Memory, self-examination, and time › Why memory is larger than a collection of pictures

Book X asks what Augustine is at the time of writing, rather than merely what he once was (X.3). Memory becomes a route into that question. He describes entering its roomy chambers and encountering images supplied through the senses (X.8). Some recollections arrive readily; others require searching; still others appear when he is seeking something else.

The image of chambers helps describe retrieval, but it should not be mistaken for an anatomical model. Augustine is reflecting on what remembering is like and on the kinds of things available through it. He has not established that memories occupy literal rooms or that each recollection remains unchanged until summoned.

His investigation also exceeds sensory images. In X.9-12, he distinguishes remembering learned matters from remembering the sounds of the words through which he learned them. Remembering a geometrical or numerical relation cannot be explained merely by retrieving the sound of a sentence. The distinction invites us to ask what it is to retain an understanding, as opposed to retaining an image associated with it.

Remembering an emotion raises another difficulty. Augustine observes that he can remember having been joyful without now being joyful, or remember sadness without presently feeling sad (X.14). The remembered condition and the act of remembering it are distinguishable. This helps explain how reflection on an earlier desire can differ from undergoing that desire again.

These examples complicate the simple claim that memory reproduces the past. What becomes available in recollection can include an image, an intelligible relation, or an earlier feeling considered from a changed standpoint. Augustine explores these differences without supplying a modern theory of memory storage or experimental evidence about its mechanisms.