The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) đź“–
- Author: Bertrand Russell
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may regard familiarity as a definite feeling, capable of existing
without an object, but normally standing in a specific relation
to some feature of the environment, the relation being that which
we express in words by saying that the feature in question is
familiar. The judgment that what is familiar has been experienced
before is a product of reflection, and is no part of the feeling
of familiarity, such as a horse may be supposed to have when he
returns to his stable. Thus no knowledge as to the past is to be
derived from the feeling of familiarity alone.
A further stage is RECOGNITION. This may be taken in two senses,
the first when a thing not merely feels familiar, but we know it
is such-and-such. We recognize our friend Jones, we know cats and
dogs when we see them, and so on. Here we have a definite
influence of past experience, but not necessarily any actual
knowledge of the past. When we see a cat, we know it is a cat
because of previous cats we have seen, but we do not, as a rule,
recollect at the moment any particular occasion when we have seen
a cat. Recognition in this sense does not necessarily involve
more than a habit of association: the kind of object we are
seeing at the moment is associated with the word “cat,” or with
an auditory image of purring, or whatever other characteristic we
may happen to recognize in. the cat of the moment. We are, of
course, in fact able to judge, when we recognize an object, that
we have seen it before, but this judgment is something over and
above recognition in this first sense, and may very probably be
impossible to animals that nevertheless have the experience of
recognition in this first sense of the word.
There is, however, another sense of the word, in which we mean by
recognition, not knowing the name of a thing or some other
property of it, but knowing that we have seen it before In this
sense recognition does involve knowledge about the Fast. This
knowledge is memory in one sense, though in another it is not. It
does not involve a definite memory of a definite past event, but
only the knowledge that something happening now is similar to
something that happened before. It differs from the sense of
familiarity by being cognitive; it is a belief or judgment, which
the sense of familiarity is not. I do not wish to undertake the
analysis of belief at present, since it will be the subject of
the twelfth lecture; for the present I merely wish to emphasize
the fact that recognition, in our second sense, consists in a
belief, which we may express approximately in the words: “This
has existed before.”
There are, however, several points in which such an account of
recognition is inadequate. To begin with, it might seem at first
sight more correct to define recognition as “I have seen this
before” than as “this has existed before.” We recognize a thing
(it may be urged) as having been in our experience before,
whatever that may mean; we do not recognize it as merely having
been in the world before. I am not sure that there is anything
substantial in this point. The definition of “my experience” is
difficult; broadly speaking, it is everything that is connected
with what I am experiencing now by certain links, of which the
various forms of memory are among the most important. Thus, if I
recognize a thing, the occasion of its previous existence in
virtue of which I recognize it forms part of “my experience” by
DEFINITION: recognition will be one of the marks by which my
experience is singled out from the rest of the world. Of course,
the words “this has existed before” are a very inadequate
translation of what actually happens when we form a judgment of
recognition, but that is unavoidable: words are framed to express
a level of thought which is by no means primitive, and are quite
incapable of expressing such an elementary occurrence as
recognition. I shall return to what is virtually the same
question in connection with true memory, which raises exactly
similar problems.
A second point is that, when we recognize something, it was not
in fact the very same thing, but only something similar, that we
experienced on a former occasion. Suppose the object in question
is a friend’s face. A person’s face is always changing, and is
not exactly the same on any two occasions. Common sense treats it
as one face with varying expressions; but the varying expressions
actually exist, each at its proper time, while the one face is
merely a logical construction. We regard two objects as the same,
for common-sense purposes, when the reaction they call for is
practically the same. Two visual appearances, to both of which it
is appropriate to say: “Hullo, Jones!” are treated as appearances
of one identical object, namely Jones. The name “Jones” is
applicable to both, and it is only reflection that shows us that
many diverse particulars are collected together to form the
meaning of the name “Jones.” What we see on any one occasion is
not the whole series of particulars that make up Jones, but only
one of them (or a few in quick succession). On another occasion
we see another member of the series, but it is sufficiently
similar to count as the same from the standpoint of common sense.
