Episodic memory and theory of mind: a connection reconsidered

Mind and Language 33 (2):148-160 (2018)
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Abstract

In the literature on episodic memory, one claim that has been made by a number of psychologists, and that is also at least implicit in some of the accounts given by philosophers, is that being able to recollect particular past events in the distinctive way afforded by episodic memory requires the possession of aspects of a theory of mind, such as a grasp of the relationship between one’s present recollective experience and one’s own past perceptual experience of the remembered event. In this paper, I re-examine what connection, if any, there is between episodic memory and theory of mind. I first criticize the dominant way in which this connection has been construed theoretically, which – perhaps influenced by other aspects of theory of mind research – has sought to link the possession of episodic memory primarily with a grasp of the idea of representation, or the idea of informational access. I then argue for a novel, alternative, way of connecting episodic memory and theory of mind, which focuses on the category of an experience, and on the role a grasp of that category might be seen to play in episodic recollection. In doing so, I also draw attention to a dimension of our understanding of the mental which remains as yet underexplored in the literature on theory of mind.

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Christoph Hoerl
University of Warwick

References found in this work

What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50.
Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.
The Mind and its place in nature.C. D. Broad - 1925 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 103:145-146.

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