5

Memory, Imagination,
and Narrative
Dorothea Debus

1. Introduction
Sometimes we remember past objects or events in a particularly vivid way. The relevant
memories have experiential characteristics, and we often say that a subject in such a
situation ‘re-experiences’ the remembered past object or event. Thus, for example, try
to remember the last dinner party you went to. Chances are that you remember at least
some aspects of the event in an experiential way. You might have an experience as
if seeing again the person who sat opposite. Or you might have an experience as if
hearing once more some particular sounds or noises—the sudden bang emanating
from the kitchen at some point, or a new tune played towards the end of the party. In
any case, it seems likely that your memory will have some experiential aspects. Indeed,
in an attempt to describe those occurrences, we might say that ‘you see the person
again in front of your mind’s eye’, that you can ‘hear the tune in your head’, and so
on for the other senses. Memories of this kind are here called ‘recollective memories’
(or ‘R-memories’). R-memories are memories which have experiential characteristics.
They are those cases of remembering which characteristically ‘correspond to our use of
the distinct senses’.1
Phenomenologically, R-memories resemble cases of sensory imagination (or
‘S-imagination’) in many respects. Indeed, one might try to capture the phenomenon
of sensory imagination in exactly the same way in which we have just tried to capture
which cases should here count as R-memories. Thus, just as we introduced recollective

1
Martin (2002: 403). In order to clarify which cases of remembering should count as ‘R-memories’,
it might also be useful to relate the phenomenon of R-memory to other classifications of the various
phenomena of remembering which are offered in the recent philosophical and psychological literature
(cf. e.g. Shoemaker 1967; Tulving 1983; and Martin 2001: 258ff.). There is no space to do so here, but I do
so in Debus (2007: section 1). For present purposes, we should only briefly note that while subjects often
R-remember events or objects which they witnessed only once in the past, subjects sometimes also have
present memories which have experiential characteristics, and which depend on more than one past
encounter with the remembered object or event. The latter cases also count as R-memories here.
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 73

memories as those cases of remembering which characteristically correspond to our

use of the distinct senses, so we might say that cases of sensory imagination are those
cases of imagination which characteristically correspond to our use of the distinct
senses.2 This in turn indicates that from the experiencing subject’s own point of view,
episodes of R-remembering and episodes of S-imagining are rather similar. Indeed, on
the basis of considerations of the present kind, Hobbes comes to conclude, more radic-
ally, that ‘imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations
hath diverse names’.3 I show elsewhere why I think it is false to draw this conclusion.4
Nevertheless, from the experiencing subject’s own point of view, R-memories and
S-imaginations have remarkable phenomenological similarities. At the same time, how-
ever, R-memories and S-imaginations do play very different roles in a subject’s mental
life. Most strikingly, a subject who R-remembers a certain past event or situation usu-
ally takes it that the relevant experience presents her with how things were in the past,
while a subject who S-imagines something does not usually do so. But then, why do
subjects who R-remember a certain event or situation usually (rightly) take it that the
relevant experience presents them with how things were in the past, while subjects
who S-imagine a certain event or situation usually (rightly) do not do so? What is it
about R-memories which makes subjects (rightly) take it that the relevant experiences
present them with how things were in the past, and what is it about S-imaginations
which makes them (rightly) not do so?5
As formulated so far, the present set of questions might still be understood in two
different ways. One might either understand it as asking for a causal explanation, or
one might understand it as asking for a normative account.6 Thus, one might either try
to answer it by offering a causal explanation of why subjects who R-remember a certain
event or situation usually take it that the relevant experience presents them with how
things were in the past, and by offering a causal explanation of why subjects who
S-imagine a certain event or situation do not usually take it that the relevant experi-
ence presents them with how things were in the past. Alternatively, one might try
to answer the present set of questions by offering an account which shows why it is
reasonable for a subject to take it that certain experiences (namely, R-memories) present
her with how things were in the past, and why it is reasonable for a subject not to take it

2
In Martin’s (2002: 403) words, when we talk about sensory imagination, we talk about ‘those distinctive
episodes of imagining or imaging which correspond to our use of the distinct senses: so we talk of visualising
corresponding to seeing, or listening in one’s head parallel to audition, and so on’.
3
Hobbes (1991: 16).
4
Cf. Debus (2008). There I show that we have good reason to accept a ‘relational’ account of the nature
of R-memory. Such a relational account is not suitable as an account of the nature of sensory imagination.
This in turn gives us reason to accept that although there are great phenomenological similarities between
recollective memories and sensory imaginations, the nature of R-memory does differ in important respects
from the nature of S-imagination, which implies that Hobbes’ view is too radical, and indeed false.
5
The question has plagued Hume and Russell, among others (cf. Hume 1978: Book I, Part I, Section III;
Book I, Part III, Section V; Appendix 627f.; and cf. Russell 1989: ch. 9).
6
Thanks to an anonymous referee for prompting the following clarification.
74 Dorothea Debus

