The Second Shanghai-Grenoble Philosophy of Memory Workshop

Changsheng Lai (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)

The upcoming 2^nd Shanghai-Grenoble Philosophy of Memory Workshop will be held at the School of Humanities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, from December 7 to 8, 2024. The organizers of this workshop are Changsheng Lai (Shanghai Jiao Tong University), Kourken Michaelian (Université Grenoble Alpes), Lu Teng (NYU Shanghai), Qingfeng Yang (Fudan University), and Feng Yu (East China Normal University).

The Shanghai-Grenoble Philosophy of Memory Workshop is a series of events jointly organized and hosted by philosophers of memory from Shanghai, China and Centre for Philosophy of Memory, Université Grenoble Alpes.

The workshop aims to provide an international communication platform promoting engagement between philosophers from the East and West in the field of memory research.

The first workshop of this series was held at NYU Shanghai, in 2019, consisting of five speakers based on Shanghai and Grenoble.

This year, the theme of the workshop is ‘Memory and Metacognition’. Twelve scholars from France, Germany, Australia, Singapore, and China will deliver presentations, sharing their research on topics including generationism, simulationism, causalism, memory traces, confabulation, aphantasia, forgetting, metacognition, the norm of remembering, and so forth. The following is a ‘teaser trailer’ of the workshop, briefly introducing some of talks that will be delivered.

Kicking off the workshop on December 7, Kourken Michaelian from Université Grenoble Alpes will give a talk entitled ‘Full-spectrum generationism’. The aim of the talk is to make a start in the direction of assessing the various forms of generationism in the literature since Lackey’s seminal 2005 paper. Kourken will review the available forms of generationism and the arguments for and against them and by demonstrating that a set of generationisms—making up a package to which we will refer as ‘full-spectrum generationism’—is, though it has some surprising consequences, both internally coherent and plausible relative both to the simulation theory of memory and to reliabilist epistemology.

After that, Kristina Liefke from Ruhr University Bochum will give a talk entitled ‘Mnemic referential dependencies: specificity and the role of traces in constructive episodic simulations’. This talk takes first steps towards a theory of referential dependencies in episodic simulation that accommodates specific and non-specific objects grounded in multiple and non-actual episodes. It is argued that an agent’s memory can be episodic (indicated by phenomenological properties like vividness and mental imagery) even if the underlying experience is non-veridical (i.e. if there was no actual experienced object). Besides, lack of specificity is also observed in hallucination-/dream-based imagination, and in generic memories whose underlying episodes lack a common object.

Qingfeng Yang from Fudan University will start the afternoon session with his talk ‘Memory, Cognition, and Ontology of Memory’. Qingfeng argues that the contemporary memory studies must be based on the ontology of memory rather than the so-called ‘attached theory’ treating memory as a part of cognition. It is possible to construct the independent status of memory within the philosophy and through the development of neuroscience. Philosophically speaking, Qingfeng holds that memory, differing from cognition, is spatial condition of the show of object in the past. Meanwhile, according to neuroscience, memory has completely different neural circuits from cognition.

The second talk of the afternoon will be given by Michelle Liu from Monash University. The title of her talk is ‘Mental Simulation and the Imagistic Harm of Language’. Michelle argues that dehumanizing language can transmit mental imagery which may underpin harmful associations and beliefs. Recent psycholinguistic literature suggests that language comprehension often (constitutively) involves perceptual-motor simulations. Drawing on this empirical literature, Michelle’s talk aims to clarify the imagistic content of metaphorical and generic language and explain how it can shape our beliefs and attitudes.

After that, James Openshaw from Nanyang Technological University will deliver a talk entitled ‘Referential confabulation: A new problem for causalist theories of remembering’. Causalism holds that mnemonic confabulations are errors because they lack an appropriate causal link to an event in the subject’s past. If mnemonic reference to an event requires such a link, then it follows that referential confabulation should not be possible. Reviewing the psychological literature, however, the talk argues that many core cases of mnemonic confabulation do involve mnemonic reference to some event(s) in the confabulator’s personal past.

The last talk of the first day, entitled ‘What is a memory trace if it is a disposition?’, will be given by Denis Perrin from Université Grenoble Alpes. Quite a few philosophers have recently introduced the notion of a disposition into the memory trace debate. But to date, none have said precisely what a disposition is supposed to be. The strategy of this talk is to appeal to the metaphysics of dispositions literature to carry out two tasks. First, the talk will clarify the differences between the notions used by different authors in the literature. Second, building on the clarification task, Denis will explore the prospects of a version of causalism based on the notion of a disposition.

