REMINISCENCE. — In the generic sense (from re-miniscor), it indicates memory, recollection.
In philosophy the term (Gr. ἀνάμνησις) acquired a technical meaning in Platonism, where it denoted the mind’s process from sensory idea (v.): “It is proper to man to understand by means of the idea (εἶδος), which proceeds from many sensible representations to rational unity: and this is nothing other than the r. (ἀνάμνησις) of those things which our soul once saw, when it was in the retinue of a god” (Phaedr., 249 c; cf. ibid., 250 a;
(Int. Ene. Catt.)
REMIGIUS, bishop of REIMS, saint — St. R. heals a blind man, by Renato Levieux (1625–98) — Rome, church of S. Luigi dei Francesi.
and Men., 81 c, 86 a-b). In Aristotle, once Plato’s epistemological-metaphysical meaning had fallen away (though it was later adopted, it seems, in Augustine’s early thought: cf. Ch. Boyer, L'idée de vérité dans la philosophie de St Augustin, 2nd ed., Paris 1941, pp. 213–15), r. is understood in an exclusively psychological sense. Unlike memory (ἐνδική), which is the passive preservation and recognition of earlier contents of consciousness, r. is the active process of recalling and bringing the past back to life. It is therefore a “search” (ἐνδικός τις) and almost “a kind of syllogism” (συλλογισμός τις), whereby, while memory also belongs to irrational animals, r. is proper to man, who possesses the faculty of deliberation (De mem. et remin., chap. 2, 253 a 7 ff.; cf. the commentary by St. Thomas, lect. 8ª, ed. Spiazzi, Turin 1949, nos. 398 ff., and Sum. Theol., 1ª, q. 78, a. 4). This distinction is, however, secondary, since, once the evident active character of human memory is admitted, r. may be understood as memory itself in operation, according to the physio-psychological laws (including the directing power of the self-conscious subject) that condition the association of the contents of consciousness.
The Aristotelian sense, though not entirely extinct (Rosmini, among others, revived it), is today quite rare and has in fact yielded to an opposite meaning. According to E. Baudin (Corso di psicologer, Italian translation by G. Lorenzini, Florence 1948, p. 283), r. is “an evocation without recognition,” that is, an unperceived evocation of memories already buried. This meaning is current in everyday language, which designates as r. the spontaneous reappearance in consciousness of data and representations (phrases, sayings, texts...) previously encountered, but not recognized as such (r. “unconscious”). In ordinary usage r. also means “uncertain, vague recollection”; but this meaning is generally not accepted in psychology.