that certain other experiences (namely, S-imaginations) present her with how things
were in the past.
In the present chapter, I will focus on the latter, normative aspect of the question.
Thus, in an attempt to answer the question why subjects usually quite rightly take it
that certain experiences (namely, R-memories) present them with how things were
in the past, and why they usually quite rightly do not take it that certain other experiences
(namely, S-imaginations) do so, I aim to show why it is reasonable for them to take this
to be so in some cases, and why it is reasonable for them not to take this to be so in
other cases. Under the assumption that subjects are rational beings, an answer to those
questions in turn should then also explain why subjects usually happen to take it
that certain experiences present them with how things were in the past, and why they
happen not to do so in other cases.7
Indeed, the ability to distinguish between S-imaginations and R-memories is
crucial in any subject’s mental life, and accordingly, even a basic understanding of our
mental lives must offer a satisfactory answer to the question why and how subjects are
able to treat those different kinds of mental episodes in relevantly different ways. This
chapter therefore aims to develop a viable answer to this question. More specifically,
I  aim to show that R-memories (at least usually) have a characteristic relational
property—they are ‘embedded’ in a context of relevant beliefs—which S-imaginations
usually lack. If an experience is ‘embedded’ in a relevant context, so I will show, the
experiencing subject has some reason to take it that the relevant experience presents
her with how things were in the past. This explains why subjects usually take it that
R-memories present them with how things were in the past. Furthermore, as we shall
see, in order for it to be reasonable for a subject to take it that a certain experience
presents her with how things were in the past, it is necessary that the relevant experi-
ence be embedded in a relevant way. But then, S-imaginations are usually not embedded
in any relevant context, which in turn explains why subjects usually do not take it that
the relevant experiences (namely, S-imaginations) present them with how things
were in the past.8

7
Some might accordingly hold that the present chapter also offers a causal explanation of why subjects
usually rightly take it that the relevant experiences present them with how things were in the past. For, so
they might say, certain factors make it reasonable for subjects to take it that relevant experiences present
them with how things were in the past, and those factors in turn cause a reasonable subject to so take it.
Others, however, might object that the relevant factors will stand in reason-giving relations to the subject’s
relevant attitude, and that such reason-giving relations could not possibly be causal relations. The latter
view might be driven by ‘anti-Cartesianism’ and by what Child (1994) calls ‘interpretationism’, namely the
view that we can only understand our mental lives ‘by reflection on the procedure for interpreting a sub-
ject’s attitudes and language’ (Child 1994: 1). There is no space to discuss this issue any further here, so in
the face of the present objections, this chapter does not aim to make any explicitly causal claims. However,
Child (1994) does (to my mind convincingly) show that an anti-Cartesian stance and interpretationism are
compatible with an attempt to ‘think about the mental in causal terms’ (119), and I consider further aspects
of the present issue as it applies to the case of memory in Debus (2008) and Debus (2010).
8
Here and elsewhere in this chapter I talk about R-memories ‘presenting’ an object and its properties
to the experiencing subject. I use this formulation in an attempt to remain neutral on the question as to
whether R-memories have representational content, or whether an R-memory is to be characterized as
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 75

I develop the present suggestion in three stages. In section 2, I introduce the ‘Narrative
Claim’. This claim clarifies some fundamental ideas and provides us with some concep-
tual tools to understand what it might mean to say that an experience is ‘embedded’
in a context of relevant beliefs. Section 3 then proceeds to formulate and develop the
‘Embeddedness Claim’, and section 4 defends the ‘Necessity Claim’. Taken together,
the Narrative Claim, Embeddedness Claim, and Necessity Claim will, or so I argue,
offer an explanation of the fact that subjects treat R-memories and S-imaginations
very differently, even though occurrences of both types are, considered in isolation,
phenomenologically rather similar. The resulting account seems new and surprising,
and will contribute to our understanding of a permeating and basic feature of our
everyday mental lives.

2. The Narrative Claim

Subjects who R-remember a past situation or event usually take it that the experi-
enced situation or event did obtain or occur in the past. For example, consider the
following case:
(Claire’s Case) Claire is sitting at her desk, daydreaming about a recent trip to
Venice. She has a visual R-memory of Venice in the distance, approaching it by
boat, then she thinks about wandering around Venice at night. She remembers
that there were long queues in front of one of the museums she wanted to visit,
then she R-remembers a beautiful little square where she had spent an afternoon
in a café watching life go by. While daydreaming in this way, Claire (rightly) takes
it that her present experiences (i.e. her R-memories) present her with how things
were in the past.
In the exemplary case as described, Claire does have some R-memories, and she also
does take it that the relevant experiences present her with how things were in the past.
In order to make further use of this observation, we should next clarify what exactly
it means to say of a subject that she ‘takes it’ that a certain experience presents her with
how things were in the past. At first sight, someone might think that a subject who
takes it that a certain experience presents her with how things were in the past has
to form a belief to this effect. This, however, is not the case. Rather, in order for us to say
of a subject that she ‘takes it’ that a certain experience presents her with how things
were in the past, it is only necessary that the subject be disposed to use the relevant
experience as a ‘starting point for any further inquiry about how things [were]’9 in the

