Memory and Mental Files workshop, 2023
Co-organised with Kourken Michaelian and Michael Murez
About me
As of August 2024, I'm an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
I am an Affiliated Member of the Centre for Philosophy of Memory in Grenoble, where I led the Objectual Memory project as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow from 2021–2024.
I'm also Chair of the Steering Committee of the Philosophy of Memory Organisation.
My principal interests are in the philosophy of mind/cognitive science, but these have sometimes taken me into epistemology and the philosophy of language. My recent work explores interactions between memory, perceptual experience, and singular thought (or reference).
Research
Edited volumes
1. Openshaw, J., Michaelian, K., & Perrin, D. (Forthcoming). 'Reference and Remembering'. Topical Collection in Synthese.
Selected publications
For a full list of articles and book chapters, see my CV.
1. Barkasi, M. & Openshaw, J. (Forthcoming). 'Perceiving objects the brain does not represent', Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Penultimate draft.
It is often assumed that neural representation, with content that is in principle detachable from the flow of natural-factive information, is necessary to perceptually experience an object. In this paper we present and discuss two cases challenging this assumption. We take them to show that it is possible to experience an object with which you are interacting through your sensory systems without those systems constructing a representation of the object. The first example is viewing nearby medium-sized groups of objects. The second is hearing objects through misbound sounds. These cases bring out two different ways object representation can fail while object experience persists, suggesting that object experience requires only that the object be revealed through sensory information, not full-blown representation. Constructing object representations is one way sensory systems reveal objects, but it is not the only way. We conclude that even minimal forms of neural phenomenal internalism are false.
2. Openshaw, J. & Michaelian, K. (Forthcoming). 'Reference in remembering: Towards a simulationist account', Synthese 203(90). Penultimate draft.
What enables occurrences of remembering to refer to particular events, and what determines which event a given occurrence of remembering refers to? We motivate and present a reliabilist account of reference-fixing for postcausal theories of remembering, focusing in particular on simulationism. We then show that this account draws attention to the possibility of referential mnemic confabulation: cases where the reliability requirement for reference is met despite the improper functioning of the episodic construction system. We suggest that this makes sense of some underdiscussed phenomena described in the empirical literature on confabulation. Far from questions about reference in remembering presenting an insurmountable challenge for postcausal theories of remembering, we argue that these theories have the beginnings of a plausible account, one which illuminates a neglected class of mnemic phenomena (namely, referential confabulations) that present a serious challenge to causalist theories.
3. Openshaw, J. (Forthcoming). 'Does singular thought have an epistemic essence?', Inquiry. Penultimate draft.
What is involved in having a singular thought about an ordinary object? On the leading epistemic view, one has this capacity if and only if one has belief-forming dispositions which would reliably enable one to get its properties right (Dickie, 2015). I argue that Dickie’s official view should be rejected and that, once the natural revisions are made, it becomes hard to see what is distinctively epistemic about the framework. If we are to tease out the delicate connection between singular thought and knowledge, we should suspend the assumption that there is a homogeneous core, present in all cases of such thought, and that it is from there that its epistemic character derives.
4. Openshaw, J. 2023. '(In defence of) preservationism and the previous awareness condition: What is a theory of remembering, anyway?', Philosophical Perspectives 37(1): 290–307. Penultimate draft.
I suggest that the theories of remembering one finds in the philosophical literature are best seen as theories operating at three different levels of inquiry. Simulationist views are theories of the psychofunctional process type remembering. Traditional causal views are theories of referential remembering. Epistemic views are theories of successful remembering. Insofar as there is conflict between these theories, it is a conflict of integration rather than—as widely presented—head-on disagreement. This picture enables us to see the previous awareness condition and preservationism as principles applying at only some of the corresponding levels of inquiry. Where either principle has been rejected, it is, I claim, due to arguments which slip between these different levels.
5. Openshaw, J. 2022. 'Remembering objects', Philosophers' Imprint 22(11): 1–20. Penultimate draft.
Conscious recollection, of the kind characterised by sensory mental imagery, is often thought to involve episodically recalling experienced events in one’s personal past. One might wonder whether this overlooks distinctive ways in which we sometimes recall ordinary, persisting objects. Of course, one can recall an object by remembering an event in which one encountered it. But are there acts of recall which are distinctively objectual in that they are not about objects in this mediated way (i.e., by way of being about events in which they featured)? In this paper, I argue that we sometimes do recall objects from our past without remembering events in which they featured.
6. Openshaw, J., & Weksler, A. 2022. 'Perceptual capacitism: An argument for disjunctive disunity', Philosophical Studies 179: 3325–3348. Penultimate draft.
According to capacitism, to perceive is to employ personal-level, perceptual capacities. Schellenberg has promoted a particular way of individuating such capacities, on which they can underpin a 'common factor' theory of perceptual experience. We argue, against Schellenberg's claim that “capacitism is [...] at its core non-disjunctivist” (2020: 717), that a disjunctivist account of perceptual capacities is not only possible but is to be preferred.
7. Openshaw, J. 2021. 'Thinking about many', Synthese 199: 2863–2882. Penultimate draft.
Unger's (1980) 'problem of the many' raises a concern as to how, and even whether, we achieve singular thought about ordinary objects. This paper reconciles a plenitudinous conception of ordinary objects with our capacity for singular thought about those objects—and, equally, about more obviously ‘abundant’ phenomena, such as locations and lumps of matter.
