Publicação: 18/12/2019
Dossiê
Filosofias da memória
Foreword
Apresentação
César Schirmer dos
Santos
PhD in Philosophy at the Federal
University of Rio Grande do Sul. Professor of Philosophy at Federal
University of Santa Maria
Tiegue Vieira
Rodrigues
PhD
in Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul.
Professor of Philosophy at Federal University of Santa Maria
The
philosophy of memory today
From time immemorial, philosophers have been concerned with
issues related to memory. However, the philosophy of memory understood as a
particular field is a very new enterprise. This new field of study is the
result of the growth of research on memory, which can be measured by a large
number of publications in specialized scientific journals, conferences,
seminars, as well as societies and research centers. It is safe to say that
The
philosophy of memory is now well on its way to taking form as a distinct,
coherent area of research, with a recognized set of problematics and theories.
[…] Philosophers of memory […] increasingly think of themselves as philosophers
of memory, and the area is in the process of developing its own infrastructure,
as books, special issues, conferences, and workshops on all aspects of the
philosophy of memory become regular occurrences[1].
Thus the
situation is such that, historically, memory is fundamental for the main
debates in aesthetics, politics, ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics, and
there is more than one venerable tradition of philosophical investigation about
the nature of memory. Until now, however, it was not usual to hear philosophers
describing themselves as philosophers of memory. But now the philosophical
landscape is changing. Evidence of this new situation is this very number of
the journal Voluntas on the topic of
philosophy of memory.
But why now? The explanation seems to be outside philosophy,
in science and society. Nowadays, due both to new
empirical discoveries and to new social challenges, the philosophy of memory is
thriving for at least two reasons. On the one hand, new ideas in cognitive
psychology and the neurosciences open the opportunity to think once more about
the distinction between memory and imagination, the requirement of truth in
memory, and the relationship between memory and knowledge. On the other hand,
new political phenomena from the 20th century made it necessary to
discuss the relationship between forgetfulness and responsibility—and the duty
to remember.
Memory is fundamental. Almost every cognitive capacity
interacts with memory. Investigation about the nature of memory is almost as
old as philosophy itself and is more critical today than it has ever been in
the history of philosophy. Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine gave key
contributions to the philosophy of memory, and Buddhist schools of thought
discussed deeply how it could be the case that we have memory considering that
there is no self at the fundamental level of reality. Spinoza, Locke, Hume, and
Reid renewed the philosophy of memory at the dawn of modernity, bonding the
power to remember one’s own personal past with the issue of personal identity.
More recently, analytic and non-analytic philosophers used insights from
psychology (introspectionist and behaviorist),
psychoanalysis, cognitive sciences, and neurosciences to reconceive the philosophical
thought about the nature of memory. Usually, the results of these philosophical
explorations can be seen in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics,
areas that can progress even more now with the help of philosophers or memory.
Having in mind this current situation, the editors of this
special issue of Voluntas proposed to
the philosophical community a call for papers on
the topic of memory. Our idea was to receive contributions from a wide variety
of perspectives: historical and thematic, ancient and modern, a priori and a posteriori. We strongly believe that such pluralism[2] of approaches, problems, and
solutions is the best way forward when it comes to the further development of
the area of philosophy of memory.
Overview
of the articles
André Sant’Anna and Kourken Michaelian’s article is a
presentation of the current state of the debate in philosophy of memory. They
review the causal theory of memory (CTM), and explain the motivation behind the
simulation theory of memory (STM) and the functionalist theory of memory.
Besides the fact that the article is an important contribution for the current
debate in philosophy of memory, it is probably the best introduction to the
philosophy of memory available for the Brazilian language readers. For these
readers, this article is the natural starting point.
Nikola Andonovski’s article
examines more closely the role of the notion of simulation in the STM, a theory based on empirical research
grounding the hypothesis that there is a cognitive system that allows human
beings to construct or simulate episodes. There are two views on the nature of
simulation. First, simulation can be seen as replication of a former mental
state. Second, simulation can be viewed as mathematical representation of an event.
The problem with the first view is that STM is not committed to the thesis that
what is remembered is a previous mental state. The problem for the second
proposal is that it is not clear how the cognitive system would establish the
minimal conditions for the similarity between the event simulated and the
abstract representation.
Marina Trakas’ article deals with
main difficulties with the usual criteria for the distinction between different
kinds of memory—with a focus on the case of episodic memory. Trakas review the main criteria available in the
literature: grammar, phenomenology, causation. Also, she approaches issues
concerning the vehicle/content distinction and the main differences between
autobiographical and episodic memory. As a result, Trakas
assess problems with these criteria and distinctions. For this reason, she
proposes a new criterium based on “the affective significance of a past
experience”.
