Is Memory Merely Testimony from One's Former Self?

Philosophical Review 124 (3):353-392 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

A natural view of testimony holds that a source's statements provide one with evidence about what the source believes, which in turn provides one with evidence about what is true. But some theorists have gone further and developed a broadly analogous view of memory. According to this view, which this essay calls the “diary model,” one's memory ordinarily serves as a means for one's present self to gain evidence about one's past judgments, and in turn about the truth. This essay rejects the diary model's analogy between memory and testimony from one's former self, arguing first that memory and a diary differ with respect to their psychological roles, and second that this psychological difference underwrites important downstream epistemic differences. The resulting view stands opposed to prominent discussions of memory and testimony, which either, like the diary model, treat memory by analogy to what we naively wish to say about testimony, or which instead attempt to extend to testimony the epistemically preservative role of memory.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-03-08

Downloads
1,443 (#9,273)

6 months
213 (#15,502)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

David James Barnett
University of Toronto, St. George Campus

Citations of this work

Normative Externalism.Brian Weatherson - 2019 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
The epistemic significance of perceptual learning.Elijah Chudnoff - 2018 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (5-6):520-542.
Epistemological problems of testimony.Jonathan E. Adler - 2006 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Memory.Kourken Michaelian & John Sutton - 2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Knowledge-yielding communication.Andrew Peet - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (12):3303-3327.

View all 22 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The extended mind.Andy Clark & David J. Chalmers - 1998 - Analysis 58 (1):7-19.
Epistemology and cognition.Alvin I. Goldman - 1986 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Warrant and proper function.Alvin Plantinga - 1993 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Theory of knowledge.Roderick M. Chisholm - 1966 - Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.

View all 69 references / Add more references