Arieh Schwartz (University of California, Davis)
Recent analyses of memory (Robins, 2016; Cheng & Werning, 2016; Michaelian, 2016; Bernecker, 2017) propose accuracy as one of the necessary conditions for a mental state to count as memory. This paper shows that the accuracy condition on memory implies Disjunctivism about seeming to remember, and distinguishes several types of Disjunctivism that could be in play. The causal argument, a standard objection to Disjunctivism (Robinson, 1985; Burge, 2005, 2011), is used to demonstrate that Reductive Ontological Disjunctivism about memory is untenable. The discussion highlights the lack of clarity about whether recent memory taxonomies are epistemic, nonreductively ontic, or reductively ontic.
