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A knowledge-first approach to episodic memory
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Hoerl, Christoph (2022) A knowledge-first approach to episodic memory. Synthese, 200 (5). 376. doi:10.1007/s11229-022-03702-1 ISSN 0039-7857.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03702-1
Abstract
This paper aims to outline, and argue for, an approach to episodic memory broadly in the spirit of knowledge-first epistemology. I discuss a group of influential views of epsiodic memory that I characterize as ‘two-factor accounts’, which have both proved popular historically (e.g., in the work of Hume, 1739-40; Locke 1690; and Russell 1921) and have also seen a resurgence in recent work on the philosophy of memory (see, e.g., Dokic 2014; Michaelian, 2016; Owens, 1996). What is common to them is that they try to give an account of the nature of episodic memory in which the concept of knowledge plays no explanatory role. I highlight some parallels between these two-factor accounts and attempts to give a reductive definition of knowledge itself. I then discuss some problems two-factor accounts of episodic memory face in explaining the distinctive sense in which episodic recollection involves remembering personally experienced past events, before sketching an alternative approach to episodic memory, which takes as basic the idea that episodic memory involves the retention of knowledge. I argue that we can give an exhaustive constitutive account of what episodic memory is, and how it differs from other types of mental states, by considering what particular type of knowledge is retained in episodic memory, and what exactly having that knowledge consists in.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BC Logic B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Episodic memory , Epistemic logic , Memory (Philosophy) | ||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Synthese | ||||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||||
ISSN: | 0039-7857 | ||||||
Official Date: | 6 September 2022 | ||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 200 | ||||||
Number: | 5 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 27 | ||||||
Article Number: | 376 | ||||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s11229-022-03702-1 | ||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 11 April 2022 | ||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 7 September 2022 | ||||||
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