a relation of awareness between the R-remembering subject and the object or event which the subject
R-remembers. Martin (2005) offers an authoritative discussion of the relevant options with respect to
perceptual experience. As indicated earlier, I defend the view that a subject who R-remembers a past situ-
ation or event stands in a relation of experiential awareness to the relevant past situation or event in
Debus (2008).
9
Wiggins (1992: 348).
76 Dorothea Debus

past. In order for a subject to be said to use an experience as a ‘starting point’ in making
judgements about the past, so we might say, the subject has to (a) take the experience
into consideration when judging about the relevant event, (b) take the experience at
face value, that is, judge that things were (or are) as the present experience presents
them to her as having been (or as being) and (c) make the judgement that things were a
certain way without relying on any further inferential reasoning, or further testimonial
or other empirical evidence in support of the relevant judgement.
And indeed, in the exemplary case described above, Claire does seem disposed to
use the relevant experiences as a ‘starting point’ in making judgements about her trip
to Venice in this sense.
What is more, sometimes subjects try to R-remember past situations or events with
the explicit aim of using them as a ‘starting point’ in an attempt to make judgements
about the past, as in the following case:
(Emma’s Case) Emma is asked by a colleague whether Paul attended her lecture
yesterday. Prompted by the colleague’s question, Emma visually R-remembers
Paul sitting in the left back corner of the room. Emma (rightly) takes it that the
relevant experience presents her with how things were in the past (namely, during
yesterday’s lecture), and she accordingly tells her colleague that Paul did attend
the lecture.10
Emma quite explicitly uses her R-memories as a ‘starting point’ in making judgements
about the past. She judges that Paul attended her lecture yesterday on the basis of
the relevant experience, without drawing any inferences and without relying on any
further testimonial or empirical evidence. Thus, on the basis of our present clarifica-
tions, it seems plausible to assume that both Claire and Emma ‘take it’ that the relevant
experiences present them with how things were in the past, and more generally,
everyday (self-) observation suggests that subjects who R-remember particular past
situations or events usually do take it that the relevant experiences present them with
how things were in the past.
However, this latter fact might, as indicated earlier, seem rather surprising. For, from
the experiencing subject’s own point of view, recollective memories are phenomeno-
logically rather similar to sensory imaginations. But while subjects usually take it
that  R-memories present them with how things were in the past, subjects usually
do not take it that S-imaginations present them with how things were in the past.11
Why is this so?

10
Locke (1971: 54f.) offers a similar example.
11
Obviously, in some cases subjects wrongly take it that a certain (imaginary) experience presents them
with how things were in the past, and in other cases subjects might wrongly take it that a certain present
experience (namely, an R-memory) is a purely imaginary experience. Indeed, the material developed in
sections 3 and 4 of this chapter will help us to explain why this might sometimes happen. However, it is still
true that usually, subjects do rightly take it that certain experiences (namely, R-memories) present them
with how things were in the past.
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 77

The question has exerted philosophers throughout the centuries, and various answers
have been, and might be, offered. I discuss some of those answers in the appendix to
this chapter (section 6). Ultimately, none of these answers seems satisfactory, which is
why I suggest that in the main body of this chapter we focus on an alternative account.
In order to develop that alternative account, we might begin by considering the
following ‘Narrative Claim’:
(Narrative Claim) A set of beliefs (and experiences) can provide a subject with a
reason to take it that a present experience presents her with how things were in the
past if, on the basis of the relevant set of beliefs (and experiences), the subject would
be able to tell a reasonably detailed, autobiographical story which includes a reference
to the content of the relevant experience.12
Clearly, the Narrative Claim as it stands requires some further elucidation. Thus, we
might first ask what the Narrative Claim refers to when it speaks of an ‘autobiographical
story’. In reply let us, for the time being, simply say that in order for some description to
count as a story (in the everyday sense of the word), it is necessary that the relevant
description places the things it describes in a temporal framework. An autobiographical
story, in turn, describes a sequence of events and states of affairs which the story-telling
subject herself has witnessed in the past.13
The defender of the Narrative Claim holds that a subject has a reason to take it that
a certain experience presents her with how things were in the past if she is able to tell a
reasonably detailed, autobiographical story which makes reference to the content of
the relevant experience. And indeed this last claim might be supported with the help of
the following train of thought: An autobiographical story describes objects and events
and says in which spatio-temporal order they occurred, and it implies that they have
been witnessed by one and the same subject, namely the story-telling subject herself.
An autobiographical story thus contains a description of the story-telling subject’s
movement through time and space during the time span under consideration, even if
this is not made explicit in the story. When a subject tells an autobiographical story
which contains a reference to the content of an R-memory which she experiences,
the resulting autobiographical story usually describes a spatio-temporal route of such
a kind that it is plausible to assume that a subject who has moved along the relevant

