Commentaries on Aristotle’s “On Sense and What Is Sensed” and “On Memory and Recollection”

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See White's trilingual Sentencia libri De sensu et sensato and Burchill, O.P.'s bilingual De memoria et reminiscentia (Ross 🇬🇷-🇺🇸 ed.).

p. 257 (PDF p. 268) n. 9 {on the famous De memoria et reminiscentia l. 6 n. 377 (p. 219, PDF p. 230) passage on Cicero/Tully's "method loci "} cites:

Magda B. Arnold, Memory and the Brain (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1984), especially chapters 9 and 10, finds Aquinas’s account congenial.

Though Magda Arnold doesn't explicitly mention "Aquinas's account" there, she does use the phrase "perennial philosophy".

452a13-17 (l. 6 nn. 378-81), Figures 6.1 & 6.2 (p. 220, PDF p. 231) illustrate a sort of (binary) search (or Porphyran?) tree from general (root) → specific (leaves). It seems to be a "search theory" of recollection/recognition (cf. Arnold, Memory and the Brain ref:14.5-8); cf. "What is the first historical reference to the binary search algorithm?" Though St. Thomas says parenthetically: "the universal, which is spoken of here is not the one which is spoken of in Logic; namely, that which is predicated of many things; but (it is) that from which one is wont to be moved to divers thing."

Macierowski also cites, as a secondary source (p. 264, PDF p. 275):

Ashley, Benedict[, O.P.]. “Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato and De memoria et reminiscentia as Thomistic Sources”. University of Notre Dame Thomistic Institute: July 14–21, 2000.

Macierowski's introduction, p. 175 (PDF p. 186) mentions Plato (and Greek mathematics) scholar Jacob Klein, A Commentary on Plato’s Meno pp. 111–12 (PDF pp. 119-20), in the context of μνήμη (memory) vs. ἀνάμνησις (recall); "This text is a philosophical commentary."

According to Gulley, Educational Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas PDF pp. 8, Plato in his Phædo (Jewett ref:22.1) seems to think we're not born a tabula rasa , we have innate ideas before birth, and that teachers do not produce knowledge but only remove obstacles to recall (75ε):

But if the knowledge which we acquired before birth was lost by us at birth, and if afterwards by the use of the senses we recovered what we previously knew, will not the process which we call learning be a recovering of the knowledge which is natural to us, and may not this be rightly termed recollection?

εἰ δέ γε οἶμαι λαβόντες πρὶν γενέσθαι γιγνόμενοι ἀπωλέσαμεν, ὕστερον δὲ ταῖς αἰσθήσεσι χρώμενοι περὶ αὐτὰ ἐκείνας ἀναλαμβάνομεν τὰς ἐπιστήμας ἅς ποτε καὶ πρὶν εἴχομεν, ἆρ᾽ οὐχ ὃ καλοῦμεν μανθάνειν οἰκείαν ἂν ἐπιστήμην ἀναλαμβάνειν εἴη; τοῦτο δέ που ἀναμιμνῄσκεσθαι λέγοντες ὀρθῶς ἂν λέγοιμεν;

Verb ἀναμιμνήσκω mentioned 13× in Plato, Phædo,mostly 72e-76c, and 11× in Meno.

Phædo 72ε: "learning is nothing else than recollection" ("μάθησις οὐκ ἄλλο τι ἢ ἀνάμνησις").

Meno (Deely ref:15.183): "spontaneous recovery of knowledge in him is recollection" ("τὸ δὲ ἀναλαμβάνειν αὐτὸν ἐν αὑτῷ ἐπιστήμην οὐκ ἀναμιμνῄσκεσθαί ἐστιν").

Meno mentions μνήμη 2×, and Phædo 0×.

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Prologue

11/30/25Prologue : 30

memory, which is able to know things past, belongs only to perfect animals, being something supreme in sensitive knowledge.

11/30/25Prologue : 31

wakefulness and sleep, which are found in all animals, but not in plants.

flowers close up at night..

11/30/25Prologue : 31

inhalation and exhalation, which are found in certain kinds of animals, namely all that have lungs.

plants respirate

Chapter 3

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when the alteration of the transparent caused by a visible body reaches a body that is not transparent, the alteration can go no further, but is somehow turned back, like a ball thrown at a wall and bounced back, and because of this rebound the form of the thing seen goes back in the opposite direction. Thus in a mirror one can see oneself, or even some other thing not directly presented to one’s sight.

law of reflection

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this event of the form of the thing seen appearing in the eye happens merely because of reflection, which is a bodily affection caused by the determinate disposition of a body.

had no idea of refraction?

