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To cite this Article Bogart, Aaron(2009) 'The Metaphysics of Memory', International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 17: 4,
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With the competitors dealt with, and with a direct defence of the causal
theory shown to be wanting, Bernecker concludes that there is no viable
alternative to the causal approach (p. 10). Chapter 3 then argues for the
postulation of memory traces those theoretical constructions, the postulation of which is required to make sense of the contiguousness of memory
given a causal condition and against Russells theory of mnemic causation.
Berneckers attempts here are, to my mind, successful. Chapter 4 takes us
from memory traces to recall; that is, it attempts to deliver a theory of how
we retrieve information from memory given the notion of memory traces.
A memory trace gives rise to a memory when the content of the memory is
an independently sufficient condition of a state of recounting or at least
a necessary condition of such an independently sufficient condition (p. 47).
However, memory is more often than not dependent on cues. Thus
Bernecker attempts to say when such cues are or are not the actual source
of the memory. Berneckers discussion is ambitious in scope, and so one
may walk away feeling that there is more to memory than that a trace
always be involved. After all, there will surely be cases where cues are so
powerful that we are given to accepting a memory via suggestibility, and
here the memory trace may be totally absent phenomenologically. Think of
cases involving the false memory of childhood abuse. Here the (false)
phenomenology of memory may be totally indistinguishable from a case
of actual memory. Berneckers account has little to say about such
phenomenological indistinguishability.
Part II, Objects of Memory, (i) defends direct realism about memory
the thesis that the primary intentional objects of memory are past events,
not internal representations thereof and (ii) proposes an externalist
response to scepticism about memory knowledge that a memory belief
is justified if it (the belief) has the property of being truth-effective.
Moreover, Part II concerns itself with divesting us of the opinion that the
causal theory of memory is committed to some form of indirect or representative realism, which is thought to have sceptical consequences. The
task begins in chapter 5 with a discussion of how direct realism is compatible with the causal theory of memory. Direct realism says that what we
are aware of in memory is representations, and that we are non-inferentially aware of what is represented by such representations. Such noninferential representations are representations of memory-data, and such
memory-data are the vehicle of the remembered information (p. 67).
Chapter 6 offers an argument against representative realism amounting to
the charge that it leads to scepticism. Here the arguments mirror the literature in the philosophy of perception. If what we are directly aware of
when we remember is internal representations, as the representative realist claims, then how can we be directly aware of the external environment? Do we have only internal representations of that as well? One
reply is that we can tell that our memories accurately represent the past
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via memory markers. Bernecker does a good job showing how all such
memory-marker theories fail, which leads to a more general discussion of
scepticism. If the representative realist is to avoid scepticism, then he
should reject epistemic internalism the view that all of the factors
required for a belief to be justified must be cognitively accessible to the
subject and thus internal to his mind (p. 103). In my opinion, the internalist doesnt get a fair shake here; moreover, the view of scepticism here is
too simplistic; surely we cannot rid ourselves of the sceptic simply by
saying that an epistemic agent need not have cognitive access to his justifying reasons (p. 103).
Nevertheless, Bernecker hopes to find scepticism-independent reasons
for adopting externalism about memory knowledge, and in that way come
to a position that allows him to neutralize the sceptic (p. 104). Chapter 7 is
where he attempts to do just that it is also one of the richer chapters for
epistemologists more generally. Bernecker argues that externalism provides
the best account of coming to justifiably believe something that is subsequently put to memory and the best account of continuing to justifiably
believe something one remembers. Bernecker has some interesting things
to say about the internalism/externalism debate, part of which is dealing
another blow to the epistemic theory of memory. Bernecker gives a series
of examples that are meant to show that not only is the epistemic theory of
memory false that one can remember what one doesnt know but also
that memory is indeed a generative source of justification (p. 112). Moreover, memory can make an unknown proposition known, an unjustified
belief justified, and an irrational belief rational (p. 120). However, in the
cases Bernecker uses to attempt to establish this result, the agents involved
must at least be in a position to acquire knowledge or justification at the
earlier time.
The mayor of a big city has been assassinated. At t1 S learned
about the assassination by reading a report in a generally reliable
newspaper. The report was written by someone who was an eyewitness. Two days later, at t2, the mayors associates, wishing to prevent
panic, have issued television announcements and newspaper reports
saying falsely that the assassination attempt had failed and that the
mayor is alive and well. Most people see the television announcement and read the newspaper reports and therefore come to believe
at t2 that the mayor is alive. However, by a fluke, S misses the denial
of the assassination and continues to hold the true belief that the
mayor had been assassinated. At t3, the scheme to cover up the
mayors death is exposed, and all of the major newspapers and
television stations report that the mayor has in fact been assassinated. Throughout t2 and t3, S remains blissfully ignorant of all the
relevant reports and continues to believe that the mayor has been
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assassinated solely on the basis of remembering the original newspaper report from t1.
