Hume's Scepticism and the Science of Human Nature

Stanistreet, Paul

doi:10.4324/9781315252889

Cited by 2 publications

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“…By contrast, Reid believed that certain types of knowledge can be otherwise justified: for instance, by the use of perception, memory, or consciousness. To give just one example, Reid argues that it is wrong to draw a distinction, as Hume did, between so-called "ideas of memory" and "original impressions", where only the latter are thought to (at most) put the subject in a position to know anything about the external world (for a discussion of Hume's alleged skepticism, see Stanistreet (2002) and Garrett (1996)). Reid believes that a distinction like this is one source of skepticism.…”

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Remembering Events: A Reidean Account of (Episodic) Memory

Folescu

2016

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Philosophy and Phenomenological Researchanti-skeptical commitments, and thus attractive, for several reasons. 5 One reason is that, just like perception, memory is not infallible, but it can constitute or, at least, ground knowledge. Reid argues that memory, like perception, is immediate: it gives direct access to the external world, and not to mental representations of the external world. Another reason is that Reid's explanation of how memory of events works emphasizes the importance of the divide between memory and perception and consciousness: it is one thing to perceive or be conscious of something; it is another to remember that thing. 6 Despite these advantages, a careful study of Reid's views on memory will uncover a serious problem of general philosophical interest: it is unclear how exactly we are able to remember events episodically, since it is not settled whether we ever literally perceive events. This problem is engendered by a clash of the following two intuitions: (i) we can perceive only presently existing things, 7 and (ii) we can remember events, which usually span periods of time longer than the present (whether the present is durationless or not).The present paper has two goals. First, to draw this conflict out, I will show that Reid's views on memory give rise to an inconsistent triad: 8 1 Remembering events depends on having perceived (or on having been conscious of) those events. (EIP III. 1, 2 Events cannot be perceived (and subjects cannot be conscious of them). (EIP III. 5, p. 270)3 Events can be remembered. (EIP III. 1, p. 254)Most of the work here will be to establish the first two sentences in the triad; as is evident from EIP III. 1, p. 254, Reid directly asserts the third.

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