Memory and identity

Philosophical Studies 153 (1):65-79 (2011)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Among the many topics covered in Sven Bernecker’s impressive study of memory is the relation between memory and personal identity. Bernecker uses his grammatical taxonomy of memory and causal account to defend the claim that memory does not logically presuppose personal identity and hence that circularity objections to memory-based accounts of personal identity are misplaced. In my comment I investigate these claims, suggesting that the relation between personal identity and memory is more complicated than Bernecker’s analysis suggests. In particular, I argue that while he shows that some memories do not presuppose personal identity he fails to show that those that are appealed to in memory-based accounts of personal identity do not, and that the features of his view that allow him to define memory without reference to personal identity also obscure important features of memory that must be part of a complete account

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Memory, quasi-memory, and pseudo-quasi-memory.Christopher Buford - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (3):465 – 478.
Personal Identity.John Perry (ed.) - 1975 - Berkeley: University of California Press.
Personal identity.R. G. Swinburne - 1974 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 74:231 - 247.
Personal identity and memory transfer.Karl Ameriks - 1976 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 14 (4):385-391.
Personal identity and memory.Sydney S. Shoemaker - 1959 - Journal of Philosophy 56 (October):868-902.
Memory and personal identity.P. M. Mcgoldrick - 1981 - Southwest Philosophical Studies 6 (April):62-68.
John Locke, Personal Identity and Memento.Basil Smith - 2006 - In Mark T. Conard (ed.), The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. University of Kentucky Press.
Memory and personal identity.A. B. Palma - 1964 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 42 (1):53-68.
Personal identity and the coherence of q-memory.Arthur W. Collins - 1997 - Philosophical Quarterly 47 (186):73-80.
Concept of memory as a criterion of self-identity.Akhtar Imam - 1967 - Pakistan Philosophical Congress 14 (April):158-176.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-11-18

Downloads
457 (#37,797)

6 months
23 (#98,327)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Marya Schechtman
University of Illinois, Chicago

References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The Constitution of Selves.Marya Schechtman (ed.) - 1996 - Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Memory: A Philosophical Study.Sven Bernecker - 2010 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The Thread of Life.Richard Wollheim - 1984 - New Haven: Cambridge University Press.

View all 7 references / Add more references