In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

CHAPTER 6 452A4–B6 452a4 Recollecting also differs from relearning in this: that one will be able somehow to be moved to what is after the starting point; but when not, but through something else, one no longer remembers. 452a7 Often, however, one cannot any longer recollect but can seek and does find. This, however, comes about for one who is moving many things, if he should be moving with the sort of motion as that upon which the thing follows. For remembering is to be a moving potency within; and this is so in such a way that one is being moved from himself and the motions by which he is held, as has been said. 452a12 A beginning-point, however, must have been taken. 452a12bis For which reason they sometimes seem to recollect from places. 452a13 The cause of this is that they come quickly from one thing to another, as from milk to white, from white to air, and from the latter to the moist—from which one remembers autumn while seeking this season. 452a17 A universal, moreover, seems to be the beginning-point and the middle of them all. For if one does not do so before, when he gets to this point, he will recollect, or he will not do so from anywhere else, either. Thus, if someone should have understood something in which there are A B G D E Z I T: for if one does not recollect at E, he remembers at T; for from there one can be moved to both— both to D and to E. But if one is not seeking one of these, one will recollect on coming to G, if one is looking for I or Z; and if not, he will go on to A, and so on always . 452a24 The cause of one’s sometimes remembering from the same and sometimes not remembering is that one happens to have been moved from the same starting-point to many places, as, for example, from G to E or to D. Hence, if one is not being moved through the old one, he is being moved in a more uncustomary way: for custom already serves as nature. Hence we quickly recollect things that we have frequently understood. For, just as this thing is by nature after this one, so too does action make a nature by doing this many times. 452a30 But since just as in things that exist by nature there comes to be what 216 is both outside nature and also by chance, still more is this the case in those that exist by custom, in the latter of which nature does not exist in the same way whereby sometimes to be moved both there and in one way and in another, and when he is drawn hence in any case; and for this reason when one needs to recollect a name we commit a solecism dissimilar to the one we know against it. Commentary 452a4 After the Philosopher shows how recollecting takes place, here he explains two points that were touched upon above.1 In the first place, he shows how recollecting differs from relearning. Second2 he shows that one who recollects must begin from startingpoints , where he says A beginning-point (452a12). With respect to the first topic he does two things. First he shows how recollecting differs from relearning. Second3 he shows how recollecting differs from rediscovering, where he says Often, however, one cannot any longer recollect (452a7). With respect to the first point, we must bear in mind that both he who recollects and also he who relearns recover a notion that they lost; but the one who recollects recovers it under the aspect of memory, i.e. in a relation ordered to something that had been known before, whereas the one who relearns it, recovers the notion absolutely, i.e. not as pertaining to something previously known. Now since we do not arrive at a notion of things unknown except from previously known principles , the principles from which we proceed to know anything unknown must belong to the same genus, as is clear from the Posterior Analytics.4 Hence he who is recollecting necessarily proceeds to recover the notion under the aspect of memory from starting-points that have been remembered , but this is not the case with one who is relearning something . Accordingly he says that recollecting differs from relearning in this: that he who is recollecting has the...

Share