Knowledge From Forgetting

Abstract

This paper provides a novel argument for granting memory the status of a generative source of justification and knowledge. Memory can produce justified output beliefs and knowledge on the basis of unjustified input beliefs alone. The key to understanding how memory can generate justification and knowledge, memory generativism, is to bear in mind that memory frequently omits part of the stored information. The proposed argument depends on a broadly reliabilist approach to justification.

Don’t forget forgetting: the social epistemic importance of how we forget

“…For example, Barrett and Zollman (2009) show the importance of forgetting for language learning in signaling games, Halpern and Pass (2010), Wilson (2014), andSinger, et al (2019) show how group polarization may be a rational outcome for memory-limited agents, and it's well-known that forgetful agents can enable groups to avoid non-ideal outcomes like converging on bad social norms or getting stuck in suboptimal pooling equilibria. Bernecker and Grundmann (2019) even argue that forgetting itself can be a source of knowledge.…”

Memory Compatibilism: Preserving and Generating Positive Epistemic Status

“…Another important implication of preservationism, besides being unable to produce new epistemic status, is that it is also incapable of improving the epistemic status displayed by a belief at the time it is recalled 7 -if the epistemic status of my belief was originally .8, then it will be no greater than .8 at the time I recall it. Memory, thus, is unable of making an unknown proposition known, an unjustified belief justified, or an irrational belief rational -it can only preserve what is already known, justified or rational (Bernecker, 2011).…”

“…Lackey, 2005(cf. Lackey, , 2007Bernecker, 2009Bernecker, , 2011. Advocates of this view agree with preservationism in that the act of remembering (the memory process) is unable to produce or generate new positive epistemic status or evidence.…”

“…Advocates of this view agree with preservationism in that the act of remembering (the memory process) is unable to produce or generate new positive epistemic status or evidence. Since they agree that memory cannot make justification and knowledge from nothing, the only way that memory can be thought of as a generative source is by "removing defeaters and thereby unleashing the positive epistemic status that was already present when the belief was originally acquired" (Bernecker, 2011). The problem with this approach is that memory is not a generative source of epistemic status after all since all the epistemic status that is being unleashed by the removal of defeaters was already present and is independent of memory.…”

Book review symposium: The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory

“…Second, regarding the normative section, there continues to be relatively little work done on the epistemology of memory and even less on the ethics of memory. There are signs of new interest in these topics, too (Bernecker and Grundmann, 2019; Glannon, 2019; Senor, 2019), and, again, it seems likely that they will begin to attract increased attention. We note that, just as there is little descriptive work on semantic memory, there is little epistemological work on episodic memory; both topics are ripe for growth.…”