Attitudes and the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination

ARTÍCULO DE INVESTIGACIÓN Attitudes and the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination* André Sant’Anna Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, United States E-mail: Recibido: 30 de octubre de 2020 | Aceptado: 16 de marzo de 2021 https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n64a04 Abstract: The current dispute between causalists and simulationists in philosophy of memory has led to opposing attempts to characterize the relationship between memory and imagination. In a recent overview of this debate, Perrin and Michaelian (2017) have suggested that the dispute over the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination boils down to the question of whether a causal connection to a past event is necessary for remembering. By developing an argument based on an analogy to perception, I argue that this dispute should instead be viewed as a dispute about the nature of the attitudes involved in remembering and imagining. The focus on attitudes, rather than on causal connections, suggests a new way of conceiving of the relationship between memory and imagination that has been overlooked in recent philosophy of memory. Keywords: memory, imagination, causal theory, simulation theory, continuism, discontinuism * Much of the work on this paper was done when I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Philosophy of Memory at the Université Grenoble Alpes and was supported by the French National Research Agency in the framework of the "Investissements d’avenir” program (ANR-15-IDEX-02). Cómo citar este artículo Sant’Anna, A. (2021). Attitudes and the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination. Estudios de Filosofía, 64, 73-93. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n64a04 Estud.filos n.º 64. Julio-diciembre de 2021 | pp. 73-93 | Universidad de Antioquia | ISSN 0121-3628 | ISSN-e 2256-358X 73 ARTÍCULO DE INVESTIGACIÓN Las actitudes y la (dis)continuidad entre la memoria y la imaginación Resumen: La disputa actual entre causalistas y simulacionistas en filosofía de la memoria ha llevado a intentos opuestos de caracterizar la relación entre memoria e imaginación. En una revisión reciente de este debate, Perrin y Michaelian (2017) han sugerido que la disputa sobre la (dis)continuidad entre la memoria y la imaginación se reduce a la cuestión de si para recordar es necesaria una conexión causal con un evento pasado. Al desarrollar un argumento basado en una analogía con la percepción, sostengo que esta disputa debería verse como una disputa sobre la naturaleza de las actitudes involucradas en recordar e imaginar. El enfoque en las actitudes, más que en las conexiones causales, sugiere una nueva forma de concebir la relación entre la memoria y la imaginación que se ha pasado por alto en la filosofía reciente de la memoria. Palabras clave: memoria, imaginación, teoría causal, teoría de la simulacion, continuismo, discontinuismo André Sant’Anna Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Philosophy and the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis. ORCID: 0000-0002-2239-7243 74 Estud.filos n.º 64. Julio-diciembre de 2021 | pp. 73-93 | Universidad de Antioquia | ISSN 0121-3628 | ISSN-e 2256-358X https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n64a04 Attitudes and the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination 1 Introduction The current dispute between causalism and simulationism in philosophy of memory has led to opposing attempts to characterize the relationship between memory and imagination. According to causalists, memory is discontinuous with imagination, for a causal connection is necessary only for remembering. According to simulationists, memory is continuous with imagination, and for this reason, a causal connection is not necessary for remembering. This has led Perrin & Michaelian (2017) to suggest that the dispute over the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination boils down to the question of whether a causal connection is necessary for remembering. By developing an argument based on an analogy to perception, I propose that, given the commitment by causalists and simulationists to a representationalist approach to mental states, it is wrong to frame the dispute over the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination in terms of the necessity of a causal connection for remembering. Instead, I propose that it should be viewed as dispute about the nature of the attitudes involved in remembering and imagining. One crucial implication of this way of looking at things is, I will suggest, that philosophers of memory should distinguish between two related but separate debates: namely, the debate over whether a causal connection is necessary for remembering, on the one hand, and the debate over whether memory and imagination are continuous, on the other hand. I proceed as follows: Section 2 introduces and discusses the causal theory, the simulation theory, and how they conceive of the relationship between memory and imagination. Section 3 draws an analogy to perception to argue that it is wrong to view the requirement for the presence of a causal connection in remembering as fundamental to establishing the (dis)continuity between memory and imagination. Section 4 discusses how my proposal relates to recent attempts to intervene in the (dis)continuism debate. Section 5 concludes by responding to potential objections to the analogy to perception argument. 2 (Dis)continuism and the necessity of a causal connection for remembering Is a causal connection necessary for remembering? Two influential theories have been developed in response to this question. The causal theory of memory, or simply causalism, says that remembering occurs only when memory is appropriately caused by a past perceptual experience.1 While there is room to dispute what it is for a past 1 For different versions of the causal theory, see Martin & Deutscher (1966); Bernecker (2010); Debus (2010); Michaelian (2011); Robins (2016); Werning (2020). Estud.filos n.º 64. Julio-diciembre de 2021 | pp. 73-93 | Universidad de Antioquia | ISSN 0121-3628 | ISSN-e 2256-358X https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n64a04 75 André Sant’Anna event or experience to appropriately cause a current mental state, one popular strategy has been to appeal to the presence of a memory trace,2 or a brain state that encodes and stores information at the time of experience and that is later retrieved to cause memories of those events. Thus, causalists have proposed that a causal connection is appropriate when it takes place by means of a memory trace connecting a particular past event to a current representation of it. The causal theory has been dominant in philosophy for multiple reasons.3 One of these reasons, which will be the focus of this paper, is that it captures an important metaphysical intuition about remembering: that is, that it differs in kind from imagining. A clear illustration is provided by the notorious painter example discussed by Martin & Deutscher (1966, pp. 167–168). In this example (...truncated)