Maria Cristina Clorinda Vendra’s
article investigates how Paul Ricoeur uses the
concept of collective memory for the exposition of problems related to
diachronic and synchronic social cohesion. Concerning the constitution of
collective memory, the main problem concerns problems for the self due to the gap between subjective time and manifest
time. Given the unbridgeable nature of this gap, Vendra
proposes that the solution cannot be found neither in an isolated individual
consciousness nor in a simple sum of memories from different people, but in
narrative. The author also proposes a way of reading back the first works of
Paul Ricoeur by the light of his last works.
Danilo Dantas’ article focuses on
how the causal condition makes it hard to explain memory errors in the CTM
framework. Consider cases where the agent retrieves information that was not in
the former experience that is the target of the retrieval process, but is
associated with the target past experience. In this case, the CTM philosopher
can say that there is no memory because there is no satisfaction of the causal
condition. However, it is strange that there is no proper causal explanation for the error. Why is this the case? Dantas proposes that if the causal condition were adequate,
it could be used to explain cases of remembering and misremembering—which is not the case. Similar problems for the CTM
are related to other kinds of memory errors.
Beatriz Sorrentino Marques’ article takes on Stanley Klein’s
theory of the self. According to Klein, there can be a self with no episodic
memory. However, Marques disputes the meaningfulness of Klein’s proposal on the
grounds that the relevant sense of the self for the debate on selfhood “springs
from and is dependent on episodic memory”. Marques concludes “that the sense of
continuity, as Klein conceives it, does not add much to the issue of personal
identity or related issues that elicit philosophical concern. Moreover, the
relevant sense of selfhood to these issues is diachronic sense of self, which depends
on episodic memory”.
Filipe Volz’ article addresses Walter Benjamin’s philosophy
of memory. Volz claim that Benjamin’s framework for memory is constituted by
two elements. On the one hand, there is a thesis about self-understanding: the
way we understand the past is the key to the explanation of the way we
understand the present. On the other hand, there is a thesis about the
possibility of self-understanding: because there is a conflict between leaving
traces and being aware, either there is a process from acquisition to storage
of information or there is a process from storage to retrieval of information,
but the two process cannot be simultaneous. The solution for the conflict
between storage and recollection is structuring the past in an intersubjective
narrative that works as a surrogate for individual memory and opens the
possibility of understanding one’s own past, and, therefore, of understanding
one’s own present.
Lastly, Sanqueilo de Lima Santos
and Mariana Marcelino Alvares’ article considers the
complex and challenging bridge between, on the one hand, personal and
collective memory, and, on the other hand, impersonal historiography. Based on
Paul Ricoeur’s proposals, Santos & Alvares put pressure on the problem of the dual success
condition for historiography: the historical document has to be true, but it
also has to be a ground for justice. The author concludes that there is no
ready or easy solution for this problem.
Associated with this special issue of Voluntas there is, also, a translation to Brazilian Portuguese of
Henri Bergson’s review for the 1890’s edition of Jean-Marie Guyau’s
book La Genèse
de l’Idée de Temps.
On the
cover image
In the cover of this special issue of Voluntas is illustrated the image of a 31,3cm terracotta figure of
a mythological animal, the hippocamp. It is a living being with an upper part
of a horse and a lower part of a fish. This is a Greek sculpture from the third
century before Christ that was found in the Sicilian city of Centuripe, in Italy. Nowadays, the sculpture is part of the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection (https://collections.lacma.org/node/172485).
We had chosen this image for two reasons. First,
“hippocampus” is the noun for the genus of the seahorse, and the part of the
brain responsible for binding images together in the representation of a
complex and coherent scene remembered or imagined is called “hippocampus”
because it has a shape similar to a seahorse. Second, the mythological figure
of the hippocamp, typical of Greek, Roman and Etruscan art, is an emblematic
product of this part of the brain that we call the hippocampus. For this reason, it expresses very well the human ease
of moving from the domain of perceived and remembered scenes to the domain of
what was never exactly perceived but can be imagined.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Bruna Natália
Richter, Glaupy Fontana Ribas
and Matheus Diesel Werberich for the help with the
preparation of the originals for this edition. We would also like to thank Róbson Ramos dos Reis, Eduardo Vicentini
de Medeiros, and Farid Zahnoun for reading a previous
version of this text.
References
BERNECKER, S.;
MICHAELIAN, K. Editors’ introduction: The philosophy of memory today. In:
BERNECKER, S.; MICHAELIAN, K. (Eds.). The
Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory. London: Routledge, 2017. p.
1–5.
O’LOUGHLIN, I.;
ROBINS, S. K. The Philosophy of Memory: Introduction. Essays in Philosophy, v. 19, n. 2, 2018.