12
The Narrative Claim is here explicitly restricted to the case of certain experiences. However, as an
anonymous referee rightly points out, the Narrative Claim could, mutatis mutandis, also be developed for
the case of certain beliefs which a subject might have about the past, namely as follows: ‘(Narrative Claim
for Beliefs) In some cases, a set of beliefs (and experiences) can provide a subject with reason to take it that
another belief which she finds herself with accurately represents how things were in the past if, on the basis
of the relevant set of beliefs (and experiences), the subject would be able to tell a reasonably detailed, auto-
biographical story which includes a reference to the content of the particular belief under consideration.’
Indeed, although there is no space to do so here, it should be possible to develop and defend this claim on
the basis of the considerations which are here offered in support of the Narrative Claim as formulated
in the text.
13
A more detailed discussion of what is entailed by the demand that a subject be able to tell an autobio-
graphical story is offered at the end of the present section.
78 Dorothea Debus

spatio-temporal route might also have been in a position in which it was possible to
witness an event of the kind presented by the R-memory. This makes it likely that the
subject was, at some earlier time, in a position to witness an event of the kind presented
to her by the R-memory. But then, whatever the subject was able to witness in the past
must have taken place in the past. Thus, being able to tell an autobiographical story
which contains a reference to the content of a certain experience does give the subject
a reason to take it that the relevant experience presents her with how things were in
the past.14
For purposes of illustration, consider Emma’s case as sketched above. Emma
R-remembers Paul sitting in the left back corner of the lecture hall during her lecture
yesterday. Furthermore, on the basis of various beliefs which she has about the past,
Emma is able to tell a story about her day yesterday in general and about her lecture in
particular. For example, she might say that it was raining when she went to the lecture
hall, that she didn’t manage to finish the lecture in time, and that she went for lunch
with a friend afterwards. Among other things, Emma’s story might also contain a refer-
ence to the content of her R-memory—namely, Paul sitting in the left back corner of
the lecture room. The story is likely to be reasonably detailed, and Emma’s autobio-
graphical story about her day will implicitly describe a spatio-temporal route, traced
by herself, which is of such a kind that it is quite plausible that the subject who traced
the relevant spatio-temporal route witnessed a scene like the one presented by Emma’s
R-memory. Furthermore, Emma tells herself an autobiographical story. When refer-
ring to the subject whose spatio-temporal path is implicitly described by the story, the
story makes use of the first-person pronoun. Accordingly, the ability to tell such a story
will give Emma reason to assume that she actually witnessed the situation which her
present experience presents to her. This in turn gives her reason to assume that the
relevant situation did obtain in the past.
Thus, the present exemplary case illustrates that, just as the Narrative Claim states,
a set of beliefs (and experiences) can provide a subject with a reason to take it that
a present experience presents her with how things were in the past if the subject
could, on the basis of the relevant set of beliefs (and experiences), tell a reasonably
detailed, autobiographical story which includes a reference to the content of the
relevant experience.
Finally, we should consider more carefully what it means to say of a subject that she
is able to tell a certain story. As Bernard Williams points out, ‘[w]hen we try to make
sense of a particular happening, we often tell a story about a sequence of events that led

14
In the present context it might also be worth noting that subjects are able to tell stories in various
different ways—in silent ‘inner speech’ or out loud (i.e. vocally), in writing as well as by the (somewhat
more elaborate) means of film or theatrical (re-)enactment. The worry that on the present account, a dumb
subject might turn out to lack the reason described by the Narrative Claim to take it that a certain experience
presents her with how things were in the past is therefore unfounded. (Thanks to an anonymous referee for
prompting the present comment.)
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 79

to it.’15 This observation in turn has led many to believe that, as Velleman puts it,
‘a story does more than recount events; it recounts events in a way that renders them
intelligible, thus conveying not just information but also understanding. We might
therefore be tempted to describe narrative as a genre of explanation.’16 Furthermore,
it is sometimes said that the kind of explanation provided by a story is fundamen-
tally different from the kind of explanation scientists usually offer, namely causal
explanations. This, however, is not obviously so. For certain causal explanations might,
just as any other story, recount events in a way that renders them intelligible, thus con-
veying not just information but also understanding. Perhaps, therefore, certain causal
explanations should count as stories just as other explanations do. This in any case is
Bernard Williams’ plausible suggestion. Williams defines a ‘mini-narrative’ as a ‘short
and unambitious narrative’,17 and distinguishes between the following two types of
mini-narrative:
One form [of mini-narrative] presents an instance of a natural process, and here the mini-
narrative explains or makes sense of the outcome by appealing to regularities of nature. It
presents the sequence and its outcome as an example of some general type of process, held
together by causal relations (though, in recognizing the process, we need not know in detail
what the causal relations are). The other very significant kind of mini-narrative presents a
sequence of happenings as held together by an agent’s intentions. In some cases, this kind
of sequence, though it involves several actions, can easily be described as one action: she
bought a house, and that involved these various things she did. In other cases, it may not
readily be described as one action, but only as the execution of a plan or design that involves
many actions.18

Some autobiographical stories might be of one of those two types, but most autobio-
graphical stories are bound to be of a third, mixed type. Most autobiographical stories
are bound both to present relevant events and states of affairs as standing in certain
causal relations and to present some of the relevant events and states of affairs as held
together by agents’ intentions.19
Thus, when a subject is able to tell a reasonably detailed autobiographical story
which, among other things, refers to the content of a certain experience, the subject is
able to describe a sequence of events and states of affairs which identifies the subject’s
own former self as a protagonist, and she is able to describe those events and states of
affairs as held together by causal relations and by agents’ intentions. The relevant story
will provide the subject with some understanding of the events recounted in general,
and of the content of the relevant experience in particular.

