Mnemosyne, the Mother of the Muses. Temporality, Memory and Perception in the Theaetetus

This article explores some aspects of Plato’s empirical theory of memory in the Theaetetus. The issue of false opinion (187 d) brings out the connection between memory, soul, and sensation: for the purpose of the speech, Socrates theorises an empirical model of knowledge based on the well-known image of the waxen block, which apparently makes no reference to the recollection theory. The aim of the first part of this paper is to detect the different passages of the dialogue where the use of memory, but more generally the temporality of the soul, leads to contradiction in the Protagorean-Heraclitean universe. I then move to the argument from “commons” in order to show how temporality and ref lexive thought can definitively discount Theaetetus’ first account. I conclude with a description of the empirical use of memory.