as recollection was known to Latin authors before Augustine; in
section 1.4 we quoted Jerome’s description ofagnitioas a process of
remembering previously known things.^54
Augustine nevertheless brings the discussion to a new level when
he considers inDe trinitatethat the entire mind understands itself
through an act ofse recogncosco. This act leans on preserving the
earlier states of mind in the memory; at the same time, the act
constitutes the identity of this mind in its totality. Augustine’s
remarks on memory inConfessionsconsolidate this picture. Ricoeur
discusses a sentence inConfessionsin which the ego or the mind is
described as‘that which remembers’.^55
Remarkably, Augustine’sreflexive use ofrecognoscodoes not seem
to be frequent in Bernard, Thomas, and later scholastics. Bonaventure,
for instance, considers that‘gifts from another’should be recognized,
linking the issue of recognition rather to the relational structure of
the social bond than to introspection and memory.^56 While the medi-
eval theologians are Augustinian in many other respects, their view
of recognition is externalist or relational in this respect. When Bernard
asks whether the reader can‘recognize in himself’the happiness of
the bride,^57 the internal emotion is nevertheless an issue that emerges
through the social bond.
The issue of self-recognition receives a new prominence in the
Renaissance and the Reformation. Ficino’s discussion is particularly
fascinating, as he combines the social bond of love with the Platonic
idea of a deeper self that the conscious person has forgotten.^58 For
Ficino, self-recognition occurs through bonding oneself with the
beloved. In seeing the beloved, the person can recognize the image
of the other as something that is his own. Moreover, this image
enables the lover to restore and reform his own interior image. This
reformed interior image is then projected onto the beloved so that he
is regarded as more beautiful than he actually is.
In Ficino, the act ofse recognoscobasically means reconnecting
with one’s own inner self. Ficino thus performs a sort of ontological
attachment, since in the act of self-recognition the person becomes
(^54) Cf. section 2.2, e.g. Mus. 6, 8. Jerome,Comm. ad Eph.1, 489.
(^55) Trin.14, 8;Conf.10, 16, 25. Ricoeur 2005, 118.
(^56) Cf. sections 2.3–2.4. Bonaventure,Serm. de div.vol. 2, sermo 48, par. 12, p. 640.
(^57) Sermones, 46, 5. Cf. section 2.3.
(^58) Cf. section 2.5. The following captures the argument ofDe amore, II, 8 and VI, 6.
234 Recognition and Religion