15
Williams (2002: 233). 16
Velleman (2003: 1).
17
Williams (2002: 233). 18
Williams (2002: 233).
19
Goldie (2003: 305) suggests that a ‘third characteristic feature of a successful narrative [about
persons] is that it has emotional import: it reveals the narrator’s external evaluation of, and emotional
response to, what happened, from the ironic distance that his external perspective allows.’ Such ‘emotional
import’ might, indeed, be characteristic of some autobiographical stories, but it is certainly not character-
istic of all autobiographical stories (and Goldie is careful to avoid this claim).
80 Dorothea Debus

On the basis of the present considerations, the Narrative Claim then also does seem
rather plausible. Thus, we have good reason to hold that:
(Narrative Claim) A set of beliefs (and experiences) can provide a subject with a
reason to take it that a present experience presents her with how things were in the
past if, on the basis of the relevant set of beliefs (and experiences), the subject
would be able to tell a reasonably detailed, autobiographical story which includes
a reference to the content of the relevant experience.20

3. The Embeddedness Claim

Furthermore, so everyday (self-) observation indicates, subjects who experi-
ence R-memories do (at least usually) have beliefs which are related to the relevant
R-memories’ content and on the basis of which they could tell relevant autobiograph-
ical stories. Taken together with the Narrative Claim, this in turn makes it plausible to
accept that a subject who R-remembers a past situation or event usually also has reason
to take it that the present experience presents her with how things were in the past.
In order to capture the present train of thought more concisely, we might say that an
experience is ‘embedded’ in a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences) if the beliefs
are of such a kind that the subject could, on the basis of the relevant beliefs, tell a
reasonably detailed, autobiographical story which contains a reference to the content
of the relevant experience. Thus, we might stipulate that:
Embedding beliefs (and embedding experiences) are those beliefs (or experiences)
on the basis of which the subject could tell a reasonably detailed, autobiographical
story which contains a reference to the content of a certain experience the subject
presently has. Furthermore, in order for a set of beliefs to count as a set of embedding
beliefs, the relevant beliefs must all be inferentially independent of the relevant
experience; that is, none of the relevant beliefs may inferentially depend on the
experience which they embed.
Beliefs about the past which inferentially depend on a certain experience could not in
turn give the subject a reason to take it that the relevant experience presents things as
they were in the past. Thus, beliefs which inferentially depend on a certain experience
could not possibly play the reason-giving role which those beliefs which are here called
‘embedding beliefs’ do play. This is why the present stipulation demands that embedding
beliefs must be inferentially independent of the experience which they embed.21

20
There is no space to discuss the wider role of the Narrative Claim any further here, but Campbell
(1997) develops some ideas with the help of which the role of a subject’s ability to tell an autobiographical
story (as described by the Narrative Claim) might be situated within a subject’s wider mental life. Among
other things Campbell shows that a subject can only tell an autobiographical story if she has a conception
of time as linear.
21
Thanks to an anonymous referee for prompting these clarificatory comments. By contrast (as the referee
helpfully points out), beliefs which play a role in bringing the occurrence of a certain experience about can
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 81

With this terminological stipulation in place, we might summarize the present set of
ideas with the help of the ‘Embeddedness Claim’, as follows:
(Embeddedness Claim) A subject usually takes it that certain experiences (namely:
R-memories) present her with how things were in the past because the relevant
experiences are (at least usually) embedded in a context of relevant beliefs (and other
experiences), and the experiences’ embeddedness does (as the Narrative Claim
suggests) provide the subject with a reason to take it that the relevant experiences
present her with how things were in the past.22
The Embeddedness Claim offers a novel explanation of why subjects usually take it
that R-memories do present them with how things were in the past. And indeed, so the
defender of the Embeddedness Claim will say, the Embeddedness Claim is especially
attractive because it fits the everyday phenomenology rather well. A subject who
experiences a certain R-memory (at least usually) does have various other beliefs which
are related to the content of the relevant R-memory and on the basis of which she
would be able to tell an autobiographical story which refers to the content of the rele-
vant R-memory. For example, reconsidering Claire’s Case as sketched above, we find
that when Claire daydreams about her recent trip to Venice, she has various thoughts
about her stay there, which are interspersed with the occurrence of certain other
mental episodes, namely various R-memories of situations and events she wit-
nessed while in Venice. Thus, as the present example illustrates, R-memories are
(at least usually) embedded in a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences). The auto-
biographical story which the subject could tell on the basis of the relevant beliefs gives
the subject some reason to accept that she witnessed events and situations of the kind
presented by the R-memories, which in turn gives her some reason to accept that
things were in the past as they are presented to her by the relevant experiences (namely,
her R-memories). Accordingly, the Embeddedness Claim explains why subjects
who experience R-memories usually have reason to take it that the relevant experi-
ences present them with how things were in the past. Subjects are usually reasonable,

