The metaphysics of memory / by Sven Bernecker.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Bernecker, Sven.

Series:

Philosophical studies series ; 111.

Philosophical studies series ; 111

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Memory (Philosophy).

Genre:

Academic theses.

Physical Description:

ix, 191 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

[Dordrecht] : Springer, [2008]

Summary:

This book investigates central issues in the philosophy of memory. Does remembering require a causal process connecting the past representation to its subsequent recall and, if so, what is the nature of the causal process? Of what kind are the primary intentional objects of memory states? How do we know that our memory experiences portray things the way they happened in the past? Given that our memory is not only a passive device for reproducing thoughts but also an active device for processing stored thoughts, when are thoughts sufficiently similar to be memory-related?

The Metaphysics of Memory defends a version of the causal theory of memory, argues for direct realism about memory, proposes an externalist response to skepticism about memory knowledge, and develops a contextualist account of the factivity constraint on memory.

Contents:

1.1 The Classification of Memory 2

1.2 The Analysis of Memory 7

1.3 The Plan 9

Part I Memory Causation

2 The Motivation of the Causal Theory of Memory 17

2.1 Two Arguments Against the Causal Theory of Memory 18

2.2 An Argument from Conditionals 20

2.3 An Argument from Personal Identity 22

2.4 An Argument from Temporal Forgetting 24

2.5 Critique of Pure Retention Conditions 26

2.6 Critique of Evidential Retention Conditions 28

3 An Argument for Memory Traces 31

3.1 Contiguous Causation 32

3.2 What Are Memory Traces? 34

3.3 The Verifiability of Memory Traces 38

3.4 Against Mnemic Causation 42

4 From Traces to Recall 47

4.1 Approaches to Memory Causation 47

4.2 Retrieval Cues 50

4.3 Traces, Cues and Suggestibility 52

4.4 Operative Conditions 55

Part II Objects of Memory

5 The Primary Objects of Memory 61

5.1 Representative Versus Direct Realism 62

5.2 The Co-temporality Objection 68

5.3 The Argument from Hallucination 72

5.4 The Causal Theory and Direct Realism 74

5.5 A Humean Argument 76

6 Against Representative Realism 81

6.1 The Need for Memory Markers 81

6.2 The Varieties of Memory Markers 87

6.3 Remembering and Trying to Remember 93

6.4 The Validation of Ostensible Memory 97

7 Skepticism, Externalism, and Closure 105

7.1 Skepticism and Metajustification 106

7.2 Internalism and the Acquisition of Justification 109

7.3 The Problem of Forgotten Evidence 113

7.4 Internalism About Continuous Justification 117

7.5 Externalism About Continuous Justification 122

7.6 Russell's Hypothesis and Closure 126

Part III Truth in Memory

8 The Factivity Constraint 137

8.1 Motivation of the Truth Condition 137

8.2 Truth in Reproductive Memory 140

8.3 Truth in Meta-representational Memory 142

8.4 The Xerox Model of Memory 144

8.5 Adaptive Variation 146

8.6 The Function of Adaptive Variation 152

9 Diachronic Content Similarity 155

9.1 The Relativity of Similarity 156

9.2 Principles of Semantic Similarity 158

9.3 Rectifying Memory Claims 164

9.4 Attitudinal Similarity 165

10 The Pragmatic Dimension of Memory 169

10.1 Epistemic Contextualism 170

10.2 Memorial Contextualism 172.

Notes:

Revised verion of Habilitation thesis--University of Munich, 2007.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [177]-184) and index.

ISBN:

9781402082191

1402082193

1402082207

9781402082207

OCLC:

214308365