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Document Details :

Title: The Art of Memory
Subtitle: Notes on a Lost Architecture
Author(s): DODD, James
Journal: Etudes phénoménologiques - Phenomenological Studies
Volume: 6    Date: 2022   
Pages: 97-123
DOI: 10.2143/EPH.6.0.3289794

Abstract :
Is Augustine’s famous architectural descriptions of memory in the Confessions as a 'storehouse' or a 'palace' more than the use of a suggestive metaphor? Tracking the origin of Augustine’s descriptions to the ancient art of memory and its role in the rhetorical traditions of Greece and Rome, this essay suggests that entertaining the idea that there may have been a literal 'architecture of memory' finds significant support in these ancient practices. The essay then draws on the analyses of memory, image-consciousness, and imagination in Edmund Husserl’s writings, in order to provide a phenomenological account of the cogency of the idea.

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