12/18/25Chapter 3 : 52

He says that since Democritus held that vision is nothing but the above-mentioned appearance, it seems very inconsistent that the following difficulty did not occur to him: Why do other bodies in which forms— which he called “idols”—of visible things appear as in a mirror not see, but only the eye? From this it is clear that the above-mentioned appearing is not the whole essence (ratio) of vision, but that there is something else in the eye that causes vision, namely the power of sight.

refutation of materialist understanding of vision

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it is better for something to occur by means of fewer things than more.

Occam’s razor? In Wuellner’s book of principles?

Chapter 4

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the brain is coldest and moistest of all parts of the body.

really?

12/18/25Chapter 4 : 57

This movement should not be taken to be local movement,

so instantaneous action-at-a-distance?

12/18/25Chapter 4 : 59

the principle of sight is within, near the brain, where two nerves coming from the eyes meet.

visual cortex

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wounded around the temples in battle:

cortical lesions causing blindness

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non-necessary senses. Second with respect to the organs of the necessary senses,

which are which?

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hair, which contains even more earth.

earth = protein?

12/18/25Chapter 4 : 62

where the organ of taste and touch is based. He says that it is near the heart,

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those who have heads that are small in proportion to their other parts are impetuous, as if the heat from the heart were not being pushed back down enough by the brain. Conversely, those who have unusually big heads are very slow and dull, as if the heat from the heart were being impeded by the size of the brain.

interesting

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as other senses perceive through an external medium, touch and taste perceive through an internal medium, namely flesh.

12/18/25Chapter 4 : 63

the most painful wounds are those around the heart.

Chapter 5

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sight is the most spiritual of the senses.

not hearing?

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formal principle, light; and second on the material principle, the transparent,

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as the Philosopher says in On the Soul II, the visible is not color alone, but also something else, which is apprehended by reason but unnamed.6

cf. n. on p. 52

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the unlimited transparent

ether? plenum?

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the kind of reflection of light such as appears in the pigeon’s neck.

irradescent?

Chapter 6

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some intermediate colors are pleasant and some not, where he says So it must be the same as in harmonies (439b30).

color a frequency like sound

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as the Philosopher teaches in Metaphysics X, the notion (ratio) of measure is found first in numbers, and second in continuous quantities.3 From the latter it is transferred even to qualities, insofar as among them one quality can be more than another,

Oresme

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the proportion of three to two, which is called “sesquialteral,” is different from that of four to three, which is called “sesquitertial.”

12/19/25Chapter 6 : 75

one can find some in which one is more than another but they have no one common measure.

How? Is this why Oresme had to resort to analogies?

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there can be more and less among qualities either according to a numerical proportion or according to an incommensurable difference.

Chapter 7

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it is better to say that vision occurs by the medium being immediately, from the beginning, moved by the sensible object, than to say that vision occurs through contact and emanation:

instantaneous action-at-a-distance

Chapter 8

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Oil spreads out farther than water because of its stickiness;

oil more cohesive?

Chapter 9

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it cannot be that heat is the substantial form of fire, since it is an accident of other things.

pace phlogiston

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substantial form is perceived not by sense but by intellect, for “what something is” is the proper object of intellect, as is said in On the Soul III.7 Hence, since heat is something sensible per se, it cannot be the substantial form of a body.

pace phlogiston

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all feces of animals are quite bitter or salty.

Chapter 11

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Heraclitus thought that vapor is a principle of things.

12/22/25Chapter 11 : 112

dysanapneustic”— that is, difficult to inhale.

Chapter 12

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the brain is cool by nature. And the blood around it in narrow veins is fine and pure, but easily cooled. For this reason, fumes from food, when cooled because of the coolness of this region, cause rheumatic illnesses in human beings.

aromatherapy

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Thracius or Stratides, who, in criticism of another poet—namely Euripides, who devised very fastidiously prepared dishes—said: “When you cook lentils, you don’t pour on ointment”—that is, sweet-smelling perfume; as if to say: “You shouldn’t add anything sweet-smelling to your relish.”

pace chemical food engineers

12/22/25Chapter 12 : 117

blood contained in fine veins around the brain is easily cooled.

heat sink

12/22/25Chapter 12 : 117

vapors dissolved from food, rising upwards and being cooled because of the coolness of the region, sometimes become thick, which causes rheumatic illnesses in human beings.

hence need for blood thinners?

