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Paradise of Childhood» Herder's Theory of Memory Between Plato © Lo Sguardo - rivista di filosofia N. 28, 2019 (I) - Memoria e filosofia, vol. 1: memoria individuale DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3721229 Contributi/3 «Paradise of Childhood» Herder’s Theory of Memory between Plato and Leibniz Laura Follesa Articolo sottoposto a doppia blind review. Inviato il 28/03/2019. Accettato il 13/06/2019. This article examines J. G. Herder’s original doctrine of memory, as expressed in Über die Seelenwandrung (1782), where the author questioned the link between the theory of transmigration of souls and mnemonic processes. The first part of the paper focuses on the premises underlying Herder’s reflection on memory by means of an analysis of his early writings (such as the manuscript, written around 1767, known as Plato sagte) concerning Plato’s theory of recollection as interpreted by modern philosophers including Leibniz and Mendelssohn. These latter thinkers reappraise Plato’s theory of recollection, and ‘correct’ certain errors, such as the theory of a previous life in the hyperuranion as a premise of true knowledge. Herder reconsiders both Plato’s and Leibniz’s doctrines of recollection, attempting to eliminate their metaphysical implications and explain memory from a more anthropological and psychological perspective. *** Introduction In the final part of The Education of the Human Race (Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, 1780), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) posed a series of challenging questions concerning the possibility of human beings returning to earth several times after their death1. While ancient philosophers had hypothesised that a soul might come back after death and live many subsequent lives, this idea appeared naïve, if not absurd, to modern thinkers in the eighteenth century2. Provocatively, Lessing insisted on the necessity of «acquir[ing] new knowledge and new accomplishments» in a second life, due to the impossibility of accomplishing everything within a single lifetime3. These questions led to an additional problem regarding the continuity between a 1 G. E. Lessing, The Education of the Human Race, in Philosophical and Theological Writings, edited by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge 2005, pp. 217-240: 239, § 94. 2 Ivi, p. 239, § 95: «Is this hypothesis so ridiculous just because it is the oldest one?». 3 Ivi, p. 240, § 98. 77 © Lo Sguardo - rivista di filosofia N. 28, 2019 (I) - Memoria e filosofia, vol. 1: memoria individuale previous and a subsequent life – the crucial problem, that is, of the preservation of individual memory, which modern philosophers were unable to avoid. Perhaps, reflected Lessing, the reason we are not aware of our past lives is due to the fact that we do not remember that, as he put it, «I have been here before», and that the «memory of my previous states» has been provisionally or permanently erased4. The issues raised by Lessing in his famous work initiated a broad debate in Germany at the beginning of the 1780s. Immediately after The Education of the Human Race, Johann Georg Schlosser published a dialogue in response to Lessing’s provocations entitled Über die Seelen-wanderung, 1781. As noted by Robert T. Clark, Schlosser defended the idea of the transmigration of the soul via a «theory of progressive movement of human souls, from the most unmoral to the most moral plane»5. An additional handling of the topic, written specifically in response to Schlosser, was Johann Gottfried Herder’s On the transmigration of souls (Über die Seelenwandrung, 1782), a collection of three dialogues published in Wieland’s periodical Teutsche Merkur6. The link between the theory of transmigration of souls and the mnemonic process plays a central role in Herder’s response to Lessing’s and Schlosser’s writings, making the case once again for the study of ‘modern’ reinterpretations of ancient philosophical thought. In particular, the Seelenwandrung dialogue expresses Herder’s highly original stance on memory, which arises from his bringing together of ancient (Plato) and modern (Leibniz, Mendelssohn) thought, with the purpose of selecting arguments he viewed as valid and discarding what was ill-founded or unacceptable (namely, the metaphysical premises that lay the foundations for the recollection theories of Plato and Leibniz). This paper investigates how Herder comes both to formulate an original theory of recollection and to affirm the role of memory for the formation of the self, by means of an analysis extending from his early writings (1767, where a connection between memory and childhood is first established) up to the dialogue on transmigration of souls (1782), and taking into account his critique of ancient and modern philosophies7. 4 Ivi, p. 240, § 99. 5 Cf. R. T. Clark, Herder. His Life and Thought, Berkeley 1955, p. 286. 