Memory

We commonly speak of remembering how to do something-to ride a bicycle, to hold a rifle, or to swim. This remembering how does not (or need not) involve any act of thinking at all, but consists in still possessing the ability to perform the activity in question. I show you that I still remember how to ride a bicycle simply by mounting the bicycle and riding it. Another sort of remembering how does involve an act of thought, as when I have to work something out: remembering how to do Pythagoras' theorem consists in being able to work out (by thinking) the stages of the deduction which lead to

3 6 Theory of Knowledge the desired conclusion. Again we speak of remembering a poem, or of remembering the dates of the kings of England-meaning that we can recite the poem now if asked, or that we can run through the catalogue of dates if necessary. All the above cases are legitimate uses of 'memory' or 'remember'. But there is one quite different use, which need not and usually does not apply to any of the above cases; and that is the sense which matters to us here-the sense in which I remember meeting Jones at Newhaven last Tuesday, or having strawberries for tea one day last week, or reading Macbeth for the first time when I was in bed with mumps at the age of thirteen or fourteen. If I remember the Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow . . .' soliloquy from Macbeth, in the sense of being able to recite it, I may or may not also remember learning it or hearing it declaimed or declaiming it myself. Remembering in the latter sense is not necessary to remembering in the former sense, although sometimes it may be a help (and sometimes not). We would not say that a man did not remember how to ride a bicycle if, although he could still ride one, he could no longer remember where or when or on what machine he first learned to ride; and if he was doubtful whether he could remember how to ride, he would not find his task made easier by recalling memories of his first failures and triumphs in mastery of a bicycle; on the other hand, if he was trying to remember Macbeth's soliloquy and stuck at a word, say at 'creeps in this something pace from day to day*, he might find it easier to supply the missing word by recalling the gesture the actor made in a particular performance of the play, or the sound of his voice, or the expression on his face at the time.