12/22/25Chapter 12 : 117

no other usefulness of such odor is apparent: for perception of such odors hardly serves intellect at all for investigating natures of things,

aromatherapy only use of odor?

Chapter 13

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the odorous is to health what flavor, in the nourishing part, is to nourishment.

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human beings suffering cold in the head from coal-smoke, because of its disorder, sometimes to the point of destruction;

but CO isn’t odorous

12/22/25Chapter 13 : 124

sight and hearing, perceive their remote objects through something else, that is, external media.

Does he distinguish this medium from air?

12/22/25Chapter 13 : 125

apprehended through external media; hence animals smell through air and water,

answers my prev question

Chapter 14

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diesis, which is the smallest unit in melody, being a distance between a tone and a semitone—

Chapter 15

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For what is moved is moved from something to something, and so there is necessarily a time in which it is moved from one to the other. But every length of time is divisible. Thus there was a time when the ray was not seen, but was still being brought in the medium.

finite light speed

12/23/25Chapter 15 : 139

this is universally true of every sense, that is, that it simultaneously senses and has sensed something.

12/23/25Chapter 15 : 140

just as the reconfiguration of letters makes it clear that sound reaches the sense of hearing by succession, although once it has reached hearing, it is heard all at once; so the incomplete vision of remote visible objects seems to indicate that color and light reach the sense of sight by succession, although they are seen all at once.

inconvincing argument for finite propagation speed

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sound reaches the sense of hearing through many successive movements of parts.

vibration thus causes propagation

Chapter 16

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CHAPTER 16

attention & multitasking

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whether it can happen that two sense simultaneously at the same indivisible point of time, or not?

He seems to doubt the sensus communis or common sensibles.

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it judges that a thing is numerically one by perceiving it all at

sensus communis

Chapter 17

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One is according to many and few, by which the proportion of double and the proportion of half are opposed: for the proportion of double is one of many to few, but the proportion of half is one of few to many. The other kind of opposition is according to even and odd, by which the double proportion and the sesquialteral proportion are opposed:

2 types of proportion. ∃ math term for the 2nd type?

Chapter 18

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there is necessarily some one part of the soul by which it senses everything,

sensus communis?

12/24/25Chapter 18 : 164

the seeings of the two eyes concur, by way of certain nerves, at an inner organ of sight that is near the brain,

ahead of his time?

12/24/25Chapter 18 : 166

the common sense is related to the proper senses and their operations in the way that one point is related to different lines that meet in it.

12/24/25Chapter 18 : 167

sense and intellect are similar.”

Chapter 2

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the common sense is the root of the imagination and the memory,

Hence, ∃ only 3 internal senses.

Chapter 3

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the case of Antipheron of Oreita and others affected by ecstasy; for they used to speak of images as facts and of themselves as remembering them.

mystical phenomena?

12/01/25Chapter 3 : 213

He gives the example of an animal that is painted on a tablet. It is both a painted animal17 and is also a likeness18 of a real19 animal.

cf. Poinsot‘s semiotic treatment in his summula / Tractatus de signis

12/01/25Chapter 3 : 214

believes that he is remembering but in fact does not.

How is this possible?

Chapter 4

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Hence memory is not engendered along with the affection that is being engendered.

how’s this follow?

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recollection is neither the recovery of a memory, in the sense that recollecting would be nothing but a repeated remembering;

cf. Greek and Latin words used here

Chapter 5

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recollection is nothing other than a search for something that has fallen from memory.4

search theory

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The “first” from which a recollector begins his search, however, is sometimes a time that is known and sometimes a thing that is known.

St. Thom‘s additional insight.

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it is rather a chance remembering with a certain resemblance to recollection.

cf. Latin here

Chapter 6

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solecism

?

12/02/25Chapter 6 : 231

the order is not the same in the recollecting, but we must take it that in thinking or speaking about B one may come to A; in thinking about A, however, sometimes one comes to T, sometimes to G; now from T one sometimes comes to D and sometimes to E; in thinking about G, on the other hand, sometimes one comes to I and sometimes to Z).

How is this constructed? Heap property?
Is this tree uniquely generated?

12/02/25Chapter 6 : 231

one must run back to A,

backtracing

Chapter 8

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melancholic temperament, since images move these persons most of all.

Why?

12/02/25Chapter 8 : 241

just as in the syllogism one arrives at a conclusion from some principles, so also in recollecting one syllogizes, in a way, that he has seen something before, or in some other manner perceived it, arriving at it from some starting point.

