ABSTRACT
Avicenna and Averroes developed their accounts of memory within the broader framework of their theories of the internal senses, a cluster of faculties localized in the brain which were posited to explain a variety of sensory operations. Two features of the internal sense tradition in particular are of significance for understanding these accounts of memory. The first is the ambiguity that arises from the fact that Avicenna and Averroes use the term "memory" for a particular internal sense faculty within their systems. The second is that one of the key concepts from the internal sense tradition is also fundamental to both Islamic philosophers' theories of memory. Avicenna establishes his system of the internal senses by appealing both to empirical evidence and to a variety of principles that reflect the explanatory function that each faculty is meant to serve in his psychology.
