In his talk Professor Goldie will argue that two notions are the key to understanding autobiographical memory. First, there is dramatic irony. In the literal sense of dramatic irony, the theater audience know something that one of the characters does not know. Here it is deployed in the sense that, in remembering, one now knows what one did not know then. Secondly there is free indirect style. In the literal sense of this term, the author invites us to see through the character’s eyes and yet see more than the character can see. Here it is deployed in the sense of its psychological correlate, where what one remembers is bound up with what one now knows, and with one’s evaluation of, and emotional response to, what one remembers. Autobiographical memories, then, are truly reconstruction not retrieval.

 

Peter Goldie is Samuel Hall Chair and Head of Philosophy at the University of Manchester.  He has also been principal investigator in two Arts and Humanities Research Council [AHRC] projects in aesthetics, one of conceptual art (about which he is currently writing a book), and one on aesthetic psychology. He is part of HUMAINE, a major EUNetwork of Excellence Research Project into human machine emotional interactions.