| dc.description.abstract | This study is an investigation into the current status of memory knowledge and
how it has been reached.The study has sought to assess the meaning and significance of theories of memory that have been put forward from Parmenides to Hartley, with a view to gaining a deeper and broader knowledge about the nature and functioning of memory.Memory has been posited as a metaphysical as well as a physical entity capable of Act and Potency. It has also been posited as a process thus creating confusion as to its nature. Its location is still being studied by scientists who feel that it must be somewhere in the brain.The inquiry proceeds from the premise that information available on memory is in scattered form such that it is difficult to study the subject without being biased as the information given is lopsided. The information available is in scattered form, because researchers have been concentrating only in particular fields of study such that information about memory rests only with that particular field.Such sciences as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics anthropology and psychology do not co-ordinate their results with each other but separately investigate memory. Their unco-ordinated results have shown confusion as to what memory actually is.Whereas studies in the above fields have reached an advanced stage, a well documented history of the development of memory thought and subsequent analysis is lacking, and where available the information is scanty and very brief thus yielding very little knowledge.This study has filled the gap between the different results of the sciences and the history of the development of memory thought with a view to gaining a deeper understanding of the subject, and a whole picture view. Such a view would make it easier to philosophize about the subject and that is what this study has done.The study has gathered together information about the origin of memory thought which is very important not only for this subject but also for a study of any subject.The study has gone deeper into the roots of what actually influenced the theorists.More significant to the study is the contribution of the african and eastern views to memory thought in order to get a Gestaltic view of memory. This information, the study
has collated with the results of the sciences and theorists and has come up with a unified body of knowledge about memory.The study begins by giving a background of the issues involved and related to memory, in the introduction section.Since a study of all theories of memory would be beyond the scope and limit of the study, a few selected theories from Parmenides to Hartley have been chosen as they best exemplify the culture of the age. These theories are put forward in chapters one,two and three and philosophical analysis of them is also done. Chapters three and four are devoted to the eastern and african contribution the latter of which is two fold,namely Egypt as the origin of Greek and subseque.n. tly memory thought, and traditional african mnemonics. A synthesis of Western, Eastern and African views has been attempted in this chapter which is the core chapter.Chapter five is the concluding chapter which recapitulates the findings of the study and has offered suggestions especially for further research in the field of african mnemomcs.Hegel's theory of dialectic has been used in this study whereby the ancient period has been put forward as the Thesis, the medieval renaissance and modern periods as the anti-thesis and the african eastern contributions and contemporary views as the synthesis. | en |
