Skip to main content

Memory, Emotions and Epistemic Values

My name is Marina Trakas and I am finishing a PhD on philosophy of memory. I am affiliated with the Department of Cognitive Science at Macquarie University (Sydney) and the Institut Jean Nicod (Paris), working under the supervision of John Sutton and Jérôme Dokic.
 
My project aims to develop a general framework for understanding the content of autobiographical and episodic memory experiences as they are lived by human beings in everyday situations. In my thesis, first, I defend the idea that our memories can change through time and so their content can be “enriched” as well as the thesis that our episodic and autobiographical memories cannot be always reduced to a simple verbal description of what happened in our past but they are often charged with evaluative and emotional components. Second, I explore the implications of this conceptualization of our autobiographical and personal memories for judging when our memory experience is faithful to our past. For these purposes, I approach these topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, taking in consideration not only research on philosophy –contemporary philosophy as well as philosophers from XIX and beginning of XX century– but also current research on cognitive psychology and even neurosciences. 
 
I structure this defence in three major sections.
 
In the first section, I review and critically evaluate the literature in philosophy and psychology on the contents, intentional objects and memory markers of autobiographical and personal memories. 
The second section is focused on the interaction between memories and emotions. I argue that this interaction is more complex than a simple causal relationship, and that in certain cases the emotional component is part of the memory and not just a product of it. If memories are merely cognitive, in the sense of being essentially proposition-like, and emotions are merely bodily changes, it is natural to think that emotions are simply a consequence of an act of remembering. If emotions have heterogeneous components, some of them usually considered as “cognitive”, and if there is not a solid distinction between emotion and cognition, the interplay between memories and emotions becomes far more complex than a causal relationship and requires a more careful elaboration. The recognition of these complex interactions between memory and emotion motivates revised notions of contents, intentional objects and markers of memory that avoid the objections faced by the standard positions presented in the first section. 

The last section of the thesis is centred on the epistemology of memory. The idea that genuine memories can have enriched contents, rather than simply preserving and reproducing the contents of experience, goes hand in hand with the recognition of other functions of memory beyond the reproductive one. In the psychology literature, it is considered that one of the primary functions of memory consists of promoting continuity and development of the self while renegotiating self-narratives and preserving a sense of coherence (self function), among other functions like directing future planning and promoting social relations. The valorization of these functions have set aside the reproductive one as a simple capability of memory, as well as emphasized the context-dependency of a successful act of remembering and values like accuracy, integrity and coherence. But these claims are clearly in tension with the conception of memory as a reliable source of knowledge about the past. This tension needs further discussion to clarify the epistemic values of autobiographical memories.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Delusions in the DSM 5

This post is by Lisa Bortolotti. How has the definition of delusions changed in the DSM 5? Here are some first impressions. In the DSM-IV (Glossary) delusions were defined as follows: Delusion. A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everyone else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person's culture or subculture (e.g., it is not an article of religious faith). When a false belief involves a value judgment, it is regarded as a delusion only when the judgment is so extreme as to defy credibility.
Read more

Motivated Reasoning in Science

Today's post is by Josh May (University of Alabama, Birmingham). In this post, he talks about one of his papers published in Synthese and entitled " Bias in Science ". Josh May Much discussion of the replication crisis in science has focused on the social sciences, particularly psychology. A common narrative is that the social sciences are particularly susceptible to powerful biases, such as moral and political ideology. I argue instead for a parity thesis: all areas of science are subject to bias, through the general psychological mechanism of motivated reasoning . This provides a unified framework for understanding how values influence the entire scientific enterprise. The scientific process involves numerous decisions that can be influenced by one's values--including moral, political, and prudential values--which manifest as goals or motivations. A researcher wants badly, say, to publish in a prestigious journal in order to either advance her career or maintain ...
Read more

Models of Madness

In today's post John Read  (in the picture above) presents the recent book he co-authored with Jacqui Dillon , titled Models of Madness: Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Psychosis. My name is John Read. After 20 years working as a Clinical Psychologist and manager of mental health services in the UK and the USA, mostly with people experiencing psychosis, I joined the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 1994. There I published over 100 papers in research journals, primarily on the relationship between adverse life events (e.g., child abuse/neglect, poverty etc.) and psychosis. I also research the negative effects of bio-genetic causal explanations on prejudice, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in mental health. In February I moved to Melbourne and I now work at Swinburne University of Technology.  I am on the on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis and am the Editor...
Read more