Preservative Theory of Memory

1
Preservative Theory of Memory
2
Dilemma

• Knowledge from memory is
• Either direct awareness of past events
• Or Inference from present experience (memory
  impression)
• Share a common assumption
• Current memory-knowledge is a current cognitive
  achievement

3
Ryles Account

• To remember something is to have learnt it and to
  have not forgotten.
• Only remember what you can learn
• Remembering still knowing
• Not forgetting is not a cognitive achievement
• Knowing is a disposition or ability
• No present occurrence, episode or event is
  necessary
• There are not always memory-impressions
• (cf. Austin denying sense-impressions)

4
Recollection

• Sometimes remembering does involve a present
  occurrence, viz. recollection
• One can only recollect what one has learnt and
  not forgotten
• The occurrence in which the recollection consists
  need not be private or mental
• Could be an action
• Putting your hand in your pocket to get your
  phone can be a way of recollecting which pocket
  you keep the phone in.

5
A Minor Error

• Ryle implies that only experiential memory
  involves recollection
• There would be an absurdity in saying that I do
  or can recall Napoleon losing the Battle of
  Waterloo (258)
• I recall that Napoleon lost the Battle of
  Waterloo.
• Not always the same as not forgetting e.g.
• When was the Battle of Fulford?
• Ryle conflates recollection and reminiscence

6
Memory Scepticism

• The memory sceptic requires that in order to know
  anything on the basis of memory, we must first
  know that our memories are reliable. Which is
  impossible.
• Rylean response
• To remember just is to still know what one
  learnt, so there is no question of knowing
  anything on the basis of memory
• For there to be a question of whether memory is
  reliable, there would have to be a
  memory-impression, which Ryle denies

7
Russells Puzzle

• There is no logical impossibility in the
  hypothesis that the world sprang into being five
  minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a
  population that remembered a wholly unreal
  past.
• Russell, The Analysis of Mind
• Ryle in such a case there would be no memory or
  remembering. It would appear to the subject as
  if she was remembering, but there would not be
  any apparent memories / memory-impressions.
• People would simply believe all sorts of things
  they had not learnt.

8
Ryle vs. Causal Theory

• On the causal theory there has to be a transition
  from memory-impression to current knowledge
• This transition needs current justification
• Ryle denies the assumption that there is a
  memory-impression that falls short of knowledge
• So there is no transition needing justification
• So there is no current justification at all

9
TAKE A 10 MINUTE BREAK
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Against the Argument for the Causal Theory

• it does not follow from the fact that alleged
  reminiscences may be fabrications that veracious
  reminiscences are discoveries or successful
  investigations. (259)
• Sometimes one takes oneself to be remembering but
  really it is imagination
• In such cases one has an unjustified belief
• It does not follow that in cases of remembering
  one must have current justification for ones
  belief

11
Untrusted Memories

• Sometimes we do not trust our what appear to be
  memories when we should
• Do we still remember?
• Lack of confidence / think we are guessing
• Childhood memories we think are fabrications
• Only some version of preservative theory can
  explain affirmative answer
• But if remembering entails knowing, we seem to
  have a counter-example to knowing entailing
  believing

12
Objections to Ryle 1

• Criterion of not forgetting
• Ryle gives us lots of examples but no general
  conditions
• So hard to resolve difficult cases, e.g.
• Suppose that yesterday, try as I might, I could
  not recall Janes phone number but today it comes
  back to me.
• Had I forgotten it yesterday? When I remembered
  it today, does that show I did, after all, know
  it yesterday?
• Ryle must say
• Either I had not forgotten when I could not
  recall
• Or not forgetting is not continuous

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Objections to Ryle 2

• Too much counts as demonstrating that one has not
  forgotten
• Ryle is very liberal about what occurrences count
  as recollection
• Suppose I write down important facts in a
  notebook and look at it regularly
• This might prompt my memory
• But it might not - I might just believe what I
  read in the notebook. E.g. Memento
• Is it then recalling? Looks like it should not
  be because an essential psychological component
  is missing

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Objections to Ryle 3

• Trivial Pursuit challenge How do you know that?
• I remember it - not sufficient we need to know
  how you could have learnt it
• I learnt it at school - elliptical doesnt
  mention the (often prodigious) feat of memory
  involved
• Generally
• The preservative theory does not require one to
  be able to remember the learning.
• But nor does it allow memory to be part of the
  explanation of how you now know something.

15
Accuracy and Authority

• Consider this from Andy Hamilton
• Now it can happen that what I think I remember
  turns out to be something I dreamt vividly, or
  saw in a film, or was told. This could be a case
  of "completely-false" memory, and special
  circumstances are needed to explain it. (The
  complication is that the event might have
  occurred all the same, although I do not
  personally remember it.) If the phenomenon were
  common, personal memory-judgments would cease to
  be authoritative, and our knowledge of the past
  would become insecure. As Sidgwick implied, this
  would threaten our whole knowledge-base.
  (Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, 1998,
  p.292)

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Reliability

• Hamilton has (correctly) distinguished two
  notions of reliability (p.290)
• Can be depended upon
• Is mostly correct
• Here he assumes that 1 requires 2.
• Could 1 be rational if we had no reason to doubt
  2 (even though it did not in fact hold)?
• If not, surely we are back with the bad old
  regress.