The Pragmatic Dimension of Memory

Abstract

The present chapter addresses the question what determines whether the factivity constraint on memory requires that diachronic propositional attitudes must be identical or whether it allows for them to be only similar. I will propose a contextualist answer to the question at hand: whether a memory state must be identical with the representational state it causally derives from or whether it suffices that the two states are merely similar depends on the conversational context of the rememberer and of the attributor, i.e., the person describing the subject as a rememberer. The truth condition for remembering is pragmatically sensitive in that it depends on the context whether memory requires literal reproduction of previously encoded representations or whether it allows for some moderate reconstruction.