Chris McCARROLL, Post-doctorant au Centre de Philosophie de la Mémoire

When recalling events that one personally experienced, one often visualises the remembered scene as one originally saw it: from an internal visual perspective. Sometimes, however, one sees oneself in the remembered scene: from an external ‘observer perspective’. In such cases one remembers from-the-outside. This talk is about such memories. Remembering from-the-outside is a common yet curious case of personal memory: one views oneself from a perspective one seemingly could not have had at the time of the original event. How can past events be recalled from a detached perspective? How is it that the self is observed? And how can we account for the self-presence of such memories? Indeed, can there be genuine memories recalled from-the-outside? If memory preserves past perceptual content, then how can one see oneself from-the-outside in memory? In this talk I provide answers to these questions.