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Concernment and Repentance

Galen Strawson

in Locke on Personal Identity: Consciousness and Concernment

This chapter examines John Locke's position regarding concernment and repentance. It first considers various possibilities for past events to become part of present consciousness before discussing ... More

This chapter examines John Locke's position regarding concernment and repentance. It first considers various possibilities for past events to become part of present consciousness before discussing guilt as a form of concernment in relation to consciousness, personhood, accountability, and punishability. It then explores the idea that one's overall forensic condition, or fundamental moral standing, at any time, either now or on the Day of Judgment, lies in his overall moral character or moral being at that time. It also analyzes the possibility that repentance—metanoia—can cancel out or detach one from a past wrongdoing in such a way that he won't be punished for it on the Day of Judgment, or indeed on some earlier, sublunary occasion, even though he remembers perfectly well what he did.Less

The themory commentary is NOW

Lawrence Weiskrantz

in Consciousness Lost and Found: A Neuropsychological Exploration

The goal of this chapter is to present how commentaries are an essential feature of awareness. This chapter asserts that it is the achievement of a particular critical interaction between current and ... More

The goal of this chapter is to present how commentaries are an essential feature of awareness. This chapter asserts that it is the achievement of a particular critical interaction between current and stored information that yields a commentary. In addition, the chapter argues that without the commentary there is no awareness of the interaction between current and past items, and no way in which the subject can exploit that interactive outcome in his or her thinking. Thus, an amnesic patient can access stored information remarkably well, but commentary-less it cannot be used in a rethembered form. The chapter claims that this is what was meant when it was stated that the ‘themory commentary is NOW’. Themory involves a relationship between past and present events, but only when the commentary is achieved in the here-and-now does it provide for that relationship to possess the power that the amnesic patient lacks.Less

The Heritage of Heritage

Daniel Herwitz

in Heritage, Culture, and Politics in the Postcolony

This chapter discusses the recontextualization of past events evident in the heritages displayed in museums. Groups of men and women, especially those who are living in postcolonial nations, have ... More

This chapter discusses the recontextualization of past events evident in the heritages displayed in museums. Groups of men and women, especially those who are living in postcolonial nations, have rewritten their nations' past events in the process of turning these into heritages. Traditional objects (artifacts of “indigenous” culture) and the institutions with which they are associated were being pulled from the “anthropology section” of the museum, recontextualized, and given new meaning within contemporary heritage discourses. The remaking of the past into a “heritage” is important in not only with regard to nationalism but also to the neoliberal system of profiling, branding, and marketing.Less

The Necessity of the Past

David C. Steinmetz

in Taking the Long View: Christian Theology in Historical Perspective

This chapter deals with the importance of the past. It discusses how Americans view the past as not so much something to be studied as something to be overcome; how the church cannot escape the past ... More

This chapter deals with the importance of the past. It discusses how Americans view the past as not so much something to be studied as something to be overcome; how the church cannot escape the past because of the nature of the Christian faith, which rests on an appeal to certain past events; and the role of church history as a theological stimulus and corrective.Less

The Distinctiveness Effect in Explicit and Implicit Memory

Lisa Geraci and Suparna Rajaram

in Distinctiveness and Memory

Much research supports the intuitive belief that people have very good memory for unusual or distinct information. This phenomenon is known as the distinctiveness effect. The majority of this ... More

Much research supports the intuitive belief that people have very good memory for unusual or distinct information. This phenomenon is known as the distinctiveness effect. The majority of this research comes from studies using explicit memory tests on which people make a deliberate effort to remember past events. However, there is very little research examining the distinctiveness effect using different probes of memory, known as implicit tests. On implicit memory tests, people do not intend to remember, but nonetheless memory shows its effects behaviorally. This chapter examines the role of awareness in mediating superior memory for unusual information. It reviews a select group of studies in which distinctiveness effects have been examined using explicit and implicit memory measures. It begins by describing the distinction between explicit and implicit memory tests. It then describes studies that demonstrate the effects of distinctiveness in explicit memory, as well as studies that show that distinctiveness is closely related to the vivid and recollective component of explicit memory.Less

The Metanarrative Controversy

in On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath

Since the 1980s, the term metanarrative has replaced the formerly used phrase philosophy of history. The prefix meta (Greek for beyond) indicated a narrative that overarched other narratives. Like a ... More

Since the 1980s, the term metanarrative has replaced the formerly used phrase philosophy of history. The prefix meta (Greek for beyond) indicated a narrative that overarched other narratives. Like a philosophy of history, it linked smaller historical accounts together to a single narrative that stretched over long periods of time, if not all of history. Yet the use of the term metanarrative indicated more than a mere change in terminology. It signified the ascendancy of a way to make sense of history in accord with the postmodernist concept of truth. Philosophers of history had seen their task as the discovery of the overall meaning inherent in past events by discerning the permanent structures and forces at work in them. Metanarratives were seen, like all concepts and narratives, as linguistic constructs, which disclaimed any link to objective schemes of order and meaning. Such a link was blamed for all claims to a privileged position, illegitimate in terms of the poststructuralist postmodernist concept of truth.Less

Poststructuralist Postmodernists on the Individual and the Utility of History

in On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath

The question of history's usefulness has all along been one about the degree to which the present could benefit from the past for illuminating human existence and its problems. The historical nexus ... More

The question of history's usefulness has all along been one about the degree to which the present could benefit from the past for illuminating human existence and its problems. The historical nexus suggested that history could yield useful answers. Ancient historians had tried to discern lessons in history that would stand the tests of life, especially those of political life. Medieval chroniclers had found guidance in history's events toward discerning Divine Providence. Much later and in a secular vein, Lord Bolingbrooke and many others saw history teaching the timeless lessons of philosophy through specific examples. Doubters have all along questioned such usefulness. Advocates of a “history for history's sake” stance, who tried to isolate the study of the past from the nexus, have denied that such utility should or could be of concern to historians. Now, poststructuralist postmodernists asked questions about the instructive role of the past and foresaw a world from which the guiding elements for the historical nexus had disappeared.Less