Memory, self-examination, and time › Remembering forgetting

The discussion becomes especially difficult when Augustine asks how he remembers forgetfulness (X.16). If forgetting means losing something from memory, how can forgetting itself be present in memory? If it were wholly absent, he could not recognize what the word names. If forgetfulness itself were present in the same way as its effect, it would seem to destroy the remembering that makes the inquiry possible.

One possible response is that he remembers an image of forgetfulness. Augustine presses that suggestion too: what would the image represent, and how would its object first have become available? He does not resolve the difficulty by simply asserting that everything has an internal picture. The passage displays the limits of the storehouse metaphor that initially seemed so helpful.

A related problem concerns searching. If you have forgotten a name but recognize it when it is suggested, something about what you seek has remained available (X.19). Complete absence and partial failure to retrieve are different possibilities. Recognition itself needs explaining; merely saying that a forgotten item is somewhere in memory does not finish the explanation.

The result is a restrained account of self-knowledge. The capacity Augustine investigates belongs to him, yet he cannot fully comprehend its power (X.16.25). Introspection gives access to something that remains puzzling. Turning inward therefore does not guarantee complete transparency to oneself, and the book's self-examination should not be read as a claim to such transparency.