Accordingly, when we judge “I have seen THIS before,” we judge
falsely if “this” is taken as applying to the actual constituent
of the world that we are seeing at the moment. The word “this”
must be interpreted vaguely so as to include anything
sufficiently like what we are seeing at the moment. Here, again,
we shall find a similar point as regards true memory; and in
connection with true memory we will consider the point again. It
is sometimes suggested, by those who favour behaviourist views,
that recognition consists in behaving in the same way when a
stimulus is repeated as we behaved on the first occasion when it
occurred. This seems to be the exact opposite of the truth. The
essence of recognition is in the DIFFERENCE between a repeated
stimulus and a new one. On the first occasion there is no
recognition; on the second occasion there is. In fact,
recognition is another instance of the peculiarity of causal laws
in psychology, namely, that the causal unit is not a single
event, but two or more events Habit is the great instance of
this, but recognition is another. A stimulus occurring once has a
certain effect; occurring twice, it has the further effect of
recognition. Thus the phenomenon of recognition has as its cause
the two occasions when the stimulus has occurred; either alone is
insufficient. This complexity of causes in psychology might be
connected with Bergson’s arguments against repetition in the
mental world. It does not prove that there are no causal laws in
psychology, as Bergson suggests; but it does prove that the
causal laws of psychology are Prima facie very different from
those of physics. On the possibility of explaining away the
difference as due to the peculiarities of nervous tissue I have
spoken before, but this possibility must not be forgotten if we
are tempted to draw unwarranted metaphysical deductions.
True memory, which we must now endeavour to understand, consists
of knowledge of past events, but not of all such knowledge. Some
knowledge of past events, for example what we learn through
reading history, is on a par with the knowledge we can acquire
concerning the future: it is obtained by inference, not (so to
speak) spontaneously. There is a similar distinction in our
knowledge of the present: some of it is obtained through the
senses, some in more indirect ways. I know that there are at this
moment a number of people in the streets of New York, but I do
not know this in the immediate way in which I know of the people
whom I see by looking out of my window. It is not easy to state
precisely wherein the difference between these two sorts of
knowledge consists, but it is easy to feel the difference. For
the moment, I shall not stop to analyse it, but shall content
myself with saying that, in this respect, memory resembles the
knowledge derived from the senses. It is immediate, not inferred,
not abstract; it differs from perception mainly by being referred
to the past.
In regard to memory, as throughout the analysis of knowledge,
there are two very distinct problems, namely (1) as to the nature
of the present occurrence in knowing; (2) as to the relation of
this occurrence to what is known. When we remember, the knowing
is now, while what is known is in the past. Our two questions
are, in the case of memory
(1) What is the present occurrence when we remember?
(2) What is the relation of this present occurrence to the past
event which is remembered?
Of these two questions, only the first concerns the psychologist;
the second belongs to theory of knowledge. At the same time, if
we accept the vague datum with which we began, to the effect
that, in some sense, there is knowledge of the past, we shall
have to find, if we can, such an account of the present
occurrence in remembering as will make it not impossible for
remembering to give us knowledge of the past. For the present,
however, we shall do well to forget the problems concerning
theory of knowledge, and concentrate upon the purely
psychological problem of memory.
Between memory-image and sensation there is an intermediate
experience concerning the immediate past. For example, a sound
that we have just heard is present to us in a way which differs
both from the sensation while we are hearing the sound and from
the memory-image of something heard days or weeks ago. James
states that it is this way of apprehending the immediate past
that is “the ORIGINAL of our experience of pastness, from whence
we get the meaning of the term”(“Psychology,” i, p. 604).
Everyone knows the experience of noticing (say) that the clock
HAS BEEN striking, when we did not notice it while it was
striking. And when we hear a remark spoken, we are conscious of
the earlier words while the later ones are being uttered, and
this retention feels different from recollection of something
definitely past. A sensation fades gradually, passing by
continuous gradations to the status of an image. This retention
of the immediate past in a condition intermediate between
sensation and image may be called “immediate memory.” Everything
belonging to it is included with sensation in what is called the
“specious present.” The specious present includes elements at all
stages on the journey from sensation to image. It is this fact
that enables us to apprehend such things as movements, or the
order of the words in a spoken sentence. Succession can occur
within the specious present, of which we can distinguish some
parts as earlier and others as later. It is to be supposed that
the earliest parts are those that have faded most from their
original force, while the latest parts are those that retain
their full sensational character. At the beginning of a stimulus
we have a sensation; then a gradual transition; and at the end an
image. Sensations while they are fading are called “akoluthic”
sensations.* When the process of fading is completed (which
happens very quickly), we arrive at the image, which is capable
of being revived on subsequent occasions with very little change.
True memory, as opposed to “immediate memory,” applies only to
events sufficiently distant to have come to an end of the period
of fading. Such events, if they
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