For suppositions about memory seem inessential to the so-called "memory argument" (Goldberg 1997; 1999a; 2000a).
But it is worth noting that the view allows an externalist to resist the memory argument.
Given the two types of slow switch argument, note that sections 3.3 addresses only the second type, the memory argument.
If so, then it is premise (b) rather than (a) which is the culprit in the memory argument.
Boghossian's official reply to Burge consists in the memory argument, noted at the start of section 3. 1.
Even though Oscar does not truly "forget," he has still lost knowledge by a different route; premise (a) of the memory argument is thus false.
When first championing the memory argument, Boghossian (1989) noted the reply from relevant alternatives, yet maintained that the slow switch experiment still shows a conflict between EXT and SK.
For instance, there is a kind of "inverted" memory argument suggesting that, if Burge's self-verifying judgments count as bona fide self-knowledge, then one's memory would be infallible in ways that it is obviously not (Goldberg 2000b).
Accordingly, Burge rejects premise (c) of the memory argument: If Oscar truly forgot nothing, then preservative memory means he knows at t2 what he knew at t1. Per Falvey & Owens (1994), Oscar's memory may not provide comparative knowledge of content, i.e., knowledge that enables armchair discriminations between water and twin water contents.
But threnodies are not an argument, and memories are definitely not facts (Hobsbawm's pithy condemnation of oral history, delivered at a conference where I was due to speak, was terrifying).