6 Herder referred to Lessing in several of his works before finally opening his treatise J. G. Herder, Palingenesis: On Return of Human Souls (Palingenesie: Vom Wiederkommen menschlicher Seelen, 1797) with a quotation of the final seven paragraphs of The Education of the Human Race and continuing Lessing’s investigation. Cf. J. G. Herder, Werke. In zehn Bände (from now on FHA), edited by J. Brummack and M. Bollacher, Frankfurt am Main 1994, VIII, pp. 257–258. During the same year, Schlosser published a second dialogue in response to Herder’s. On the notion of ‘palingenesis’ see also K. Barry, Natural Palingenesis: Childhood, Memory, and Self-experience in Herder and Jean Paul, «Goethe Yearbook», XIV, 2007, pp. 1-25. 7 One of the very few studies on Herder’s theory of memory is R. Simon, Das Gedächtnis der Interpretation: Gedächtnistheorie als Fundament für Hermeneutik, Ästhetik und Interpretation bei Johann Gottfried Herder, Hamburg 1998. Simon, however, considers the problem from a different point of view (the importance of Herder’s theory of memory for his hermeneutics and his aesthetics), and does not focus on the importance of childhood and the notion of ‘thinking in images’ which represents, as I seek to show, the core of Herder’s recollection theory. As far as I know there are no other studies that take into account the relation between Herder and Plato, 78 © Lo Sguardo - rivista di filosofia N. 28, 2019 (I) - Memoria e filosofia, vol. 1: memoria individuale 1. «Plato said…»: Knowledge As Recollection In one of his earliest manuscripts, written around 1767, Herder stated: «Plato said that our learning is merely recollection, and Moses (in his Preisschrift) explained in Wolffian terms how this statement could be possible, how thought is the innermost capacity of the soul, and how the soul represents the whole world in a single thought»8. The core of Herder’s interest, at the moment he was working on the manuscript, was not Plato, but Moses Mendelssohn and his On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences (Abhandlung über die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften, 1763). Mendelssohn begins his treatise with a discussion of the infallibility (Untrüglichkeit) of mathematical knowledge by recourse to the ancient notion of «undeniable truths» (unleugbare Wahrheiten)9. Referring to Plato’s Meno and its argumentation on mathematical knowledge in the Meno, he writes: […] it is still inconceivable how this infinite amount of concepts can be drummed into the soul all at once by a momentary intuiting. To eliminate this difficulty, Plato hits upon a strange idea: our soul has previously, in some other state, learned and come to know everything that it experiences in this life, and sensuous impressions are only the occasions or the opportunities for the soul to recall what was forgotten10. Here, Mendelssohn aligns Plato’s theory of recollection with a «certain mystical doctrine of oriental wise men who likewise maintain that the soul has grasped the entire world prior to this life but then forgot everything when it entered this world»11. This ancient Eastern doctrine influenced both Pythagoreans and Platonists, but sounded unnatural to the ears of a modern philosopher. However, Mendelssohn recognized that the doctrine contained some truth, and that certain modern philosophers, beginning with Leibniz, appreciated its value: Moderns have, in fact, retained it and even introduced it into their system; they have merely removed the mystical aspect that lends it so absurd an appearance. They say that, since the power of representation constitutes the essence and the inner possibility of the soul, a soul that is present and has absolutely no representations is an obvious or Herder and Leibniz, from the point of view of their recollection theory. For Herder’s doctrine of individual and collective memory, see also a recent study of mine, L. Follesa, Learning and Vision: Johann Gottfried Herder on Memory, «Essays in Philosophy», ed. by I. O’Loughlin and S. Robins, XIX, 2018, pp. 1-17. 8 See M. Heinz, Sensualistischer Idealismus: Untersuchungen zur Erkenntnistheorie des jungen Herder (1763–1778), Hamburg 1994, pp. 41-79 and pp. 175-182. Cf. at p. 175: «Plato sagte, dass unsern Lernen bloß Erinnerung sei und Moses (in seiner Preisschrift) bestimt nach der Wolfschen Terminologie, wie dieser Satz möglich sey, wie das Denken die innere Möglichkeit der Seele sey, und diese sich in einem Gedanken die ganze Welt vorstellt, implicit – explicit einen Theil der Welt nach der Lage». 9 M. Mendelssohn, On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences, in Philosophical Writings, edited by D. O. Dahlstrom, Cambridge 1997, repr. 2016, pp. 251-306: 254. 10 Ivi, p. 259. 11 Ibid. 79 © Lo Sguardo - rivista di filosofia N. 28, 2019 (I) - Memoria e filosofia, vol. 1: memoria individuale contradiction.
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