Hume on Memory and Imagination

Hume's Dual Criteria for Memory

“…Here, the terms ‘restrain'd’ and ‘ty'd down’ are ambiguous. They are commonly interpreted to suggest a constitutive feature of memory: That is, a memory is restrained to the order of its source impression in the sense that its being a memory logically implies that it corresponds to that order (e.g., Flage, , 172; Johnson, , 345, , 55; McDonough, , 74; Traiger, , 62–63). On the other hand, in the previous second paragraph, Hume suggests that an idea that departs from its source impression's order could still be a memory, but it would be a defective memory.…”

“…Both in this passage and in T 1.3.5, Hume describes memory as in fact preserving – not just as aiming to preserve – the order of its source impressions: ‘Tis evident, that the memory preserves the original form …’; ‘tho' it be a peculiar property of the memory to preserve the original order and position of its ideas …’ (T 1.3.5.3). Nonetheless, in prescribing isomorphism as constitutive of memory, the criterion need not prescribe full or exact isomorphism (McDonough, , 74; Traiger, , 63). If the criterion prescribes only partial isomorphism, an idea can still be a memory if it departs from the original order to some extent.…”

“…One ambiguity is whether they refer to space or time: Is the isomorphism between memories and their source impressions one of spatial arrangement, temporal arrangement, or both? (Traiger, , 62–63). Because Hume does not restrict the scope of these terms, for the purposes of this paper, I assume that they refer to both space and time.…”

“…Traiger () reads the isomorphism criterion as constitutive of memory and the phenomenal criterion as symptomatic of memory (in the sense of being a fallible indication of an idea's being a memory) (66). Contrary to Noxon and McDonough, Traiger emphasizes that Hume presents the two criteria as non ‐coextensive (66).…”

“…Noxon (), McDonough (), and Traiger () interpret Hume as maintaining the criterion of correspondence to the past. I address their interpretations in Section .…”