COLLECTIVE AMNESIA AND EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE Alessandra Tanesini Exeter

COLLECTIVE AMNESIA AND EPISTEMIC INJUSTICE Alessandra Tanesini Exeter May 2016

Collective Amnesia and Epistemic Injustice 2

Collective Amnesia and Epistemic Injustice 3 Main aims • 1. to show that the formation and maintenance of collective memories requires that other events are to some extent forgotten. • 2. to argue that sometimes collective mnemonic silence or forgetfulness is the result of cognitive effort to create and preserve ignorance. This is collective amnesia. • 3. to demonstrate that collective amnesia is harmful

Collective Amnesia and Epistemic Injustice 4 The plan • 1. the psychology of human biological memory • 2. the formation and maintenance of shared and collective memories • 3. scaffolded cognition and scaffolded memory • 4. ignorance as an achievement • 5. collective amnesia as collective memory ignorance • 6. collective memory and self-trust • 7. the harms of collective amnesia

Human Biological Memory Adapted from Michaelian (2012) cues Remembering Audience 5

Human biological memory 6 The functions of memory • Planning future activities (Schacter, 2012) • Strengthening social bonds • Hence, memory is not maladaptive despite its highly constructed nature

Shared and Collective Memories 7 Collaborative Remembering • Collaborative remembering and strengthening social bonds • Transactive memory systems (Sutton et al 2010). • Couple recollecting • Cross-cuing • Construction of shared memory

Shared and Collective Memories 8 Shared memories and SS-RIF • Retrieval Induced Forgetting (Coman, Manier and Hirst, 2009).

Shared and Collective Memories 9 Shared memories and SS-RIF • Retrieval induced forgetting can be shared SS-RIF(Stone et al. , 2012; Hirst and Marnier, 2008). • Shared memories developed by transactive memory systems manifest SS-RIF • Hence shared memories will tend to converge to some extent in the direction of the pre-existing recollections of those who do most of the talking

Shared and Collective Memories 10 Collective memories • “collective memories” are shared enduring memories (including of events that current members have not directly witnessed) which are part of the group’s identity (Hirst and Manier, 2008; Stone and Hurst, 2014)

Shared and Collective Memories 11 Collective Memories • Collective memories are subject to processes of formation and transformation include mechanisms which lead to mnemonic convergence of initially disparate individual memories • Social contagion (e. g. , implantation of false memories) especially prevalent when • speakers arrogate for themselves the role of narrator (Brown, Coman and Hirst, 2009) • Speakers are perceived as experts (see Hirst and Echterhoff 2011) • Exposure and retrieval effects • Repetition and affected by saying-is-believing-effect(Hirst and Echterhoff 2011). • SS-RIF (Stone and Hirst, 2014)

Scaffolded Cognition and Scaffolded Memory 12 Scaffolded Cognition • A scaffold is something- typically outside the skin of the cognizer- that shapes, structures or directs cognition. • Scaffolds facilitate cognition • By lowering cognitive load (e. g. , pen and paper to make an addition) • By allowing success in tasks one would otherwise be unable to perform (e. g. , use of calculator) • Scaffolds can emerge • By co-adaptation (e. g. , the formation of a path) • By conscious design

Scaffolded Cognition and Scaffolded Memory 13 Scaffolding for ignorance • Scaffolds can also be obstacles to cognition • By making some tasks impossible • By raising the cognitive load • Example: Supermarket Shelving • These kinds of scaffolds emerge in informational niches that are contested spaces (Sterelny, 2010) in which human beings do not engage in fully co-operative behaviour. • Examples: epistemically polluted informational niches

Scaffolded Cognition and Scaffolded Memory 14 Human Memory and Scaffolding • Human memory is highly scaffolded: • Storage Devices: archives, diaries, notebooks • These external memory devices are very different from human biological memory (Donald, 1991). • Mnemonics • Spatial arrangements (e. g. , drawers in a kitchen) • Mementoes • Scaffolded memories are subject to social contagion and SS-RIF • Some scaffolding promotes memory ignorance or forgetting of some aspects of the past

Ignorance as an Achievement 15 Strong Ignorance • Knowledge is an achievement due to cognitive ability (Pritchard 2009; Sosa, 2007; Greco, 2012) • Cognitive ability makes the telling contribution that turns the act into a success (analogy: the goal is credited to the person that directed it into the net even though it was a tap in) • Ignorance can be a success that is creditable to cognitive ability • Examples: • Ignorance resulting from goal driven motivated cognition • Deception and spreading of doubt • Ignorance due to environments that are scaffolded for ignorance

Collective Amnesia 16 Collective Amnesia • Collective amnesia is strong collective memory ignorance or forgetting. • Self-serving memories of the powerful can spread by social contagion and SS-RIF • Partial memories of those who have the power to talk and build memorials spread by exposure and SS-RIF • Creation of biased memory niches (statuary, toponomy, structuring of the day, the week, they year) • These processes generate strong collective memory ignorance

Intellectual Self-Trust and Collective Memory 17 Intellectual Self-Trust • Intellectual self-trust as a cognitive and affective stance of optimism toward one’s cognitive capacities in a given domain (Jones, 2012) • Comprises • confidence in one’s own abilities, • a belief in the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties, • a tendency to assert what one takes to be deliverances of one’s methods, and • a disposition to reflect on one’s belief only when there is a genuine need to do so. • Intellectual self-trust is sensitive to social power • Powerful individuals are likely to have inflated self-trust • Powerless individuals are likely to have deflated self-trust

Intellectual Self-Trust and Collective Memory 18 Intellectual Self-Trust and Collective Amnesia • Collective amnesia exacerbates the situation • In British collective memories Black British people only figure as a problem (Gilroy, 1987) • Such collective memories are corrosive of self-trust • This corrosion initiates a vicious circle which facilitates deepening biasing due to social contagion, exposure and SS-RIF

Memorial Injustice 19 Epistemic Injustice • Epistemic injustice is ‘a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in her capacity as a knower’ (Fricker, 2007, p. 20). • Evaluative respect and self-respect are respect based on a proper evaluation of a person’s (intellectual) qualities (Dillon, 2007; Tanesini, 2016) • Recognition respect and self-respect are respect based on the recognition that an individual is an (epistemic) agent. • Testimonial injustice: testimonial injustice is a credibility deficit due to identity prejudice • Exemplifies evaluative disrespect: not treating in a manner that accords with individual’s intellectual worth • Hermeneutical injustice: gap in collective interpretative resources causes cognitive disadvantage when interpreting experiences. • Exemplifies evaluative self-disrespect

Memorial Injustice 20 Memorial Injustice • Memorial injustice: gaps in the collective memories of a community so that some members are absent or represented as a threat or as problematic. • Memorial injustice is corrosive of intellectual self-trust in those individuals who cannot use collective memories to develop a sense of belonging • Intellectual self-trust is a necessary requirement for any other cognitive ability • Mnemonic injustice causes recognition self disrespect (as well as evaluative disrespect and self-disrespect.