themselves in turn give the subject a reason to take it that the relevant experience presents her with
how  things were in the past. Thus, according to the present stipulation, beliefs which play a role in
bringing the occurrence of a certain experience about can be part of a set of beliefs which embed the
relevant experience.
22
I here and throughout say that R-memories are ‘at least usually’ embedded in a context of relevant
beliefs (and experiences). I use this formulation in order to leave room for the claim that in some cases,
experiences which are not in any way embedded in a context of relevant beliefs (or experiences) might
nevertheless count as R-memories. This claim might seem plausible to some, although I myself do not
endorse it. Indeed, I think that quite on the contrary, one can show that in order for an experience to count
as an R-memory, it is necessary that the relevant experience be embedded in a context of relevant beliefs
(and experiences). There is no space to defend this claim here, but the present considerations do not
depend on it either. Needless to say, all sides to the present debate agree that there might be experiences
which do present the subject with how things were in the past, but which are not embedded in a context of
relevant beliefs (and experiences). I will consider some of those cases in section 5. (Thanks to an anonymous
referee for prompting the present clarifications; for some further thoughts on the present set of issues see also
Debus 2010 and Debus 2013.)
82 Dorothea Debus

and hence we can, with the help of the Embeddedness Claim, explain why subjects
usually do take it that the relevant experiences present them with how things were in
the past.
In order to understand the Embeddedness Claim fully, we should also note that the
Embeddedness Claim does not require a subject to engage in any reasoning, nor does
the Embeddedness Claim demand that the subject actually tell an autobiographical story
at the time at which the R-memory occurs. Rather, according to the Embeddedness
Claim, the subject has a reason to take it that a certain experience presents her with
how things were in the past if she has beliefs on the basis of which she could tell a relevant
autobiographical story if the opportunity were to arise.
However, an opponent might object that the sole fact that a subject has certain
beliefs on the basis of which she could tell a relevant story could not possibly give the
subject a reason to take it that her present experience presents things as they were in
the past, and thus, so the opponent concludes, the Embeddedness Claim must be false.
In defence of the Embeddedness Claim we might reply as follows:23 If a subject does
have beliefs on the basis of which she could tell an autobiographical story which makes
reference to the content of a present R-memory, the subject has beliefs which stand in
an explanatory relation to the content of the relevant present R-memory. For, as we
said, on the basis of the relevant beliefs the subject would be able to tell a story which
describes certain causal relations and agents’ intentions, and describing those causal
relations and agents’ intentions will in turn explain how the recounted events and
states of affairs are related to each other. Thus, if a subject has certain beliefs on the
basis of which she could tell an autobiographical story which makes reference to the
content of a certain R-memory, explanatory relations do, among other things, obtain
between the content of the R-memory and the relevant beliefs, no matter whether the
subject does or does not set out to tell the relevant autobiographical story.
The subject can, in turn, be aware of the fact that relevant explanatory relations
obtain between the experience and the relevant embedding beliefs without either
having to tell the relevant autobiographical story, or having to form a belief to the
effect that relevant explanatory relations obtain. Rather, it seems plausible to accept
that the subject can be aware of the explanatory relations which obtain between the
content of her experience and relevant embedding beliefs in a much more primitive
way. A subject who has an experience which is embedded in a relevant context is
simply aware of the experience’s ‘fitting in’ with the rest of her beliefs which are related
to the experience’s content.
In order to be aware of a relevant experience’s ‘fitting in’ with a set of relevant beliefs,
so I would like to suggest, it is sufficient that the subject be confident about the way in
which the experience is related to the particular set of beliefs. A subject who is confident
about the way in which the relevant experience is related to some of her beliefs is, firstly,

23
As far as possible, the following also takes inspiration from discussions of coherentism in epistemology—
see e.g. BonJour (1985: 93–101).
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 83

free of any doubts about the coherence of her own mental life as far as the relevant
experience and embedding beliefs are concerned, and she is also, secondly and more
positively, content with how her mental life ‘hangs together’ as far as the relevant experi-
ence and beliefs go.
And indeed, it seems plausible to accept that a subject who is free of the relevant
doubts and is, more positively, content in the way just described, is thereby aware of
the experience’s ‘fitting in’ with the rest of her beliefs, and a subject who is aware of a
certain experience’s ‘fitting in’ with a set of relevant beliefs is in turn primitively aware
that a relevant explanatory relation obtains between the relevant experience and the
embedding beliefs. For example, it seems plausible to assume that when Claire has her
daydream about her recent trip to Venice, Claire is free of any doubts about the coher-
ence of her own mental life as far as the relevant experiences and beliefs about her trip
are concerned, and she is, more positively, content with the way her mental life hangs
together as far as the relevant experiences and beliefs go. Thus, Claire is confident
about the relations which obtain between the relevant experiences and beliefs. This in
turn implies that she is primitively aware of the relevant experiences’ ‘fitting in’ with
the rest of her relevant beliefs. She is thus primitively aware of the explanatory relations
which obtain between the relevant experiences and beliefs, and she could, if prompted,
work out the relevant explanatory relations which obtain between those experiences
and beliefs by telling an autobiographical story which makes reference to the content
of the relevant experiences.24
Thus, being aware that an R-memory ‘fits in’ with a certain set of other beliefs in the
way just described does give the subject reason to take it that the relevant experience
presents her with how things were in the past. This also means that the Embeddedness
Claim can be successfully defended against the opponent’s earlier objection.
Indeed, not only does the Embeddedness Claim help us to explain why subjects
usually (rightly) take it that certain experiences (namely R-memories) present them
with how things were in the past. Rather, the Embeddedness Claim might also point us
towards an answer to the question why, although R-memories and S-imaginations are
phenomenologically rather similar, subjects usually take it that R-memories present
them with how things were in the past, while subjects usually do not take it that
S-imaginations present them with how things were in the past. While R-memories
(at least usually) are embedded in a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences),
24
However, so an anonymous referee helpfully asks, if we say that a subject’s awareness of an experi-
ence’s ‘fitting in’ with the context in which it occurs can be left primitive, what have we gained over an
alternative account according to which a subject is ‘justified in taking certain experiences (her R-memories)
to represent the past just because she is primitively aware of their doing so’?—In response, we should point
out that while it might be rather difficult to spell out what conditions need to be met in order for a subject
to be said to be primitively aware of a certain experience presenting her with how things were in the past,
it is easier to spell out what conditions need to be met in order for a subject to be said to be primitively
aware of a certain experience fitting in with the context in which it occurs. (Indeed, we have just done the
latter in the text above.) Thus, it seems plausible to hold that the account developed here has greater
explanatory power than the proposed alternative account. (Thanks to the anonymous referee for raising
the present question.)
84 Dorothea Debus

