Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Jordi Fernández (University of Adelaide)

Memory and imagination are different propositional attitudes.

14.01.2021, 10:00-11:30 CET (UTC+01:00).

Online Lecture via zoom.

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Abstract: In this talk, I will argue for the view that episodic memory and sensory imagination are different types of propositional attitudes. First, I consider two plausible views about the content and attitude involved in remembering episodically. On one of those views, episodic remembering consists in taking a certain state of affairs that one perceived to be in the past. On the other view, remembering consists in taking a perception of that state of affairs to have caused the experience that one is currently having. Next, I offer a proposal about the content and attitude involved in imagining sensorily. Essentially, the proposal is that, when one imagines a state of affairs in virtue of having some mental image, one takes it to be possible that one could perceive that state of affairs, and that if one perceived it, one would have an experience which is phenomenologically similar to having the mental image that one is currently having. Finally, I highlight the differences which, on either of the two views about memory, separate memory from imagination, and conclude that memory and imagination are distinct propositional attitudes.

Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Fabrice Teroni (Université de Genève)

Emotions and memory.

17.12.2020, 10:00-11:30 CET (UTC+01:00).

Online Lecture via zoom.

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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82970505769?pwd=NGpHL3VHUUg0bktTbnBIT2kxMWVYZz09

  • Meeting ID: 829 7050 5769
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Abstract: Pre-theoretically, it seems obvious that there are deep and multifarious relations between memory and emotions. On the one hand, a large chunk of our affective lives concerns the good and bad events that happened to us and that we preserve in memory. This is one amongst the many ways in which memory is relevant to the nature and causation of emotions. What does recent research teach us about these relations? In the first part of my talk, I shall consider three issues pertaining to these relations. a) Are there types of emotions that are exclusively related to memory? This issue concerns the individuation of emotion types. b) Do emotions in general have privileged links with types of memory (e.g., perceptual memory)? This is a question about the format of representation in emotion. c) Do emotional evaluations have privileged links with memory? This issue concerns the way in which the evaluative aspect of the emotions is realized in the subject’s psychology. On the other hand, which events we happen to preserve in memory very much depends on how we affectively reacted to them when they took place. Emotions are relevant to the nature and causation of memory in this and many other ways. The second part of my talk surveys four issues regarding these relations. a) Is there a relation between the formation of memories and emotions? This is the issue of selectivity, which concerns the role of emotions at the time of encoding. b) Is there a relation between the capacity to access a memory and emotions? This question targets the role of emotions at the time of remembering and relates to the phenomenon of “mood congruence”. c) Is there a type of memory content that is distinctively related to the emotions? This is the issue of affective memories and their nature. d) Is the attitude of remembering (as opposed to what one remembers) emotional in nature?

Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Bochum-Grenoble Memory Colloquium

Nikola Andonovski (Johns Hopkins University)

Memory as triage: Facing up to the hard question of memory.

10.12.2020, 16:15-17:45 CET (UTC+01:00).

Online Lecture via zoom.

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Zoom:

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  • Meeting ID: 829 7050 5769
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Abstract: The Hard Question of memory is the following: how are memory representations stored and organized so as to be made available for retrieval in the appropriate circumstances and format? In this essay, I argue that philosophical theories of memory should engage with the Hard Question directly and seriously. I propose that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially selected and stabilized, but also systematically modified and integrated into generalized, model-like representational structures. The account, I argue, points to a new kind of preservationist theory, on which the preservation of information in memory goes hand-in-hand with the maintenance of its relevance.