!" 279. Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will flee from them! 280. "Bad! Bad! What? Does he not--go back?" Yes! But you misunderstand him when you complain about it. He goes back like every one who is about to make a great spring. 281.--
"Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always without delight in 'the subject,' ready to digress from 'myself,' and always without faith in the result, owing to an unconquerable distrust of the POSSIBILITY of self-knowledge, which has led me so far as to feel a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO even in the idea of 'direct knowledge' which theorists allow themselves:--this matter of fact is almost the most certain thing I know about myself. There must be a s...
--Perhaps it betrays the species to which I belong?--but not to myself, as is sufficiently agreeable to me." 282.--"But what has happened to you?"--"I do not know," he said, hesitatingly; "perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table."--It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes suddenly mad, breaks the plates, upsets the table, shrieks, raves, and shocks everybody--and finally withdraws, ashamed, and raging at himself--whither? for what purpose? To famish apart? T...

Blaise Pascal

Pensees

Forgetting as Instruction

Pascal offers practical guidance: embrace forgetfulness as a reminder of human weakness and strive to know one's nothingness, turning the paradox into a lesson in humility.

...of the spirits which enter into the pores touches other nerves, but there are always some nerves touched. 369 Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason. 370 [Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them. A thought has escaped me. I wanted to write it down. I write instead, that it has escaped me.] 371 [When I was small, I hugged my book; and because it sometimes happened to me to ... in believing I hugged it, I doubted....] 372
In writing down my thought, it sometimes escapes me; but this makes me remember my weakness, that I constantly forget. This is as instructive to me as my forgotten thought; for I strive only to know my nothingness.
373 Scepticism.--I shall here write my thoughts without order, and not perhaps in unintentional confusion; that is true order, which will always indicate my object by its very disorder. I should do too much honour to my subject, if I treated it with order, since I want to show that it is incapable of it. 374 What astonishes me most is to see that all the world is not astonished at its own weakness. Men act seriously, and each follows his own mode of life, not because it is in fact good...