The Truth About Memory

The truth about memory.

Schechtman, Marya

ABSTRACT Contemporary philosophical discussion of personal identity has centered on refinements and defenses of the "psychological continuity theory"--the view that identity is created by the links between present and past provided by autobiographical experience memories. This view is structured in such a way that these memories must be seen as providing simple connections between two discrete, well-defined moments of consciousness. There is, however, a great deal of evidence--both introspective and empirical--that autobiographical memory often does not provide such links, but instead summarizes and condenses life experiences into. a coherent narrative. A brief exploration of some of the mechanisms of this summarizing and condensing work furthers the philosophical discussion of personal identity by showing why a view with the structure of the psychological continuity theory will not work, and by illuminating the role of autobiographical memory in the constitution of personal identity.
John Locke is famously taken to be the founder of the memory theory of personal identity; the view, roughly put, that someone in the present is the same person as someone in the past if and only if the present person remembers (or can remember) the experiences of the past person. Something in this view has seemed very right, and it has had tremendous staying power. This Lockean insight has found expression most recently in the "psychological continuity theories" offered by, e.g., Sydney Shoemaker (1984), Derek Parfit (1984), and John Perry (1975). These views, which are based on Locke's, have enjoyed a great deal of success, and although philosophical accounts which define identity in terms of psychological features are by no means universally accepted, the amount of sway they have held demonstrates that there is something deeply compelling in what Locke says.
Strangely enough, however, for all of the defense and criticism of...