SPP 08 submission

Society for Philosophy and Psychology Submission

Title: Remembering Beliefs
Abstract:
Optimal decision-making requires us to accurately introspect the origins of our mental experiences. In this paper I examine how different types of remembering impacts belief. Remembering can be implicit—either representational or procedural—and remembering can be explicit—either semantic or episodic. The minimal conditions for remembering are a causal connection to the learning event and the retention and subsequent impact of this learnt material on behavior, regardless of our conscious awareness or attribution. The minimal conditions for recollection require remembering, belief and mnemic qualia. Whenever we have conscious influence over our memory attributions, it is in our interests to efficiently source their origins. I look to the source-monitoring literature to reconcile circumstances where beliefs and qualia conflict. By separating the experience of remembering from biological facts of memory, unusual cases make sense, such as memory qualia without memory (e.g. déjà vu, false memories) or a failure to have memory qualia with memory (e.g. functional amnesia, unintentional plagiarism). I conclude with a Bayesian defense of source-monitoring based on C.I. Lewis' coherence argument for memorial knowledge.