Précis of memory: a philosophical study

Abstract

The book presents a comprehensive and coherent account of the epistemology and metaphysics of memory. It introduces a new taxonomy of memory, defends the contingent dependence of memory on personal identity, argues that memory is logically independent of knowledge and that memory is a generative source of justification, sets forth a new version of the causal theory of memory, develops an externalist account of memory content, and proposes an account of memorial authenticity. Philosophers typically impose a tripartite division on kinds of memory: practical, propositional, and experiential memory. Practical memory is remembering how to do something. Propositional memory is remembering that p, where ‘p’ stands for a veridical proposition. Experiential memory is remembering from the first-person perspective an event one has personally experienced. The problem with this taxonomy is that there is no way of drawing a sharp and intuitively compelling distinction between experiential and propositional memory. In lieu of the tripartite classification scheme, Chapter 1 proposes a classification in terms of the grammatical objects of the verb ‘to remember’. Given this approach, there are four main kinds of remembering: one can remember persons or things, properties, events, and propositions (facts). The book concentrates on propositional memory, whereby I mean any substituent of the schema ‘S remembers that p’, irrespective of whether ‘p’ refers to something one has personally experienced, and irrespective of whether the memory content consists merely of p or whether it also includes images or qualitative experiences. Propositional memory of one’s own mental states I call introversive memory. All other kinds of propositional memories are extroversive memories. To cut the topic to a manageable size, the book is mainly concerned with propositional memories that