INTRODUCTION

Memory cannot be treated separately from a more inclusive theory of knowing. There appears to be a tendency in some but not all modern discussions to try to extract remembering from other operations of mind. Personally, I do not believe this should be pursued if we are ever to give a satisfactory account of what memory is for us and how it works. At any rate, it must by now be clear that ancient and medieval theories of memory are intricately linked to an epistemology. And we now are in a position to discuss one of the most sophisticated theories of knowing and remembering to have emerged from the medieval concern to describe how man uses language to understand both the present and the past: that of Peter Abelard. Even if the ancients and medievals located memory in one of the temporal lobes of the brain (the medieval version of Penfield's experiments), its function could not be dealt with meaningfully without informing memory with reason. Perhaps what is most startling in the writings of Abelard is his ability to elucidate knowing and remembering primarily by means of an analysis of the logic of language and how it works. Meaning is generated by the mind's activities through the use of signs or universals, be they images, words or ideas. Mind's present active attention enables us to consider the past through words and images, so that the past is given meaning, without which attention it has none.