Thomas Reid's View of Memorial Conception

Abstract

Thomas Reid believed that the human mind is well equipped, from infancy, to acquire knowledge of the external world, with all its objects, persons and events. There are three main faculties that are involved in the acquisition of knowledge: (original) perception, memory, and imagination. It is thought that we cannot understand how exactly perception works, unless we have a good grasp on Reid's notion of perceptual conception (i.e., of the conception employed in perception). The present paper argues that the same is true of memory, and it offers an answer to the question: what type of conception does it employ?

Thomas Reid on the Role of Conception and Belief in Perception and Memory

“…This rules out the possibility of first having a conception of an object as present, later as past. Among those who subscribe to a thin understanding of conception (at least in terms of our conceptions in memory and perception), as involving something like a bare Russellian acquaintance relation are Alston (1989), Copenhaver (2006Copenhaver ( , 2010, Folescu (2015Folescu ( , 2018, and Van Cleve (2004). 12 I am assuming, in contrast, that Reid uses the word "conception" univocally and thinks that a conception that can play a role in perception can also play a role in a "bare-conception."…”