Abstract
Bernecker is primarily concerned to provide a philosophical account of remembering that something is so. His method is conceptual analysis, guided by linguistic intuitions that he regards as empirical working hypotheses. He wants the account to apply equally to remembering facts about events, places, persons and other individual things that we personally experienced (e.g. remembering that the bridge was closed) on the one hand and to remembering non-perceptual and abstract facts (e.g. remembering that 34 = 81) on the other. In statements of the form ‘She remembers that …’ the words following the word ‘that’ express a proposition. Hence the label ‘propositional memory’; accordingly, where ‘p’ stands for the proposition remembered, we have the abbreviation ‘remembering that p’ for this form of memory.
Bernecker intends his main account to cover only those propositional memories that are conscious and explicit, that are not a result of inference from anything else one remembers, and where one’s present representation that p is appropriately causally related to one’s past representation that p*. The remembered proposition p must be true, and either identical to or entailed by the previously represented proposition p*. By not requiring that the propositional content of one’s present representation be the same as that of one’s past representation, the account leaves some room for ‘activist’ (e.g. reconstructive) elements in remembering (pp. 219–20). Bernecker deals first with remembering facts not about one’s own past state of mind – the exclusive focus of this review – and only later with remembering facts about one’s own past state of mind.
Bernecker’s account of remembering that p consists of a set of necessary conditions; judiciously, he refrains from claiming that his conditions are jointly sufficient for remembering that p, as such accounts are notoriously vulnerable to counter-examples. To avoid making his necessary conditions too strong, he describes a series of cases in each of which, he claims, one remembers that p without meeting one or more conditions of a view he opposes, the Epistemic Theory of Memory, that requires, in order for one to remember that p, present knowledge (and hence belief and justification) that p suitably connected to one’s past knowledge (hence belief and justification) that p*.
In one such case someone remembers that something is so, according to Bernecker, without previously having believed that it is so on the basis of on an undefeated justification for so believing. While visiting Rome, Sam came to believe (truly) that the statue of the Capitoline Wolf is brown. Yet even as Sam first caught glimpse of the statue, a mischievous tour guide was telling him that the Wolf is really white but appears brown because, ‘for reasons of conservation, it is illuminated by brown light’ (p. 76). Sam went on believing that the Wolf is brown despite the tour guide’s story, which left Sam without adequate justification for that belief. But later, when he learns that the tour guide was not to be trusted, Sam thereupon remembers that the Wolf is brown.
But it doesn’t follow from this that no past component of justification, no past justificatory potential, is required for one to remember that something is so. A quite simple type of case, which Bernecker apparently overlooks, shows that one doesn’t remember that the thing was so unless there was some element of justification or potential justification for one to believe it was so. Yesterday Sue made a wild guess and came to believe that her philosophy professor had won the previous night’s lottery. Sue still believes this, from having believed it then. She hadn’t the slightest reason to believe it then nor does she have any new-found reason to believe it now. The professor did in fact win the lottery. Of course, Sue doesn’t know that the professor won. Even though Sue herself may claim (and thus say) that she remembers that the professor won, clearly Sue does not remember that her professor won. At most, she remembers what it was that she believed. She doesn’t remember that what she believed is true.
If this is correct, then Bernecker’s account should include an additional necessary condition, such as (Naylor, 1986): the subject was prima facie justified in believing that the thing was so. Applying this to the case of the Capitoline Wolf, we can maintain that Sam was prima facie justified in believing that the Wolf is brown on the basis of how he appeared to look, but that justification was defeated by the misleading word of the guide. Later, when Sam learns that the guide was lying, Sam for the first time knows that the Wolf is brown; Sam has retained the true belief, based originally on his prima facie justification, which now is justified all things considered. Sam remembers that the Wolf is brown, though not without having been prima facie justified in believing this.
The notion of justification employed here can be construed, as Bernecker thinks epistemic justification should be, in terms of reliable belief-producing processes. Adding a requirement of prima facie past justification to the necessary conditions for remembering that p invites reconsideration of a view that Bernecker rejects, namely the Evidential Retention Theory, but in a modified version (call it moderate justificational preservationism) according to which the ‘suitable connection’ between one’s representation that p and one’s earlier representation that p* lies in the way being prima facie justified at one time (in believing that p) relates to having been prima facie justified at an earlier time (in believing that p*). Being justified in believing something can be distinguished from justifiedly believing it in that the former can occur without actually believing it. Given this distinction, the several cases Bernecker gives of remembering that p without believing that p, or without having believed that p* in the past, don’t count against moderate justificational preservationism. This is so because, arguably, remembering that p requires only that one was in the past prima facie justified in believing that p*, and that one is now prima facie justified in believing that p.
Nor should moderate justificational preservationism be seen as competing with Bernecker’s causal account of the connection between one’s representation that p and one’s previous representation that p*. Rather, the former view can, and arguably should, incorporate the latter view as specifying the somewhat complex causal condition under which one can remain prima facie justified in believing something on the basis of having been prima facie justified in believing it. As a key element in Bernecker’s causal theory, ‘memory traces account both for the preservation of mental content through time and for the production of states of recall’ (p. 131). They also may help account for the preservation of prima facie justification. When the question is whether memory can sometimes give us justified belief and knowledge, as Bernecker thinks it can, he looks favorably on ‘the principle of continuous justification: … S’s belief from [an earlier time] that p* is continuously justified if S continues to believe … that p – even if S forgot his original knowledge-producing evidence and has acquired no fresh evidence in the meantime’ (p. 72). Just as Bernecker’s causal account of memory explains ‘how it is possible that the ability to represent p (or p*) is retained’ (p. 126), moderate justificational preservationism explains how it is possible to be at least prima facie justified in believing that which one remembers.
Bernecker spells out the causal connection between representing that p and having represented that p*, along the lines of Martin and Deutscher (1966), in an informative, appropriately detailed way while avoiding several drawbacks of their account, such as: their over-reliance on a distinction between a representation’s being operative for the circumstance of a later prompting and a representation’s being operative in producing a series of memory traces finally operative in the circumstance of a later prompting; their outdated requirement that a memory trace be a structural analogue of the thing remembered; and their use of the notion of ‘recounting’ the thing remembered (‘Recounting could not be remembering’, as Deutscher (1989) subsequently said). As Bernecker’s account of memory causation involves ‘traces’, and as it isn’t a conceptual truth that traces exist, he is ‘inclined to view the causal theory of memory as a piece of scientific knowledge about our physical nature rather than part of the ordinary notion of remembering’ (p. 116).
The book has an extensive bibliography and discusses or cites hundreds of works in recent analytic metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind. Often it relates a matter under discussion to a comparable matter in psychology. Ideally suited as a text in a graduate philosophy course on memory, it would be valuable as well (along with texts from other disciplines) for a cognitive science course focused on memory. The book refines and expands on several main parts of the author’s The Metaphysics of Memory (2008); it includes chapters on the psychological continuity account of personal identity over time, content externalism, and factors that limit the divergence in content between that which one remembers and that which one previously represented. Hopefully, the book will be widely read and receive the further discussion it deserves.