Trace Theory as Philosophy

Abstract

We have seen that the only mechanistic theories which are at all plausible are trace theories. (The alternative would be a magical mechanism which produced, e.g., the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ with nothing at all to guide it each step of the way.) And, while trace theories strike most of us initially as being plausible, we have seen that trace theories, too, fail to explain memory. In Part I of this book, we saw that, even if trace theory could account for examples of memory, it leads to a problem when we consider examples of imagination. That is, we examined a typical case of musical memory. And we offered a trace-theoretical explanation of this musical example. The explanation ran into trouble when we considered cases where the piece of music was transformed from the original in various ways. What we found was that, even if trace theory provided a scientific explanation of the memory example, it failed to do so in the case where the piece of music was called to mind (imagined) in an altered form. In fact, what we saw was that trace theory committed us to the existence of a magical mechanism which was required to produce the music in its altered form.