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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
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 2 James, William, Principles of Psychology, II, 649.Google Scholar
page 1 note 3 Russell, , The Analysis of Mind, p. 186.Google Scholar
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page 2 note 1 Reid, Thomas, An Inquiry Into the Human Mind, ch. 2, section 3.Google Scholar
page 2 note 2 Alexander, S., Space, Time and Deity, (London, 1920) I, 113.Google Scholar
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.Google Scholar
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).Google Scholar
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page 6 note 1 Broad, , Mind and Its Place in Nature, ch. 5.Google Scholar
page 6 note 2 Price, , ‘Memory-Knowledge’, P.A.S., Suppl. vol. 15.Google Scholar
page 6 note 3 Furlong, , A Study in Memory, ch. 3.Google Scholar
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page 8 note 1 Ibid., p. 36.
page 8 note 2 Ibid.
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page 9 note 5 Ibid., p. 250.
page 9 note 6 Ibid., p. 175.
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page 10 note 3 Ibid., pp. 233, 234.
page 12 note 1 Reid, , Essays on the Intellectual Powers, essay III, ch. 1.Google Scholar
page 12 note 2 Hume, , TreatiseGoogle Scholar, bk II, pt III, section 1.
page 12 note 3 James, , Principles, I, 649.Google Scholar
page 12 note 4 Ibid., p. 650.
page 12 note 5 Ibid., p. 651.
page 13 note 1 Russell, , Analysis of Mind, p. 162.Google Scholar
page 13 note 2 Ibid., p. 162.
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page 15 note 1 Moore, G.E., Philosophical Papers (New York, 1959) p. 217.Google Scholar
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page 16 note 1 See my ‘Wittgenstein on the Nature of Mind’, Amer. Phil. Quart., Monograph no. 4 (Oxford, 1970) pp. 17 ff.Google Scholar
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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)Google Scholar; ‘Behaviourism as a Philosophy of Psychology’, in Behaviourism and Phenomenology, ed. Wann, T.W. (Chicago, 1964) pp. 148–9Google Scholar; ‘Wittgenstein on the Nature of Mind’, op. cit., ‘Memory and Representation’. Noûs, IV no. 1 1970Google Scholar; Problems of Mind (New York, 1971).Google Scholar
page 19 note 1 Wittgenstein, , The Blue Book, pp. 41–2.Google Scholar
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page 20 note 2 Ibid., p. 47.
page 21 note 1 Wittgenstein, , The Blue Book, p. 43.Google Scholar
page 21 note 2 Wittgenstein, , Zettel (Oxford, 1967) section 16.Google Scholar
page 21 note 3 Ibid., section 19.
page 22 note 1 Russell, , Analysis of Mind, p. 164Google Scholar; emphasis added.
