REMEMBERING RELIGION: TRACES OF A MNEMONIC NATURE A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Division of Religion Drew University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Doctor of Philosophy Committee chair: Robert S. Corrington, Ph.D Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Philosophical Theology Wade A Mitchell New York, NY December 2017 ABSTRACT REMEMBERING RELIGION: TRACES OF A MNEMONIC NATURE Ph.D Dissertation by W. A. Mitchell Graduation Division of Religion Drew Theological School December 2017 Although memory is universally recognized as a fundamental, perhaps even the fundamental, capacity of an active and healthy brain, philosophers, artists, scien- tists, and theologians alike are still coming to appreciate exactly what it is, what it does, and how and why it ultimately matters. Accounting for some of the reasons behind this uncertainty establishes the general preoccupation of this entire project. With a focus on episodic, or autobiographical, memory in particular the middle chapters offer a top-to-bottom rendition of episodic memory with recourse to scientific investigations and analyses at different levels of inquiry from Endel Tulving’s neuropsychology to Eric Kandel’s neurobiology. In the chapters before and after this cognitive neuroscientific account of episodic memory there are en- gagements with several notable philosophers of memory from the philosophical theologian of antiquity, Augustine of Hippo, to the emergent proponent of reli- gious naturalism today, Loyal Rue. Working at the intersection between brain sci- ence and the academic study of religion, this project serves as one contemporary response to the longstanding intellectual and religious preoccupation with all things mnemonic, an interest that extends through the socratic philosophers, Pla- to and Aristotle, to the modern philosophers, James and Bergson and beyond. While many mnemonic mysteries still remain, new insights arise when philoso- phers and theologians duly consider the findings of memory scientists. Episodic memory’s religious significance, this project concludes, is pronounced as it im- pacts the crafting of one’s self-identity through time as selves simultaneously join with others to create, maintain, and even reimagine their communal contexts. !2 Contents Chapter 1 Intrantes Mysteria Memoriae: Picking up the Traces 3 Of an Absent Presence: Whence does memory come? 6 Tracing the Presences of Absence 27 Into Oblivion: Forgetting the Meaning of Memory 49 Chapter 2 Memory’s Natural Width: Timely Lessons from the Neuropsychology of Episodic Memory 61 Knowing the Time 68 Memory, Consciousness & Mental Time Travel 78 Memory and Lost Time: A Narrow Present Becomes Them 87 Chapter 3 Memory’s Natural Depth: Cognitive Neuroscientific Glimpses into Remembering Brains 103 The Core Network 110 LTP in the Hippocampus 130 Chapter 4 Remembering Religion On Mnemonic Grounds 143 Evolution, Episodic Memory, and the Future 145 A Religious Future: Remembering to Perpetuate (New) Chains of Tradition 159 On Mnemonic Grounds: Tracing the Theological Resonances of Religious Naturalism 178 Bibliography 187 !3 Chapter 1 Intrantes Mysteria Memoriae: Picking up the Traces If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly in comprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other intelligence. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient - at others, so bewildered and so weak - and at others again, so tyrannical, so beyond controul [sic] - We are to be sure a miracle in every way - but our powers of recollecting and forgetting, so seem peculiarly past finding out.1 When we face a problem, we may not know its solution, but we have in sight, increasing knowledge, and an inkling of what we are looking for. When we face a mystery, however, we can only stare in wonder and be wilderment, not knowing what an explanation would even look like.2 Mysteries and problems reside at different points along the continuum of ignorance. The former, situated at one end, elicits invocation. The latter, residing somewhere in the middle, calls for additional investigation. Problems suggest an- swers and indicate a way forward, while mysteries leave us at a total loss, if not just plain lost, and aswirl in questions. Both attract our attention and even irritate our desire to understand what is really going on. When we face a mystery insight dissolves or, perhaps it is more often the case, insight prodigiously multiplies bombarding us with an overabundance of possibilities. Either way, we are left bewildered. It may be that Pinker’s distinction is conceptually or phenomenologically helpful. But surely the ignorance quotient is based on a sliding scale. Knowledge, " 1 Jane Austin, Mansfield Park. (New York: Penguin Books, 2003) 2 Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works. (New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 1997), ix. !3 !4 after all, is a moving target. Yesterday’s mysteries are today’s problems and to- day’s problems often become tomorrow’s presuppositions. But, only next year, we may find ourselves mystified by the presuppositions we once held. In this chapter I am neither interested in rationalistically slaying nor uncritically serving longstanding appraisals of memory. Rather, I endeavor to slide along its continu- um, discussing those perspectives which have both revered its mysteries and struggled with its problems. Prominent engagements with mnemonic phenomena will be selectively presented below and, through them, we can begin to see how a number of tower- ing philosophers and theologians have embraced, elided, revered, or overcome the complexities of memory. While many of the portrayals discussed in this first chapter may be spiritually edifying or philosophically prescient, they often appear unresolved, haunted by a few common aporias. Every one of these impressive efforts, however, has left traces behind which serve as both partial answers and invitations to even deeper questions. As evidenced by the following thinkers, memory has been a persistent theological and philosophical preoccupation. And yet, there is no one best approach to this particular slice of intellectual history. A number of contemporary scholars of memory have certainly given us helpful ways to frame and understand memory’s various thematics as they have been !5 explored more or less continuously from early antiquity to the present.3 And while any pretension to comprehensiveness should be disregarded, these scholars of memory can certainly be applauded for highlighting durable conceptual cords to cling to when charting a way through such a complex territory. In this chapter I will hold to three such cords, giving each its own section, hoping to navigate paths through some of the aporias of memory. In each section I will not only in- troduce important tensions with respect to the study of memory, and a range of responses to these tensions, but I also intend to effectively move our inquiry across a vast, contestable intellectual terrain and properly justify the stance and direction taken in the chapters to follow. The first section is preoccupied with per- spectives on the possible fonts of mnemonic phenomena. As we will see, philosophers of memory, particularly Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, have been compelled to speculate on the intriguingly elusive sources of memory and recol- lection, albeit in different ways and for different reasons. The second section, by contrast, is not concerned with what may be absent but rather what presently remains of memory. As such, our inquiry will consider the myriad traces of memo- ry. I will attempt to generally categorize traces into different kinds in order to ef- fectively delve into the current fervor surrounding the meaning and importance of 3 Francis A. Yates, The Art of Memory. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966); Mary Warnock, Memory. (London: Faber and Faber, 1987); Edward S. Casey, Remembering: A Phe- nomenological Study. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Mary J. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); David Farrell Krell, Of Memory, Reminiscence, and Writing. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990); John Sutton, Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connection- ism. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting. trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Sven Bernecker, Memory: A Philosophical Study. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) !6 the memory trace. In the third, and final, section of this chapter I introduce anoth- er significant tension in any engagement with memory: its relationship to forget- ting. The need to balance active remembering with needful forgetting will be high- lighted in this section. When considered together, I will argue that these three sections suggest an indispensable link between our understanding of mnemonic phenomena and critical appreciations of religious experiences, beliefs, practices. The task throughout the rest of this project will be to elaborate this link. I. Of an Absent Presence: Whence does memory come? In his weighty volume, Memory, History, Forgetting, Paul Ricoeur credits Plato with introducing a lasting contribution to the philosophy of memory - a pre- occupation with the “phenomenon of the presence of an absent thing.”4 Socrates asks Theaetetus and Theodorus, in a Platonic dialogue bearing