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Card 2.2.3 · Root II — Epistemology

Memory

Is remembering a kind of perceiving, or a kind of imagining?

Memory is the capacity to retain and retrieve what was previously experienced or learned — and the question is what kind of source of knowledge that makes it.

From The Coordinates of Thought by Syed Raheel Shahzad, card 2.2.3, page 97

On this card
  1. Where it sits
  2. The rival answers
  3. Key figures
  4. Connections
  5. On Coordinates of Thought

Where it sits

Under 2.2 Sources of knowledge. Borders 1.3.2 Personal identity, 2.2.4 Testimony, 6.14 Philosophy of psychology.

The rival answers

PositionMemory isThe difficulty
Causal theoryA state causally connected to the original experienceAllows deviant chains — a relearned fact can feel remembered
SimulationismConstructive imagining, aimed at the pastThen what distinguishes memory from imagination?
Direct realismA relation to the past event itselfHard to state without backward causation
PreservationismStorage and retrieval of retained contentThe empirical work suggests reconstruction, not storage
Epistemic generativismMemory can produce justification it never originally hadConflicts with the intuition that memory only preserves

Key figures

FigureDatesTraditionContribution
Augustine354–430PatristicThe palaces of memory; its role in constituting a self
Nyaya schoolClassicalIndianSmrti classified as a distinct cognition, not a pramana
Thomas Reid1710–1796European modernThe brave officer; memory's limits as a criterion of identity
Edmund Husserl1859–1938ContinentalRetention as part of the structure of lived time
Endel Tulving1927–2023PsychologyEpisodic and semantic memory distinguished
Elizabeth Loftusb. 1944PsychologyThe misinformation effect; memories demonstrably constructed

Connections

→ 2.2 · ↔ 1.3.2, 2.2.4, 2.3, 6.14 · ◇ causal theory, simulationism, preservationism, generativism · ○ Classical; Modern; Table 3

→ narrower questions · ↔ questions it borders · ◇ the positions, mapped in Part III of the book · ○ the eras and comparison tables (Parts IV and V)

The full card is in the book

In The Coordinates of Thought this card goes on to a worked example that sets the answers against one case, and to where the question touches daily life — page 97.

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