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Memory as Direct Awareness of the Past

  • Norman Malcolm
Extract

The philosophy of memory has been largely dominated by what could be called ‘the representative theory of memory’. In trying to give an account of ‘what goes on in one's mind’ when one remembers something, or of what ‘the mental content of remembering’ consists, philosophers have usually insisted that there must be some sort of mental image, picture, or copy of what is remembered. Aristotle said that there must be ‘something like a picture or impression’; William James thought that there must be in the mind 'an image or copy’ of the original event; Russell said that ‘Memory demands an image’. In addition to the image or copy a variety of other mental phenomena have been thought to be necessary. In order for a memory image to be distinguished from an expectation image, the former must be accompanied by ‘a feeling of pastness’. One has confidence that the image is of something that actually occurred because the image is attended by ‘a feeling of familiarity’. And in order that you may be sure that the past event not merely occurred but that you witnessed it, your image of the event must be presented to you with a feeling of ‘warmth and intimacy’. When all the required phenomena are put together, the mental content of remembering turns out to be, as William James says, ‘a very complex representation’.

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page 1 note 1 Aristotle, De Memoria et Reminiscentia, 450b.

page 1 note 2 James, William, Principles of Psychology, II, 649.

page 1 note 3 Russell, , The Analysis of Mind, p. 186.

page 1 note 4 James, , Principles of Psychology, I

page 2 note 1 Reid, Thomas, An Inquiry Into the Human Mind, ch. 2, section 3.

page 2 note 2 Alexander, S., Space, Time and Deity, (London, 1920) I, 113.

page 3 note 1 Ibid., p. 133.

page 3 note 2 Ibid., p. 117.

page 3 note 3 Ibid., p. 126.

page 3 note 4 Ibid., p. 127.

page 3 note 5 Ibid.

page 3 note 6 Earle, William, ‘Memory’, The Review of Metaphysics, (09 1956) p. 5.

page 3 note 7 Ibid.

page 4 note 1 Ibid., pp. 10–11.

page 4 note 2 Ibid., p. 11.

page 4 note 3 Ibid., p. 12.

page 4 note 4 Ibid., p. 18.

page 4 note 5 Ibid., p. 22.

page 4 note 6 Ibid., p. 23.

page 5 note 1 See my essay, ‘Direct Perception’, section II, in my Knowledge and Certainty (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963).

page 5 note 2 Furlong, E.J., A Study in Memory, London 1951, p. 40.

page 6 note 1 Broad, , Mind and Its Place in Nature, ch. 5.

page 6 note 2 Price, , ‘Memory-Knowledge’, P.A.S., Suppl. vol. 15.

page 6 note 3 Furlong, , A Study in Memory, ch. 3.

page 7 note 1 Wittgenstein, , The Blue Book, (London, 1958). p. 37.

page 8 note 1 Ibid., p. 36.

page 8 note 2 Ibid.

page 8 note 3 Russell, , The Analysis of Mind, pp. 233–4.

page 8 note 4 Ibid., pp. 241, 242.

page 8 note 5 Russell, , Logic and Knowledge, ed. Marsh, R.C. (New York, 1956) p. 308.

page 9 note 1 Ibid., p. 309.

page 9 note 2 Augustine, , Confessions, bk 10, ch. 9.

page 9 note 3 Mill, James An Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, 1, 51–2.

page 9 note 4 Russell, , The Analysis of Mind, p. 243.

page 9 note 5 Ibid., p. 250.

page 9 note 6 Ibid., p. 175.

page 10 note 1 Russell, , Logic and Knowledge, p. 308.

page 10 note 2 Russell, , Analysis of Mind, p. 243.

page 10 note 3 Ibid., pp. 233, 234.

page 12 note 1 Reid, , Essays on the Intellectual Powers, essay III, ch. 1.

page 12 note 2 Hume, , Treatise, bk II, pt III, section 1.

page 12 note 3 James, , Principles, I, 649.

page 12 note 4 Ibid., p. 650.

page 12 note 5 Ibid., p. 651.

page 13 note 1 Russell, , Analysis of Mind, p. 162.

page 13 note 2 Ibid., p. 162.

page 14 note 1 Mill, James, op. cit., pp. 330–1.

page 14 note 2 Russell, ibid., p. 176.

page 15 note 1 Moore, G.E., Philosophical Papers (New York, 1959) p. 217.

page 15 note 2 Russell, , An Outline of Philosophy (New York, 1927) p. 7. I study this ‘hypothesis’ in the first of Three Lectures on Memory, in Knowledge and Certainty, supra.

page 16 note 1 See my ‘Wittgenstein on the Nature of Mind’, Amer. Phil. Quart., Monograph no. 4 (Oxford, 1970) pp. 17 ff.

page 17 note 1 The Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, ed. Geach and Black, p. 159.

page 17 note 2 Wittgenstein, , Philosophical Investigations, section 76.

page 18 note 1 Cf. Wittgenstein, , Philosophical Investigations (Oxford, 1953) section 305.

page 18 note 2 Ibid., section 271.

page 18 note 3 I have studied this notion in several writings. Among them are the following: ‘Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations', in my Knowledge and Certainty (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963); ‘Behaviourism as a Philosophy of Psychology’, in Behaviourism and Phenomenology, ed. Wann, T.W. (Chicago, 1964) pp. 148–9; ‘Wittgenstein on the Nature of Mind’, op. cit., ‘Memory and Representation’. Noûs, IV no. 1 1970; Problems of Mind (New York, 1971).

page 19 note 1 Wittgenstein, , The Blue Book, pp. 41–2.

page 20 note 1 Munsat, S., The Concept of Memory (New York, 1966) pp. 41–3.

page 20 note 2 Ibid., p. 47.

page 21 note 1 Wittgenstein, , The Blue Book, p. 43.

page 21 note 2 Wittgenstein, , Zettel (Oxford, 1967) section 16.

page 21 note 3 Ibid., section 19.

page 22 note 1 Russell, , Analysis of Mind, p. 164; emphasis added.

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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements
  • ISSN: 1358-2461
  • EISSN: 1755-3555
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