The second day of the workshop will commence with the talk entitled ‘Proper Forgetting as a Responsibilist Virtue’, delivered by Yuping Wang from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The talk proposes that forgetting can be considered an intellectual virtue within a responsibilist framework that emphasizes inquiry. Yuping will defend some theoretical and pragmatic merits of this framework. First, it can address the problems that Michaelian (2011) has not yet explained in his reliabilist framework. Second, drawing on an overlooked character trait of ‘proper forgetting’, the responsibilist framework aligns better with the intuition that virtue is an acquired excellence that reflects one’s personal worth rather than an innate faculty that is possessed by everyone. Finally, it can reveal potential benefits of active forgetting, such as staying focused, evaluating resources, and facilitating mental flexibility.

After that, Feng Yu from East China Normal University will deliver a talk entitled ‘Memory and Imagination’. The alleged continuity discovered between episodic memory and imagination has significantly motivated the simulation theory of memory. However, Feng argues that the framework of simulation theory not only fails to accommodate ‘memory traces’, but also ultimately conflicts with the premise of the continuity thesis. The talk will try to develop a new form of causal theory that is compatible with the intuitions of ‘memory trace’ and ‘mental time travel’ and more rationally explain the continuum of memory and imagination.

The afternoon session will start with Changsheng Lai’s talk ‘The Epistemic Norm of Remembering’. Whereas many believe that episodic memory is subject to certain norms, especially moral and practical norms, the epistemic norm governing remembering is rarely discussed. Changsheng will first address some misgivings about the idea that remembering is subject to epistemic norms. After that, he defends such a norm according to which one epistemically ought not to remember a past event in a certain way if one would be held epistemically accountable for doing so. Specifically put, the norm is violated when one’s episodic remembering 1) lacks the metacognitive feeling of remembering; or 2) is cognitively uneconomic.

After that, Nikola Andonovski from Université Grenoble Alpes will deliver a talk entitled ‘Memory Indexing and the Contentful Trace’. The hippocampal memory indexing theory (HMIT) is believed to be one of the most detailed theories of the formation, storage and retrieval of episodic memories. In his talk, Nikola will critically examine HMIT, integrating evidence from a variety of research programs. It will be argued that the core commitments of HMIT, both regarding the hippocampal contribution to episodic memory and the nature of retrieval, should be significantly revised. Crucially, a suitably revised indexing theory should be representationalist, positing a contentful memory trace.

In his talk ‘A Philosophical Study on the Problem of Memory Traces’, Jinpeng Feng from Yuncheng University aims to provide a detailed analysis of the concept of memory traces from three aspects: reality, causality and isomorphism. In the aspect of reality, this talk re-establishes the ontological status of memory trace through interpretation with realism and anti-realism. In the aspect of causality, it is clarified from the perspective of causal conditions and causal medium, that the concept of memory traces can effectively prevent the causal gap in the temporal continuum. In the aspect of isomorphism, it is shown that memory traces have a structural isomorphism with the contents of past events and experiences.

In closing, Lu Teng from The Australian National University will deliver a talk entitled ‘Metacognition in Aphantasia’. One fascinating aspect of aphantasia is that aphantasics demonstrate similar performance to neurotypical subjects across various tasks related to mental imagery. This phenomenon prompts us to consider: could aphantasia be akin to blindsight but within the domain of imagination, where individuals potentially engage in unconscious forms of mental imagery? In her talk, Lu will explore this issue through the lens of metacognition and suggest that, currently, a negative answer seems more plausible.

You can access the programme here. You are welcome to participate in the workshop online by using Tencent Meeting: Dec 7, Saturday (Meeting ID: 124921176; Password: 202412); Dec 8, Sunday (Meeting ID: 773915299; Password: 202412).

Changsheng Lai is a tenure-track associate professor, the Chair of the "Epistemology+" Research Centre at the School of Humanities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is also the deputy secretary general of the Chinese Society of Epistemology. Changsheng received his PhD degree at the University of Edinburgh. His major research interests focus on epistemology, including memory epistemology, epistemic gradualism (a view that propositional knowledge is gradable), scepticism, anti-luck epistemology, and virtue epistemology.