Memory and Quasi-Memory

Abstract

However, as I said at the beginning of the last chapter, my chief aim is to criticize not the views of Williams — with whom I am in agreement to a large extent — but those of the memory theorists. To defend a memory criterion against Butler’s objection of vicious circularity Shoemaker is forced to introduce a notion of “quasi-memory” in terms of which he goes on to lay down conditions for personal identity. But it is easy to see that if one thing can become two this notion cannot be used in this way as a defence against Butler’s objection. This is what I now turn to.¹