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Full Idea
The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part?
Gist of Idea
Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind
Source
Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
Book Ref
Augustine: 'Confessions', ed/tr. Pine-Coffin,R.S. [Penguin 1961], p.216
A Reaction
He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind.
| 1735 | In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle] |
| 22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
| 22164 | When Dasein grasps something it exists externally alongside the thing [Heidegger] |
| 12602 | There is no natural border between inner and outer [Harman] |
| 12603 | We can only describe mental attitudes in relation to the external world [Harman] |
| 8126 | Anti-individualism says the environment is involved in the individuation of some mental states [Burge] |
| 8127 | Broad concepts suggest an extension of the mind into the environment (less computer-like) [Burge] |
| 6176 | A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands] |
| 19741 | If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers] |
| 19742 | Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers] |
| 6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
| 6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |