Royal Institute Philosophy- Tom Stern, Proust on Memory & Knowledge

What we remember is a central expression of who we are. So what should we remember, and what is best forgotten? Talks will focus on various aspects of the question, such as trauma, conflict resolution, forgiving and forgetting, memorialization, and constructing identities on- and off-line. Explore these questions, among others, through the lens of philosophy at the 2024/5 London Lectures.

Proust’s Theory of Memory and Knowledge

Speaker: Tom Stern: Tom Stern is a Professor of Philosophy at University College London. He is the co-editor of The Proustian Mind (2022) and the author of Nietzsche’s Ethics (2020) and Philosophy and Theatre.

Marcel Proust (1871-1922) is best known for his long novel, In Search of Lost Time. And the best-known moment in that novel is found near the start, when the adult narrator eats a small cake, a madeleine, dipped in lime-blossom tea. As if by magic, the taste of the tea-soaked cake conjures up the past he thought he had lost forever. The novel that follows gives an account of that past. But it also examines the phenomenon of memory itself. The madeleine moment is an instance of what the narrator calls ‘involuntary memory’, which lies at the heart of what Proust himself called the ‘whole theory of memory and knowledge’ set out in the book. What kind of theory is this? It is less well known that Proust was immersed in the philosophy of his age, and that memory was a central philosophical topic, which he had studied at school and then at university. This talk uses Proust’s novel, and the philosophy Proust knew, to reconstruct his theory of memory and knowledge.

Host or Publisher The Royal Institute of Philosophy