everyday (self-) observation suggests that S-imaginations usually are not embedded in
such a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences). A subject who S-imagines an event
or a situation usually does not (and usually also should not) have any beliefs with
the help of which she might be able to tell an autobiographical story which makes
reference to the content of the relevant experience. Thus, compared with a subject
who experiences an R-memory, a subject who experiences an S-imagination (quite
appropriately) lacks at least one reason to take it that the relevant experience presents
her with how things were in the past—namely, the reason which might be provided by
the experience’s embeddedness.25
Secondly, the Embeddedness Claim also furthers our understanding of cases in
which subjects mistakenly assume that an S-imagination presents them with how
things were in the past.26 Usually, subjects who make such a mistake also have various
(false) beliefs on the basis of which they would be able to tell an apparently autobio-
graphical (but in fact fictional) story which is related in the appropriate detail to the
content of the relevant S-imagination. The Embeddedness Claim plausibly suggests that
in those cases, subjects wrongly take it that an experience (namely, an S-imagination)
presents them with how things were in the past because the relevant experience seems
to be embedded in a context of relevant other beliefs, which in turn seems to provide
subjects with a reason to take it that their present experience presents things as they
were in the past.27

25
The considerations in the present section should also be relevant for a consideration of the problem
of ‘source monitoring’ which has recently been addressed by experimental psychologists. (For a survey of
the relevant literature, see e.g. Mitchell and Johnson 2000.) As Johnson et al. (1993: 3) put it, ‘source moni-
toring refers to the set of processes involved in making attributions about the origins of memories’. Given
this definition, the present considerations render the hypothesis rather plausible that a certain mental
event’s embeddedness will, in important ways, contribute to a subject’s ability to monitor the source of the
relevant mental event.
26
In the experimental psychological literature the present phenomenon is often referred to as ‘false
memory’ and the phenomenon has recently found widespread attention—for a survey of some of the rele-
vant research see Roediger and McDermott (2000). Hyman et al. (1995), for example, made subjects have
S-imaginations of ‘attending the wedding reception of a friend of the family and accidentally spilling a
punch bowl’ (188), and eventually subjects came to (mistakenly) take it that the relevant experiences
(namely, S-imaginations) presented them with actual events in their own childhood.
27
An anonymous referee points out that there might be other cases (such as cases of ‘memory contagion’
or ‘memory conformity’) in which a subject experiences an S-imagination, but the relevant experience
also is properly embedded in a context of relevant autobiographical beliefs (and experiences). In those
cases, the subject does not have a good reason to take it that things were in the past as the relevant
experience presents them now, even though the relevant experience is embedded in a context of relevant
beliefs (and experiences). And indeed, the possibility of such cases indicates that while under ordinary
conditions an experience’s embeddedness in a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences) does give the
subject good reason to take it that things were in the past as the relevant experience presents them to
have been, there clearly are defeating conditions (such as the conditions which obtain in relevant cases
of ‘memory contagion’ or ‘memory conformity’) in which a subject should, even though the relevant
experience is embedded in a relevant context, refrain from taking it that things were in the past as a rele-
vant experience presents them as having been. In many such cases, subjects will be able to tell whether
relevant defeating conditions obtain, but in some cases subjects might be unable to do so. (Thanks to an
anonymous referee for prompting this footnote, and to another anonymous referee for prompting some
further important clarifications.)
 Memory, Imagination, and Narrative 85

