“The Quest for memory'' A critical exposition of theories of memory from Parmenides to Hartley

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.