Author:

Keywords:

Observer Memories, Edmund Husserl, 1109 Neurosciences, 2201 Applied Ethics, 2203 Philosophy

Abstract:

This paper explores the challenge that the experience of third-person perspective recall (i.e. observer memories) presents to a phenomenological theory of memory. Specifically this paper outlines what Husserl describes as the necessary features of recollection, among which he includes the givenness of objects in the first person perspective. The paper notes that, on first sight, these necessary features cannot account for the experience of observer memories as described by Neisser & Nigro (1983). This paper proposes that observer memories do not so much entail a shift of perspective as they do a process of self-objectification and as such do not break with the phenomenological emphasis on the first person perspective.