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Description
A bold metaphysical exploration of memory, time, and the human soul, guided by two of philosophy's most profound thinkers.
Uniting the historically disparate philosophies of Saint Augustine and Henri Bergson, On the Memory of the Soul offers a philosophical defence of the traditional assumption that human beings have a soul as their spiritual core. Exploring the remarkable idea that the soul necessarily has a temporal structure and that memory is key for human identity, Trumbull challenges prevailing neuroscientific and materialist models by showing how memory reveals the deep temporal structure of the self.
This book not only provides an original comparative study of these monolithic thinkers who share a peculiar intellectual kinship, but it also rehabilitates and reframes their ideas by placing them in the context of both historical and contemporary philosophical discourse surrounding mind–body dualism, the neuroscientific and computational theory of mind, and reductive materialism. With Bergson and Augustine, a novel conception of the relationship between memory, time, and the human soul is advanced that challenges the prevailing belief that the idea of the soul has no place in contemporary philosophy.
Speaking to both the specialist and the intellectually serious non-specialist, and uniting philosophy, theology, and contemporary science, this book invites the reader into a deep exploration of consciousness and selfhood, reanimating one of humanity's most enduring questions: what is the soul, and why might it matter today?
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Table of Contents
1. The argument from memory
2. The bishop and the professor: the inheritance of Augustine and Bergson
3. The road ahead
Part I. Psychology
Chapter I. Image and Act
1. The mystery of memory
2. The two kinds of memory: habit and image
3. The selection of images: recognition and recall
4. The formation of images: memory beyond the image
5. Pure memory and the unconscious past
6. The planes of consciousness
7. Approaching the storage problem
Chapter II. Brain and Mind
1. The 'chimerical enterprise': localising the mind within the brain
2. The 'cerebral deposit' hypothesis: what is a memory?
3. The computer–brain and the theory of neural representationalism
4. An alternative theory of perception: the brain does not generate representations
5. The problem of time: creating continuity from discontinuous elements
6. The role of the brain and an alternative explanation of memory disorders
7. Revising the relationship between brain and mind
Part II. Metaphysics
Chapter III. Time and Duration
1. In search of lost time: duration as method
2. What is it to endure? To change, mature, and create
3. The genesis of spatialised time
4. The distentio animi and the synthesis of the present
5. The rhythm of memory: on the distinction and union of subject and object
6. 'Time is real': from psychological fact to living reality
7. Our peculiar relation to time: when duration becomes metaphysical
Chapter IV. Memory and Soul
1. From memory to soul
2. The interior ascent
3. Self-presence and self-remembrance
4. The soul as dynamic unity: spirituality and substantiality of the soul
5. 'My will is my weight': superiority and transcendence of the soul
6. The personal soul presupposes the memory
7. From memory to eternity
Conclusion
Bibliography
Product details
| Published | 01 Oct 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (PDF) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 9781350611009 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 10 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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