Abstract
Human beings are linked to their past, to their own autobiographies as living arrays and weavings of events, occasions, persons, things, by virtue of their capacities for memory. Our access to history is in some part made possible by our recollecting events and states of affairs and accounts of events and states of affairs. Memory functions are, and will be, topics for scientific study as well as topics for philosophical and practical analysis.
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Notes
Stanley Munsat, The Concept of Memory (New York: Random House, 1967).
Norman Malcolm, Memory and Mind (Ithaca, New York and London: Cornell University Press, 1977).
Ibid., p. 224.
Les Holborow, ‘The “Prejudice” in Favor of Psychophysical Parallelism’ in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Understanding Wittgenstein: The Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, vol. 7(1972–73) (London: Macmillan, 1974) p. 202.
See also Roger Squires, ‘Memory Unchained’, Philosophical Review, vol. 78, April 1969.
J.F.M. Hunter, ‘Wittgenstein and Materialism’, Mind, vol. 86, no. 344, October 1977, p. 528.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 529. Hunter concludes by proposing that ‘whatever exactly we might one day explain neurologically it would not be remembering. Something’s not being hearsay or inference, or the speaker’s being a witness, do not call for a neurological explanation, if they call for any at all.’ (p. 531). He characterises this as a ‘mild’ suggestion. (Ibid.). A much fuller elaboration of the ‘facts’ about memory which we might attempt to explain neurophysiologically is necessary to support this claim, which might of course be true.
W.F. Brewer, ‘The Problem of Meaning and Higher Mental Processes’ in W.B. Weimer and D.S. Palermo (eds), Cognition and the Symbolic Processes (New York: LEA/John Wiley, 1974) p. 284. His references are to I. Begg and A. Paivio, ‘Concreteness and Imagery in Sentence Meaning’, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, vol. 8, 1969, and to W.F. Brewer, ‘Memory for ldeas: Synonym Substitutions’, unpublished MSS, University of Illinois, 1974. I have added italics to the quotation in the text.
Ralph W. Gerard, ‘What is Memory?’ in Psychobiology (San Francisco: Scientific American: W.H. Freeman, 1967) p. 126.
See Norman E. Spear, The Processing of Memories: Forgetting and Retention (New York: LEA/John Wiley, 1978), p. 333, et seq.
See also D.A. Booth, ‘Protein Synthesis and Memory’ in J.A. Deutsch (ed.), The Physiological Basis of Memory (New York: Academic Press: 1973) pp. 27–58. But how could one ‘decode’ from a protein chain into a narrative account or image of a past event?
A.J.P. Kenny, Will, Freedom and Power (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976) p. 10.
G.P. Baker and P.M. S. Hacker, Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning, vol. 1, (Oxford: University of Chicago Press/Blackwell, 1980).
Ibid., p. 611. Their entire discussion of ‘Understanding and Ability’ (pp. 595–620) is immensely clarifying.
K. S. Lashley, ‘In Search of the Engram’, Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology, vol. 4 (Washington D.C.: 1950) pp. 454–582.
E.R. John, Mechanisms of Memory (New York: Academic Press, 1967).
J.R. Anderson and G.H. Bower, Human Associative Memory (Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere, 1974).
D. Krech, ‘Discussion’ in J.L. McGough (ed.), Advances in Behavioral Biology, vol. 4: The Chemistry of Mood, Motivation and Memory (New York: Plenum Press, 1972).
Ibid., p. 223. (Quoted in Spear, Memories, p. 10).
See, e.g., H.A. Bursen, Dismantling the Memory Machine: A Philosophical Investigation of Machine Theories of Memory (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978);
Spear, Memories, passim, and Derek Richter (ed.), Aspects of Learning and Memory (New York: Basic Books, 1966).
For a fuller discussion of these experiments (by Penfield and others), see Leonard A. Stevens, Explorers of the Brain (New York: Knopf, 1971).
Elliot S. Valenstein, Brain Control: A Critical Examination of Brain Stimulation and Psychosurgery (New York: John Wiley, 1973).
J. Coulter, The Social Construction of Mind (London: Macmillan, 1978).
Perhaps in a broader sense than in Wittgenstein’s (original) uses of the expression. See J.F.M. Hunter, ‘“Forms of Life” in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations’ in E.D. Klemke (ed.), Essays on Wittgenstein (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1971).
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© 1983 Jeff Coulter
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Coulter, J. (1983). On ‘traces’, ‘engrams’ and memory models. In: Rethinking Cognitive Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06706-0_5
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