Memory as Acquaintance with the Past: Some Lessons from Russell, 1912-1914 (original) (raw)

Russell's theory of memory as acquaintance with the past seems to square uneasily with his definition of acquaintance as the converse of the relation of presentation of an object to a subject. We show how the two views can be made to cohere under a suitable construal of 'presentation', which has the additional appeal of bringing Russell's theory of memory closer to contemporary views on direct reference and object-dependent thinking than is usually acknowledged. The drawback is that memory as acquaintance with the past falls short of fulfilling Russell's requirement that knowledge by acquaintance be discriminating knowledge – a shortcoming shared by contemporary externalist accounts of knowledge from memory. reSUMo A teoria russelliana da memória como contato (acquaintance) com o passado parece coadunar-se mal com definição do contato (acquaintance) como a conversa da relação de apresentação de um objeto a um sujeito. Mostramos como as duas concepções podem ser conciliadas mediante uma interpretação apropriada de 'apresentação', que tem a vantagem adicional de salientar uma proximidade maior que a usualmente reconhecida entre a teoria da memória de Russell e idéias contemporâneas