(p. 121)
When S learns (at t1) that the mayor was assassinated, she had it within
her ken to have justification for that belief (or knowledge). However,
when a defeater is available (at t2), that arguably defeats any such positional justification or knowledge. Nevertheless, later (at t3), S can reacquire the justification for belief or knowledge that she earlier had or must
have been in a position to have. This would still seem to allow for some
version of the epistemic theory of memory, though perhaps a weaker
version than would interest Bernecker. After all, it is not at all clear that
(in Berneckers example) memory is doing any generating (at least of
epistemic justification or knowledge). In the end Bernecker opts for an
externalist account of memory knowledge, and leaves it open whether to
choose Goldmans process reliabilist account or Burges analytic account
(p. 126).
Part III explores various aspects in which truth plays a role in memory.
Chapter 8 is a discussion of the factivity constraint on memory that
one cannot remember that p without p being or having been the case.
Bernecker puts it thus: S remembers that p entails that p is the case
(p. 137). Though this constraint underlies much discussion in the philosophy
of memory, little has been said to motivate or explicate it clearly. Bernecker
changes this trend and does a nice job motivating the constraint; he gives
truth conditions for reproductive and meta-representational memory
claims. [T]he truth value of reproductive memories is co-determined by
ones mental history and the content of ones memory (p. 140). Thus one
needs to have represented some content in the past in order to have a
memory. If one remembers that Oxford is to the west of London, but has
only just learnt that, then one does not remember. Qua memory, the
remembrance is false, though it is true otherwise. There are a few ways
that ones reproductive remembering can fail to be factive, and thus not
count as remembering at all. What Bernecker calls (ii)-type errors of reproductive memory (p. 141) are instances where one has not entertained or
thought the content of the memory before. Suppose I remember that
Kennedy was assassinated, but I have never before thought that Kennedy
was assassinated. Then, in this instance, I do not remember that Kennedy
was assassinated. In other words, (ii)-type errors occur when the previousrepresentation condition on reproductive remembering is not met when
one represents at time t2 that p, but has not represented that p in the past, at
t1, say. But there would seem to be cases of reproductive memory, involving
negative memories, which contradict such a condition, thus throwing ones
mental history as a co-determiner of the truth of a reproductive memory
into question. Suppose you remember at time t2 that you left your office
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window open. You go back to your office and make sure that you did not,
as its beginning to rain. Now, given the previous-representation condition,
you do not remember that you left the window open. After all, you need to
have (earlier) represented or thought that you left the window open, in
order to remember (later) that you left the window open. This doesnt seem
right, though. For surely if one thought that one had left the window open,
then one would have closed it. This case involves negative memory. To
address this problem Bernecker says that such instances are cases of inferential memory (p. 141), and since he is concerned with non-inferential
memory, he sets the problem aside. However, this is not quite satisfactory.
For it is not obvious that if S returns to check the window, S is inferentially
remembering; more should be said about why the memory involved is
inferential.
In order for one to have a true meta-representational memory that p, it
has to be the case that one has at some time represented that p; this is the
embedded first-order content. It also has to be the case that one has an attitude towards p I thought that p, or something similar. Thus in both cases,
the reproductive and the meta-representational, the truth of the memory
claim depends on the match between the content of the (embedded)
memory and the past thought content from which it causally derives (p. 12).
How similar need the present and past representations be? A common view,
what Bernecker calls the xerox model of memory (p. 137), claims that the
remembered content has to be a token of the very same type (of content) as
the original thought. Bernecker argues that this model is wrong; for it
doesnt explain the reconstructive aspect of our memory memory doesnt
just reproduce information, it also actively reconstructs information.
However, since memory has this capacity, the question arises as to how
different diachronic thought contents may be and yet still count as similar
enough to qualify as memories rather than imaginings.
Chapter 9 addresses this question by arguing that so long as the informational content stored in memory (traces) does not increase, then the
remembrance counts as a memory. More precisely, such principles of
semantic similarity are meant to tell us when two thought-state-tokens
are sufficiently similar still to meet the truth condition of remembering
(p. 158).
Finally, chapter 10 argues for contextualism about truth in memory.
Given what Bernecker says in chapters 8 and 9, it is not surprising that he
would adopt some form of contextualism. Berneckers contextualism
involves claiming that while remembering that p requires that one accurately represent a previously had thought, what counts as an accurate or
similar representation is, to some degree, relative to the interests and
purposes of the rememberer (p. 175). So the factivity constraint turns out to
be pragmatically sensitive (p. 169). This chapter is especially interesting for
its suggestive nature, and makes a nice end to the book.
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Our whirlwind tour is over: you can see that memory highlights many
interesting issues in epistemology and metaphysics, and while not every
potential problem has been discussed, you no doubt see that there is much
room for future debate, and Berneckers book is a good place to begin.
University of Sheffield
Aaron Bogart
2009, Aaron Bogart