The Metaphysics of Memory

Chapter 2 offers a proposal about the facts in virtue of which a mental state qualifies as a memory. According to this proposal, a mental state qualifies as a memory in virtue of the functional role that it plays within the cognitive economy of the subject. The chapter outlines two alternative proposals about the nature of memory. According to the causal theory of memory, a mental state is a memory in virtue of the fact that it has been caused by a perceptual experience of some fact. According to the narrative theory of memory, a mental state is a memory in virtue of the fact that the subject is using the mental state to construct a story of their life. It is argued that the functionalist proposal enjoys the virtues of each of the two theories, and it avoids the difficulties which threaten the two theories as well.

The Experience of Ownership

Chapter 5 offers an account of the feeling that one has, when one remembers something, that the memory that one is having is one’s own. The chapter discusses the case of patient R.B., who claims to have memories which do not feel to him as if they are his own. A hypothesis about the experience that this patient is undergoing is considered. According to it, patient R.B. lacks the feeling of being identical with a past person. It is argued that this hypothesis is in tension with some details in patient R.B.’s reports. An alternative hypothesis is proposed, according to which patient R.B. does not experience his memories as matching the past. It is argued that, more generally, a memory is experienced as one’s own just in case it is experienced as fitting. This idea is generalized to states of other types, such as thoughts and actions.

Memory as a Generative Epistemic Source

Chapter 7 discusses the question of whether memory only preserves epistemic justification over time, or can also generate it. Three defenses of the view that memory generates epistemic justification are considered. These three defenses appeal to the notions of attention, abstraction, and reconstruction in memory. It is argued that none of the three defenses succeeds in showing that memory generates epistemic justification. However, it is also argued that memory does generate epistemic justification. This is due to the self-referential content that memories have. What one may believe on the basis of a memory, if that memory has a self-referential content, includes things that one was not in a position to believe before one utilized that capacity. In that sense, memory produces new grounds, or evidence, for belief through the process of remembering.

Immunity to Error through Misidentification

Chapter 6 offers an account of an epistemic feature of memories; their immunity to error through misidentification. When one judges that one experienced something, based on a full and accurate memory, it is not possible for one to be wrong because one has misidentified the person who one remembers to have had the experience as being oneself. Two challenges to the idea that memories have this feature are considered. One employs the notion of quasi-memory. The other one appeals to the phenomenon of observer memory. It is argued that neither challenge is successful and that the self-referential content of memories does suggest that memory judgments are immune to error through misidentification. The key to this immunity concerns the presence of the self in the content of memories. And that presence, in turn, is due to the nature of perceptual content and the relation between perceptual content and mnemonic content.

The Experience of Time

Chapter 4 offers an account of two feelings in memory. One of them is the awareness of what it was like for one to experience, in the past, what one is remembering in the present. An attempt to explain this feeling in terms of the notion of mental time travel is considered, and dismissed on the grounds that it presupposes a misguided conception of mental time travel. The other is the feeling of pastness; the feeling that what one is remembering is in the past. Two attempts to explain this feeling in terms of the content that memories have are considered, and dismissed on the grounds that they presuppose wrong conceptions of mnemonic content. Eventually, both feelings are explained through the causally self-referential content that memories have. It is argued that memories have both feelings because they represent perceptual experiences and a causal relation between those perceptual experiences and themselves.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes seven outcomes of the investigation. Memories are higher-order states, functionally characterized. Memories have self-referential contents. Memories represent our past experiences and, for that reason, they make us aware of what it was like for us to experience facts in the past. Memories represent their own causal connection to our past experiences and, for that reason, they make us aware of past experienced facts as being in the past. Memories represent our past perceptual experiences as being veridical and, for that reason, memories as presented to us as being our own. Memories inherit some of their content from our past perceptual experiences, and those perceptual experiences represent ourselves. For that reason, memory judgments are immune to error through misidentification. And, finally, memories represent more things than the experiences in which they originate did and, for that reason, they provide us with justification for belief which we did not have at the time we underwent those original experiences.

The Intentionality of Memory

Chapter 3 offers a proposal about the kind of content that memories have. According to this proposal, memories are self-referential in that they represent their own causal origin. A memory represents that it causally originates in a perception of an objective fact. The chapter outlines three alternative proposals about the content of memories; the proposal that memories only represent objective facts in the past, the proposal that they only represent past perceptual experiences of those facts, and the proposal that they represent both things. It is argued that the self-referential proposal enjoys the virtues of each of the three views, and it avoids the difficulties which threaten the three views as well.

Problems of Memory

Chapter 1 sets up the discussion that will lead to an account of memory and addresses some preliminary methodological issues. It specifies the kind of memory to be accounted for, as well as the features of memories of that kind which require explanation. These include one feature concerning the metaphysics of memory, one feature concerning its intentionality, two features concerning the phenomenology of memory, and two features concerning its epistemology. The chapter then distinguishes several ways in which those features can be approached, depending on which of them are taken to be basic. Finally, one of the possible approaches is selected for the book. According to this approach, the facts in virtue of which a mental state qualifies as a memory, and the content that the memory has, are fundamental aspects of that memory. The phenomenological and epistemological aspects of the memory are to be explained in terms of them.