4. The Necessity Claim

So far we have seen that a subject has a good reason to take it that a certain experience
presents her with how things were in the past if the relevant experience is embedded in
a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences). Furthermore, so I hope to show in the
present section, in order for a subject to have a good reason to take it that a present
experience presents her with how things were in the past, it is necessary that the experi-
ence be embedded in a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences). In order to show
why we should endorse this ‘Necessity Claim’, we might begin by considering the case
of ‘the Oxford Ladies’. It is reported that:
(Oxford Ladies’ Case) [. . .] two Oxford ladies [. . .], when walking round the
gardens of the Palace of Versailles in 1901, were struck both by a number of features
in the gardens and by the appearance of other persons walking about. The latter
were all dressed in the clothes appropriate to the reign of Louis XVI; and investiga-
tion of records later revealed that certain artificial features of the gardens which the
ladies had clearly observed, such as a grotto and a small ravine with a bridge across
it, were features which did exist at the time of Marie Antoinette, but were some fifty
years later cleared away. In other words, what the visitors had seen in 1901 was the
garden, not as it was in 1901, but as it was a hundred years earlier in 1789, peopled
exactly as it was at that time.28
For present purposes we may assume that the two ladies display similar abilities in
other situations. They frequently have ‘retrospective-visionary’ experiences which do
present things as they were in the past, even though the ladies themselves did not
witness those states of affairs or events at the relevant time. For example, they might
walk into the lecture theatre where Emma taught yesterday. Standing in the middle
of the room, they both have an experience as of seeing the lecture room populated by
Emma and the students who attended yesterday’s lecture (although the lecture room
is empty at present, and although the Oxford ladies themselves were not present at
yesterday’s lecture). It seems unlikely that anybody would want to say that the Oxford
ladies’ retrospective-visionary experiences should count as R-memories, but the ladies’
retrospective-visionary experiences certainly are experiences which do in fact present
things as they were in the past.29

28
Woozley (1949: 56f.), my emphasis.
29
An anonymous referee suggests that the present train of thought might be easier to follow if the example
of the Oxford ladies was replaced with an example of an experience which is not embedded in a relevant
context of embedding beliefs (and experiences), but which should nevertheless count as an R-memory.
However, as indicated earlier (cf. fn. 22), I think there are no such cases, which in turn explains the choice
of the present example. Those who do want to hold that there are R-memories which are not embedded in
a context of relevant beliefs (and experiences) might find a case which they think fits that description in
the case of Helen discussed below. However, as I here do not want to get involved in a discussion of the
question whether or not there are any experiences which are not embedded in a relevant context but
should nevertheless count as R-memories, it seems easiest to begin the present discussion with the help of
an example (such as the one of the Oxford ladies) with respect to which all will agree on whether or not
86 Dorothea Debus

Now, assume that the Oxford ladies have a retrospective-visionary experience of

Paul in the left back corner of the lecture theatre. We earlier said that Emma has good
reason to take it that her experience of Paul in the left back corner of the lecture theatre
presents her with how things were in the past. However, it seems that given the present
description of the case, the Oxford ladies do not have any reason to take it that their
experience of Paul in the lecture theatre presents them with how things were in the
past. For as we said earlier, in order for us to say of a subject that she ‘takes it’ that a
certain experience presents her with how things were in the past, it is necessary that
the subject be disposed to make judgements about the past on the basis of the relevant
experience without relying on any further inferential reasoning or further testimonial
or other empirical evidence in support of the relevant judgement. However, for the
Oxford ladies to act in this way would seem rather unreasonable.
Of course, the Oxford ladies might come to believe that they have retrospective-
visionary abilities, they might suspect that their experience of Paul in the lecture
theatre is one of the relevant retrospective-visionary experiences, and on the basis of those
assumptions they might then come to conclude that their present experience of Paul in
the lecture theatre does present things as they were in the past. However, in this case
the Oxford ladies come to this conclusion on the basis of some inferential reasoning,
and given our earlier terminological clarifications, we therefore should not say that
they ‘take it’ that their present experiences present things as they were in the past.
Hence, the Oxford ladies do not have any reason to take it that their experience of Paul
in the lecture theatre presents them with how things were in the past. Emma, by contrast,
does have reason to take it that her experience of Paul in the lecture theatre presents
her with how things were in the past. We can explain the difference between Emma’s
situation and the situation of the Oxford ladies once we realize that Emma’s case and
that of the Oxford ladies differ importantly in at least one respect: While Emma’s
R-memory is embedded in a context of other beliefs which she has about her lecture
yesterday, the ladies’ retrospective-visionary experiences are not embedded in any
comparable context of further beliefs at all. Rather, the ladies’ retrospective-visionary
experiences of Paul’s sitting in the lecture room occur to them completely out of the
blue, and they have no beliefs which are related to the content of their retrospective-
visionary experiences whatsoever. We can explain this difference if we accept that:
(Necessity Claim) In order for a subject to have any good reason to take it that a
certain experience presents her with how things were in the past, it is necessary that
the relevant experience be embedded in a relevant context of other beliefs (and
experiences).
R-memories (at least usually) fulfil this condition, while the retrospective-visionary
experiences of the Oxford ladies clearly do not. Thus, if we accept the Necessity Claim,

the relevant cases should count as R-memories; that is, I assume that all will agree that the Oxford ladies’
retrospective-visionary experiences should definitely not count as R-memories.