Arianna Castelli, M.A.

PhD project

Title: "Memory in Aristotle and Hellenistic Epistemologies".

Ancient philosophers recognized that achieving true knowledge depends on our ability to remember past experiences and draw inferences from stored mental contents. My project aims to investigate the role of memory in Hellenistic epistemologies and its interaction with the notions of "perception" and "reason" in reaching knowledge. Memory is closely tied to both perception, as memory contents rely on previous perceptual experience, and to reason, as the stored material undergoes rational processing, leading to the formation of "concepts". These connections are evident in Epicureanism and Stoicism's epistemological systems, where memory is integral to defining criteria of truth and describing the procedure for discerning truth and falsehood.

This analysis primarily focuses on the epistemological perspective of ancient views on memory, while also acknowledging its physiological aspects. The project is grounded in Aristotle’s De memoria et reminiscentia, the first scientific treatise on memory and recollection.