Locke and Grice on 'self': "One can only remember one's experiences," and that's analytically true -- vide his "Defence of a dogma"

Reid’s paradox brings up an absurdity in Locke’s memory theory which the theory can’t simply ignore. 

Without some circumventing stipulation of Locke’s theory or an amendment to it, the memory theory of personal identity seems to fail. 

However, memory theorist H.P. Grice (who doesn't take the jargon of 'personal identity' too seriously and prefers to stick with 'me [sic] self') offers an amendment to Locke’s theory which recognizes and avoids Reid’s counterexample. 

In his essay Personal Identity, so-called after the jargon in "Mind," the journal where he submits the essay (he prefers to stick with more English colloquialisms, like 'me [sic] self'), Grice proposes the introduction of the concept of

a total temporary state (t.t.s.)

To fix the problem of transitivity, Grice stipulates the definition of a total temporary state as follows:

"A total temporary state a state “composed of all the experiences any one person is having at a given time” (Grice).


One’s personal identity is composed of a series of total temporary states which belong to the one and the "same self" (literally the "same same," if not "same old"), or person.

Grice is aware that, etymologically, 'self' and 'same' are cognate, and that the first registered use of 'self,' as in 'me self,' makes a lot of sense: "I hurt me self." 

Grice’s proposed application of the concept of a total temporary state to patch the issue of transitivity raised by Reid’s paradox follows:  

In a series of total temporary states belonging to one person, call  him Grice, the 'same self,' or 'same same,' if not 'same old,' every total temporary state which is a member of that series will contain as an element a memory of some experience which is an element in the temporally preceding member of the series.

In a series of total temporary states NOT belonging to one person, or the 'same same,' or 'same self,' this will not be the case. 

What Grice proposes is that EACH total temporary state of a single self or person contains some element, a remembered experience or impression, shared by the total temporary state preceding it in time also belonging to that person, or same self, or same same, or same old, or Grice, explicitly stating that this will not be true of total temporary states of different people, or persons, or selves, or Grices.

 Evaluating the Response 

Most will find this or that claim against Locke’s memory theory a logical and true statement; that is that 

Simply because one cannot remember some experience does not mean that it was not oneself who experienced it. 

Grice rather focused on the 'factivity' of 'remember'.

"If my brother Derek remembers himself joining the army, he joined the army."

"Surely this does not entail that I am my brother, or that he is I."

Most people would be unwilling to believe that, as Locke suggests, they do not share a personal identity with themselves as toddlers simply because they cannot remember the experience of toddlerhood.  

The primary objection deals with Locke’s assertion that memory is a necessary condition for personal identity, and Reid’s paradox proves that this objection is based on sound logic. 

Locke’s theory cannot conjure a worthwhile response to Reid’s paradox without amendment. 

Grice’s response is the ideal solution because it preserves the original stipulations of Locke’s theory that memory is both a necessary AND SUFFICIENT condition of 'relative' personal identity while amending those stipulations to account for its transitive nature.  

Grice develops a theory of relative identity alla Geach, but mostly influenced by his Oxford tutee D. Wiggins in "Sameness and substance."

Memory, an item in Grice's complex 'philosophical psychology,' is NECESSARY only insofar as the memory of a particular experience is contained within at least one total temporary state in the stream of total temporary states belonging to a particular person, self, or Grice.

This stipulation successfully satisfies critics who question whether or not forgetting an experience inherently means one did not have that experience. 

This completely avoids the problem of Reid’s paradox by suggesting that the total temporary state of the officer contains in it some element (memory) also contained within the total temporary state of the soldier who took the standard, and that the t.t.s. of that soldier contains in it some element (memory) also contained within the total temporary state of the boy who was flogged, and that this is sufficient to say that this series of total temporary states belongs to one person. 

Grice is explicitly stating that if A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, A is equal to C, or, in terms similar to his, if t.t.s-general is equal to t.t.s.-soldier, and t.t.s.-soldier is equal to t.t.s-boy, then t.t.s.-general is equal to t.t.s.-boy. 

This argument is as sound as an argument can be, and is an adequate response to Reid. 

Grice’s amendment is also brilliant in that it clarifies that memory is sufficient for personal identity only insofar as the total temporary states in a stream share some transitive element. 

Grice stipulates that the transitivity of total temporary states will not hold true if the t.t.s.’s in question do not belong to the same person. 

Grice is also aware of the alleged counterexample of vicious circularity proposed by Joseph Butler to his beloved Locke. 

This and his assertion that, “one can only remember one’s own experiences” (Grice), protects the memory theory from critics who cite the false (or non-veridical) memory effect as a counterexample to Locke’s theory. 

Some indeed propose a refinement of:

"If Derek Grice remembers himself joining the army, he is the same person who joined the army."

To read:

"If Derek Grice CLAIMS to remember himself joining the army, he is the same person who joined the army."

-- The refinement is altogether otiose!

Grice is right to conclude that an illusion (or hallucination) of having experienced that p is not equivalent with actually having experienced that p.

Grice's favourite example is the pair:

"I hear a noise and I smelled a smell."

"The experience of a present hearing of a noise and the experience of a past smelling of a smell are objects of the same consciousness." 

Grice's explicit statement of this further adds to his response’s credibility.  

Though Grice’s response is sound, it still fail, to some pedants, to provide an adequate definition for RELATIVE personal identity, i.e. time-relative 'self.'

Grice paid special attention to George Harrison's "I, me, mine," "to no avail, alas," as he confessed.

Grice's amendment assesses personal identity in a Humean fashion, and he was happy with it until he met, of all people, J. C. Haugeland!

Grice calls his theory an amendment of Broad's "logical-construction" 'theory' of personal identity, or 'self,' where the 'meaning' is preserved.

"One can only remember one's experiences," is logically constructed as an otiose thing to say.

"As "I am not my brother," in most circumstances, is."

Grice concludes that his self ("me self") is more like a bundle of interconnecting (or "interlocking," as he puts it, gloriously punning on Locke) experiences and impressions than it is an independent substance, unless we take 'prote ousia' by Aristotle seriously, as he does.

However, because Grice’s amendment holds soundly against Reid’s paradox, one must conclude that his response to the transitive objection is perfectly adequate and totally acceptable -- and accepted in fact, by all members of his play group, except, typically, Strawson, who had read Ayer's 'concept of a person,' and took Aristotle more seriously than Grice did.

The fact that one of Grice's tutees is A. G. N. Flew didn't help. 

Flew attacked J. R. Jones on the 'otiose' use of 'the' in 'the self'. "Who but a philosopher would say that! Leave the verbal rubbish out!"

Grice was offended on Jones's behalf, as he should.

In contrast with Flew, Grice is the gentlest of philosophers.  

References 

Grice, H.P. "Personal Identity." 

Perry, John. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 73-95.  

Locke, John. "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding." Perry, John. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 33-52.  

Perry, John. "Personal Identity, Memory, and the Problem of Circularity." Perry, John. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 136-155.  

Reid, Thomas. "Of Mr. Locke's Account of Our Personal Identity." Perry, John. Personal Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 113-118.