ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a distinction between the causal and the epistemological conditions of memory, and illustrates the four possible types of theory which arise when we allow the two kinds of condition to be either mnemic or non-mnemic. The four types of theory are: trace-theory, theory of mnemic causation, regularity-theory of causation and Pure Ego theory. The ordinary form of the trace-theory would hold that both the causal and the epistemological conditions of a memory-situation are non-mnemic when one considers microscopic events and objects. Of course there are plenty of macroscopically mnemic events where there is no need to introduce the distinction between causal and epistemological conditions. For many such events are not cognitions at all; and many which are cognitions do not have past events as their epistemological objects. The chapter argues that that it is perfectly possible to hold a purely mental theory of traces and dispositions, with or without the Pure Ego theory of the self.
