ABSTRACT
If what we ordinarily suppose is in any way evidence relevant to the solution of a philosophical problem, then we must not blink the fact that quite often we ordinarily suppose two (or more) quite different and incompatible things on the same subject. If a philosopher can show that we ordinarily suppose A about a certain subject, he is not entitled to infer that in that case we do not ordinarily suppose
S 8 Theory of Knowledge It is surely clear that the argument that remembering cannot have
for its direct object the event remembered is an a priori argument, based not on the collection of evidence nor on the citing of cases, but on a theory, about the nature of time. It is supposed that when something happens, it has then happened, and is thereafter as unavailable for subsequent observation as it was for previous observation before it happened, just as if I do not see the lightning flash when it occurs I cannot hope to see it afterwards (for it is no longer there to see). It is further supposed that, even if we waived the first difficulty, we would still have to allow that no part of a present experience can fall outside the present; I can only experience what is contemporary with the experience itself, and consequently an act of remembering cannot have as its direct object an event not contemporary with but prior to itself. Now, neither of these suppositions seems one which we must accept; they are not self-evident principles, nor are they deducible from self-evident principles; and, as we saw earlier,1 even in the case of perception itself it seems that we have to allow that what is perceived is not contemporary with the act of perceiving it. In fact, the argument from time against the suggestion that memory has for its direct object the event remembered is revealed on examination to rest on nothing more solid than confusion and unreflective prejudice.2