Notes

11/30/25Notes : 250

Albert the Great, De memoria I, 1 (p. 98a): “In the De anima we have established that it is impossible for the same organic power to receive well and to preserve well”

so memories are stored elsewhere than sensory cortex

11/30/25Notes : 251

27. Compare Aristotle, Pol. I, 9, 1259a10–12.

He mentions astrological predictions here?

11/30/25Notes : 251

pros hen equivocation

?

11/30/25Notes : 254

is impossible for the body to be the storehouse of the form; and it is impossible for the essence of the soul to be storehouse of the form, since its becoming the storehouse of the form would be tantamount to that form’s being understood and existing in the essence of the soul along with the consequent act of understanding.

viz., the soul would become e form and cease being a soul

11/30/25Notes : 255

Thomas, Quaestiones disputatae De anima, Q.2, arg.8 (Leonine ed., vol. 24.1, lines 57–60): “The Philosopher in II De anima says that just as the triangle is in the tetragon and the tetragon is in the pentagon, so the nutritive is in the sensitive and the sensitive in the intellective” (St. Thomas adds the expression in italics);

11/30/25Notes : 257

The storehouse of what the sense apprehends is the imaginative power, which is located in the frontal part of the brain .l.l. The storehouse of what apprehends the intention, however, is the preservative power, which is located in the rear part of the brain .l.l. this power is also called the memorative power.”

He localizes these powers.

12/01/25Notes : 262

Aquinas recognizes four internal senses, namely, the common sense, the imagination, the estimative (in humans replaced by the cogitative), and the memorative.

not 3?

12/01/25Notes : 262

a valuable historical survey of positions, see Harry A. Wolfson, “The Internal Senses in Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew Philosophic Texts,” Harvard Theological Review 28 (1935): 69–133; reprinted in his Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion edited by Isidore Twersky and George H. Williams (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 250–314.

did Barker cite?

12/01/25Notes : 263

Albert the Great,

12/01/25Notes : 264

search through memory for what has been forgotten).

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Albert the Great, De memoria II, 3 (p. 112a; Borgh. 134, f. 222 rb): “But it often happens that one who at first seeks and searches for something can in no way recollect it, but seeking later on he is able to find it and also does find it .l.l. and recollection comes into being.”

explains tip of tongue phenomenon

12/02/25Notes : 268

Morgenstern’s Commentatio de arte veterum mnemonica (Dorpat: I. C. Schünmann, 1835) is a 44-page collection of the ancient sources on the art of memory with appendices on later, mainly modern, authors;

12/02/25Notes : 268

A brief essay on “mnemonic techniques” by philosopher Richard Sorabji is found in his introduction to Aristotle on Memory (Providence, R.I.: Brown University Press, 1972), pp. 22–34.

12/02/25Notes : 268

Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript (Uppsala, 1961; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) discusses mnemonic techniques in Rabbinic Judaism on pp. 148–56.

12/02/25Notes : 268

J. Castonguay, O.P., Psychologie de la mémoire: Sources et Doctrine de la memoria chez saint Thomas d’Aquin (Montréal: Les editions du Lévrier, 2ème éd., 1964), and in the second part of Marcos F. Manzanedo, O.P., La imaginación y la memoria según Santo Tomás (Rome: Herder, 1978), pp. 275–382.

12/02/25Notes : 268

Alan Searleman and Douglas Herrmann’s informative Memory from a Broader Perspective (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994), working within the experimentalist paradigm of Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), p. 372, conclude: “Although technical mnemonics certainly work .l.l. , we do not generally recommend their use.”

Anki?

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Ebbinghaus (1850–1909),

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14. “the order of the Greek alphabet”: ABGDEZHQ with H and Q being transliterated by I and T. Students who use the technique of “conceptual mapping” may find this diagram in Aquinas familiar; others may consult, e.g., The World Book Learning Library, vol. 3: Memory Skills (Chicago, 1986), p. 79, where a triple-branched figure similar to our Figure 1 is introduced as an elementary study technique called a “cue tree.” See the plates accompanying John B. Friedman’s article “Les images mnémotechniques dans les manuscripts de l’époque gothique,” in Jeux de mémoire: Aspects de la mnémotechnie médiévale, ed. Bruno Roy and Paul Zumthor (Montréal: U. Pr.; Paris: J. Vrin, 1985), pp. 169–84.

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cue tree.”

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Albrecht Dührer’s famous wood-cut of Melancholia,