'memory also of intelligibles', he says, 'does not occur without a phantasia' (450a 12-13). This makes acts of phantasia necessary for remembering intelligibles. Aristotle seems to think, however, that it also establishes that remembering in general belongs in its own right (καθ' αcτ) to the perceptual part of the soul, in so far as it is respons-ible for phantasia, and at best incidentally to the intellect (450a 13-14). In any case, Aristotle plainly does hold that remembering in general belongs in its own right to the perceptual part of the soul, and incidentally to the intellect. He also holds, relatedly, that the proper objects of memory are, as he puts it, things of which there is phantasia³²-by which, I take it, he means things that phantasia can represent.³³ Things that cannot be grasped without phantasia, he adds, are incidental objects of memory. In the context, it is clear that the latter items are meant to be intelligibles. They cannot themselves be represented by the sensory affections that constitute phantasiai, but their grasp by the intellect requires appropriate acts of phantasia. 160 Phantasia and Non-Rational Desire in Aristotle ³⁰ This is because they are in themselves simply exercises of sensory capacities. They belong to the perceptual part of the soul, after all. Only acts of the intellect can provide cognitive contact with intelligibles. ³¹ Cf. De Memoria 1, 450a 4-5: κα νοω˜ν *σαjτω, κn' ν µy ποσ-ν νο2, τgθ,ται πρ 7µµbτων ποσ-ν ('in the same way a person who is thinking, even if he is not thinking of something with a size, places something with a size before his eyes'). ³² 450a 23-5: Rστι µνηµον,υτn καθ' αcτn µPν K˜ν Rστι αντασgα, κατn συµβ,βηκ δP σα µy hν,υ αντασgα ('things of which there is phantasia are objects of memory in their own right; things which are not grasped without phantasia are incidental objects of memory'). ³³ I should perhaps note that in writing of phantasia being able or unable to represent something or other, I am meaning to convey the idea that it is able or unable to provide cognitive contact with the item in question, the way sight, for instance, is able to provide cognitive contact with colours but not with flavours. What Aristotle appears to have in mind, then, is something like this. It is after all possible to remember intelligibles, such as, for instance, what it is to be a human being. Intelligibles, however, are not remembered in their own right. Remembering intelligibles is always parasitic on remembering things that are remembered in their own right, and these are things that are represented by phantasia. If this is Aristotle's view, as it seems to be, he will say that what actually happens whenever someone remembers an intelligible object is that he or she in the first place remembers something that is represented by phantasia, and that memory happens to be accompanied by an act of the intellect that is the thought of the object in question, perhaps in that this act of the intellect is prompted by the relevant exercise of phantasia. The upshot is that things that can be represented by phantasia can be remembered directly and immediately, whereas intelligibles can only be remembered indirectly, in a way that is mediated by remembering things that are represented by phantasia. If that is Aristotle's picture, this makes at least some sense of his view that intelligibles are incidental objects of memory, and that remembering belongs to the intellect incidentally. For on that picture remember-ing intelligibles will always accompany, and depend on, remembering things that are represented by phantasia, and such acts of the intellect as may be involved in remembering will always accompany, and depend on, appropriate acts of phantasia.
— Hendrik Lorenz
Aristotle is not being modest here — he is being precise about something that costs him something. Memory, even of the highest objects, does not belong to the intellect in its own right. The intellect grasps intelligibles directly, but it cannot hold them in time without help from the perceptual soul, without *phantasia*, without the image-making capacity that is irreducibly bodily and sensory. You can think the universal now; you cannot remember it except through some image that accompanied the thinking, some size placed before the inner eye, as the *De Memoria* passage has it. The intelligible rides into recollection on the back of something seen or felt.
This is a quiet demolition of the fantasy that understanding can float free of flesh. Plato's move was to locate the real at a remove from sensation, to treat memory as anamnesis — the soul's recollection of what it knew before embodiment. Aristotle pulls that ladder down. Whatever the soul knows of the eternal, it must remember through images, which means through a body that was present somewhere, that was touched by the world. There is no memory without that grounding, which means there is no continuity of understanding without it. The perceptual part of the soul is not a ladder to be climbed and left. It is the condition under which the intellect can even return to what it once reached.
Hendrik Lorenz·The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle·2006