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.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Cornford translation in Plato: Collected Dialogues, ed. by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, 1961, Pantheon Books, 1743 pp. p. 897.
Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Paris Prima, QLXXVIII, art. IV.
From Models of Human Memory, op. cit., article by D. A. Norman and D. Rumelhart.
Models of Human Memory, op. cit., article cit., ‘A system for perception and memory’, pp. 19–20.
Hobbes, Leviathan, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, 1950, 630 pp., part I, Chapter 2, p. 8.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 11, his italics.
See, for example, the issue of Time magazine for February 20, 1978.
The Neuropsychology of Lashley, op. cit., p. 501.
See Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, op. cit., par. 47–8.
W. Köhler, The Task of Gestalt Psychology, op. cit., p. 122.
Ibid., p. 123.
The Neuropsychology of Lashley, op. cit., p. 535.
Models of Human Memory, op. cit., article cit., ‘A system for perception and memory’, p. 22.
By Jerry A. Fodor, 165 pp., Random House, New York, 1968.
Psychological Explanation, op. cit., pp. 25–6.
The reader should not gather from this the mistaken notion that there is a set, ‘X’, which is the set of ashtrays. It is not fixed, immutably and for all time, what things are, and what things are not ashtrays.
For a discussion of the idea of family resemblance, see Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (op. cit.), see especially, Part I, paragraphs 65–71.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books, Harper Torchbooks edition, p. 3.
Blue Book, p. 5.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1978 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bursen, H.A. (1978). Trace Theory as Philosophy. In: Dismantling the Memory Machine. Synthese Library, vol 128. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9885-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9885-8_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-9887-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-9885-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive