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Memory and the Self: Phenomenology, Science and Autobiography
The idea that our memories, in some sense, make us who we are, is a common one-and not at all implausible. After all, what could make us who we are if not the things we have experienced, thought, felt and desired on these idiosyncratic pathways through space and time that we call lives? And how can we retain these experiences, thoughts, feelings and desires if not through memory? On the other hand, most of what we have experienced has been forgotten. And there is now a considerable body of evidence that suggests that, even when we think we remember, our memories are likely to be distorted, sometimes beyond recognition. Imagine writing your autobiography, only to find that that most of it has been redacted, and much of the rest substantially rewritten. What would hold this book together? What would make it the unified and coherent account of a life?
The answer, Mark Rowlands argues, lies, partially hidden, in a largely unrecognized form of memory- Rilkean memory. A Rilkean memory is produced when the content of a memory is lost but the act of remembering endures, in a new, mutated, a mood, a feeling, or a behavioral disposition. Rilkean memories play a significant role in holding the self together in the face of the poverty and inaccuracy of the contents of memory. But Rilkean memories are important not just because of what they are, but also because of what they were before they became such memories. Acts of remembering sculpt the contents of memories out of the slabs of remembered episodes. Our acts of remembering ensure that we are in the content of each of our memories-present in the way a sculptor is present in his creation-even when this content is lamentably sparse and endemically inaccurate.
The answer, Mark Rowlands argues, lies, partially hidden, in a largely unrecognized form of memory- Rilkean memory. A Rilkean memory is produced when the content of a memory is lost but the act of remembering endures, in a new, mutated, a mood, a feeling, or a behavioral disposition. Rilkean memories play a significant role in holding the self together in the face of the poverty and inaccuracy of the contents of memory. But Rilkean memories are important not just because of what they are, but also because of what they were before they became such memories. Acts of remembering sculpt the contents of memories out of the slabs of remembered episodes. Our acts of remembering ensure that we are in the content of each of our memories-present in the way a sculptor is present in his creation-even when this content is lamentably sparse and endemically inaccurate.
- GenresPhilosophy
224 pages, Hardcover
Published November 14, 2016
2 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Mark Rowlands
37 books147 followersMark Rowlands was born in Newport, Wales and began his undergraduate degree at Manchester University in engineering before changing to philosophy. He took his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University and has held various academic positions in philosophy in universities in Britain, Ireland and the US.
His best known work is the book The Philosopher and the Wolf about a decade of his life he spent living and travelling with a wolf. As The Guardian described it in its review, "it is perhaps best described as the autobiography of an idea, or rather a set of related ideas, about the relationship between human and non-human animals." Reviews were very positive, the Financial Times said it was "a remarkable portrait of the bond that can exist between a human being and a beast,". Mark Vernon writing in The Times Literary Supplement "found the lessons on consciousness, animals and knowledge as engaging as the main current of the memoir," and added that it "could become a philosophical cult classic", while John Gray in the Literary Review thought it "a powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumptions that shape the way most philosophers - along with most people - think about animals and themselves." However, Alexander Fiske-Harrison for Prospect warned that "if you combine misanthropy and lycophilia, the resulting hybrid, lycanthropy, is indeed interesting, but philosophically quite sterile" and that, although Rowlands "acknowledges at the beginning of the book that he cannot think like a wolf... for such a capable philosopher and readable author not to have made the attempt is indeed an opportunity missed."
As a professional philosopher, Rowlands is known as one of the principal architects of the view known as vehicle externalism or the extended mind, and also for his work on the moral status of animals.
His best known work is the book The Philosopher and the Wolf about a decade of his life he spent living and travelling with a wolf. As The Guardian described it in its review, "it is perhaps best described as the autobiography of an idea, or rather a set of related ideas, about the relationship between human and non-human animals." Reviews were very positive, the Financial Times said it was "a remarkable portrait of the bond that can exist between a human being and a beast,". Mark Vernon writing in The Times Literary Supplement "found the lessons on consciousness, animals and knowledge as engaging as the main current of the memoir," and added that it "could become a philosophical cult classic", while John Gray in the Literary Review thought it "a powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumptions that shape the way most philosophers - along with most people - think about animals and themselves." However, Alexander Fiske-Harrison for Prospect warned that "if you combine misanthropy and lycophilia, the resulting hybrid, lycanthropy, is indeed interesting, but philosophically quite sterile" and that, although Rowlands "acknowledges at the beginning of the book that he cannot think like a wolf... for such a capable philosopher and readable author not to have made the attempt is indeed an opportunity missed."
As a professional philosopher, Rowlands is known as one of the principal architects of the view known as vehicle externalism or the extended mind, and also for his work on the moral status of animals.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 14, 2024
It's an okay read but weak as an academic philosophy manuscript.
The good: The bridging between continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy of personal identity is well-thought. Furthermore, Rowlands's discussions of the current state of the research on memory use relevant experimental data, which is very nice.
The not-so-good: The main argument is that bodily and behavioral dispositions and feelings, sensations, and sometimes emotions (altogether called "Rilkean memories") that are remnants of autobiographical episodic memories can constitute a person in addition to episodic memories, which are the incipient forms of Rilkean memories. Well, I do not think that Rilkean memories do what Rowlands wants them to do; i.e., they do not seem as crucial in constituting an autobiographical self as Rowlands advertises them to be. Ask yourself: How much can bodily and behavioral dispositions contribute to shaping who a person is? Say, 8%; and this is being quite generous. There are also some conceptual inconsistencies. For example, he says that the passive-positive character of Rilkean memories means that they do not require a self to exist, to begin with; i.e., "When the self is not yet capable of engaging in active-positive project of forgetting, Rilkean memories can play a role in the construction of the autobiographical self" (p. 121). But this is quite impossible since Rilkean memories come into existence by losing their content due to decay. This is impossible because enough time should pass so that ordinary episodic memories' contents are subject to decay and that they eventually become Rilkean memories. But when enough time passes, there would be a self capable of engaging in active-positive project of forgetting. In other words, Rowlands claims that when the self is not capable of engaging in narrative self-construction, Rilkean memories are reliable sources for the construction of the autobiographical self; however, the problem is that Rilkean memories do not emerge that quickly. They must go through a rather long process of decaying to lose their content and for there to remain bodily dispositions or affective sensations and feelings.
The absolute horrorshow: It is quite curious why he does not cite Marya Schechtman at all. Schechtman is perhaps one of the most critical figures in personal identity, autobiography, memory, psychology (in its most general sense), and narrative issues in contemporary analytic philosophy, if not the most important one. Rowlands's autobiographical self seems to be completely overlapping with Schechtman's narrative self, even if he says his autobiographical self does not have any commitment as to whether it might be narrative in structure. The overlap becomes even clearer when we consider that both Schechtman and Rowlands allude to literary narratives as tools that shape the narrative self and the autobiographical self, respectively. On top of that, both philosophers even use the same example of falsely believing oneself to be Napoléon (maybe that's a ubiquitously used example in the literature, who knows?). Oh, even Rowlands's motivation to move away from the metaphysical project of providing an account of personal identity to more autobiographical concerns is the same as Schechtman's (in her case, moving from reidentification question to characterization question), even though he refrains from delineating the metaphysical problems and settles only with providing basic contours. Maybe that's why he does not cite her; because I believe it must be very improbable for him to never hear of her work on these topics.
The unnecessary: One thing I noticed is that he employs so many GRE words, which is something I sometimes find enjoyable as part of an author's style. But in Rowlands's case, I found it more distracting than enjoyable. In addition, he seems to be a juggler of words — ugh, those publication requirements!!! This makes the book seem to be too derivative; it looks like not everything comes together. For instance, I did not, for the life of me, understand why, at least in the case of episodic memory (and not for other mental states), which is the topic of the book, he devoted at least two chapters to differentiate the content of what is remembered (something mental) from the remembered episode (a state of affairs) after explaining that memory is both constructive and reconstructive really well. But if he did that in order to say, "Individuation [of a state-of-affairs] is something we do or achieve. And the means through which we do it is the intentional act. The act of remembering pulls or sculpts the remembered content from out of the remembered* episode. This is, in part, the result of a different—finer or narrower—mode of individuation being imposed on the episode. This imposition of a different standard of individuation on the episode remembered*—an imposition effected by the intentional act of remembering—is part of the story of how content is created" (p. 181), then I can forgive him because this is such a beautiful (and probably accurate) representation of what happens in episodic remembering.
The good: The bridging between continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy of personal identity is well-thought. Furthermore, Rowlands's discussions of the current state of the research on memory use relevant experimental data, which is very nice.
The not-so-good: The main argument is that bodily and behavioral dispositions and feelings, sensations, and sometimes emotions (altogether called "Rilkean memories") that are remnants of autobiographical episodic memories can constitute a person in addition to episodic memories, which are the incipient forms of Rilkean memories. Well, I do not think that Rilkean memories do what Rowlands wants them to do; i.e., they do not seem as crucial in constituting an autobiographical self as Rowlands advertises them to be. Ask yourself: How much can bodily and behavioral dispositions contribute to shaping who a person is? Say, 8%; and this is being quite generous. There are also some conceptual inconsistencies. For example, he says that the passive-positive character of Rilkean memories means that they do not require a self to exist, to begin with; i.e., "When the self is not yet capable of engaging in active-positive project of forgetting, Rilkean memories can play a role in the construction of the autobiographical self" (p. 121). But this is quite impossible since Rilkean memories come into existence by losing their content due to decay. This is impossible because enough time should pass so that ordinary episodic memories' contents are subject to decay and that they eventually become Rilkean memories. But when enough time passes, there would be a self capable of engaging in active-positive project of forgetting. In other words, Rowlands claims that when the self is not capable of engaging in narrative self-construction, Rilkean memories are reliable sources for the construction of the autobiographical self; however, the problem is that Rilkean memories do not emerge that quickly. They must go through a rather long process of decaying to lose their content and for there to remain bodily dispositions or affective sensations and feelings.
The absolute horrorshow: It is quite curious why he does not cite Marya Schechtman at all. Schechtman is perhaps one of the most critical figures in personal identity, autobiography, memory, psychology (in its most general sense), and narrative issues in contemporary analytic philosophy, if not the most important one. Rowlands's autobiographical self seems to be completely overlapping with Schechtman's narrative self, even if he says his autobiographical self does not have any commitment as to whether it might be narrative in structure. The overlap becomes even clearer when we consider that both Schechtman and Rowlands allude to literary narratives as tools that shape the narrative self and the autobiographical self, respectively. On top of that, both philosophers even use the same example of falsely believing oneself to be Napoléon (maybe that's a ubiquitously used example in the literature, who knows?). Oh, even Rowlands's motivation to move away from the metaphysical project of providing an account of personal identity to more autobiographical concerns is the same as Schechtman's (in her case, moving from reidentification question to characterization question), even though he refrains from delineating the metaphysical problems and settles only with providing basic contours. Maybe that's why he does not cite her; because I believe it must be very improbable for him to never hear of her work on these topics.
The unnecessary: One thing I noticed is that he employs so many GRE words, which is something I sometimes find enjoyable as part of an author's style. But in Rowlands's case, I found it more distracting than enjoyable. In addition, he seems to be a juggler of words — ugh, those publication requirements!!! This makes the book seem to be too derivative; it looks like not everything comes together. For instance, I did not, for the life of me, understand why, at least in the case of episodic memory (and not for other mental states), which is the topic of the book, he devoted at least two chapters to differentiate the content of what is remembered (something mental) from the remembered episode (a state of affairs) after explaining that memory is both constructive and reconstructive really well. But if he did that in order to say, "Individuation [of a state-of-affairs] is something we do or achieve. And the means through which we do it is the intentional act. The act of remembering pulls or sculpts the remembered content from out of the remembered* episode. This is, in part, the result of a different—finer or narrower—mode of individuation being imposed on the episode. This imposition of a different standard of individuation on the episode remembered*—an imposition effected by the intentional act of remembering—is part of the story of how content is created" (p. 181), then I can forgive him because this is such a beautiful (and probably accurate) representation of what happens in episodic remembering.
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June 21, 2019128.3 R8838 2017
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