8. Openshaw, J., & Weksler, A. 2020. 'A puzzle about seeing for representationalism', Philosophical Studies 177: 2625–2646. Penultimate draft.
When characterizing the content of a subject’s perceptual experience, does their seeing an object entail that their experience represents it as being a certain way? If so, are they thereby in a position to have perceptually-based thoughts about it? We introduce a puzzle for orthodox representationalism and use it to identify a variety of interesting morals which may be drawn in response.
9. Openshaw, J. 2020. 'Self-ascription and the de se', Synthese 197: 2039–2050.
I defend Lewis’s (1979) influential treatment of de se belief from recent criticism (Cappelen and Dever 2013; Holton 2015) to the effect that a key explanatory notion—self-ascription—goes unexplained. It is shown that Lewis's characterisation of de se belief can be reconstructed in a way which requires only widely recognised primitives.
10. Openshaw, J. 2018. 'Singular thoughts and de re attitude reports', Mind & Language 33(4): 415–437. Penultimate draft.
It is generally supposed that if there is to be a plausible connection between the truth of a de re attitude report about a subject and that subject’s possession of a singular thought, then ‘acquaintance’-style requirements on singular thought must be rejected. I argue that this belief rests on a poorly motivated picture of how we talk about the attitudes.
In progress / under review
1. A paper on so-called 'general event' memories.
2. A handbook article on memory and reference.
3. A paper on reference in mnemonic confabulation (co-authored).
4. A paper on memory and the limits of imagination (co-authored).
5. A paper arguing against simulationism (co-authored).
6. A paper on forms of generationism in the philosophy of memory (co-authored).
Marie Curie Project
MEMOBJECT was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement (no. 101032391).
The project sought to identify and correct a systematic oversight in the theoretical literature on declarative memory. The influential distinction between episodic and semantic memory systems, and the informal characterisation of those systems as concerned with events and facts, respectively, has led many to take the class of rememberings that involve the representation of a temporally discrete event in the subject’s personal past as the proper explanandum of a philosophical theory of conscious remembering. However, underlying systems and the memory phenomena to be explained are not related one-one. In particular, systems interact to produce a diversity of outputs with various characteristics. Instances of remembering may result from the activity of both episodic and semantic systems, and when they do they may not be about specific events, accompanied with the phenomenology of ‘reliving’ an episode, and involving imagery as of a particular scene from a represented point of view. The core aim of the project was to illustrate that many phenomena of memory to be explained cannot be related straightforwardly to the activity of one memory system. In particular, objectual memory requires a more nuanced account and raises new philosophical issues which must be addressed if we are to have a full picture of memory. One of the consequences of the project is that more attention to issues concerning reference is needed in philosophical theorising about memory.
Outputs of the project so far include 'Remembering objects', which argues that we do sometimes remember an object without remembering any event(s) in which we encountered it, and '(In defence of) preservationism and the previous awareness condition: What is a theory of remembering, anyway?', which argues that many of the recent disputes about remembering arise from the different subject matters with which theorists are primarily concerned.
Events
Reference in Remembering workshop, 2022
Co-organised with Kourken Michaelian and Denis Perrin
Reference and Remembering
Synthese topical collectionGuest editors: James Openshaw; Kourken Michaelian; Denis Perrin.
Episodic memory enables us to consciously 'relive' experienced events from our past. You might remember making coffee this morning and sensorily recall what it was like to hear the kettle reach a boil or to smell the coffee grounds. Success in this activity requires that there be a certain relationship between your present act of remembering and the past event in question. First, something must 'fix' or determine that your memory is about that particular event, rather than, say, a similar event the previous morning. Second, the memory must be suitably accurate. By analogy, success in uttering 'This is blue' requires, for its evaluability, that 'This' refers to a particular object and, for its truth, that the predicate accurately characterises the referred-to object.
Though these observations are simple, what we might call the reference-fixing and accuracy conditions of episodic remembering remain obscure. The thriving work on memory in philosophy and the sciences strongly suggests that continued progress requires more attention—and new approaches—to these matters. Since this requires expertise in both memory and in reference and singular thought, new conversations must be started. The principal aim of the proposed topical collection is to prompt such conversations about the complex and multi-faceted relationship between reference, singular thought, and remembering by bringing researchers specializing on these topics within one forum for the first time.
The deadline for manuscript submissions is now closed.
The topical collection can be found here.
CV
Click here to view a copy of my CV.
Background
I received my DPhil (PhD) in Philosophy from the University of Oxford in 2018 under the supervision of John Hawthorne and Timothy Williamson. Before joining NTU, I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Memory (Université Grenoble Alpes). I've also held research positions at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, the University of Haifa, and the University of Warwick where I was funded by an award from the Mind Association. In 2019–2020, I was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh.
Back in 2016 I was a visiting research student at the University of Southern California. Before all this, I studied for my undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Leeds.
As the first in my family to attend university, I've often worked with access programmes, such as for Pembroke College. More recently I've been running university information sessions for The Compton, a comprehensive school in London.