Episodic memory involves the sense that it is “first-hand”, i.e., originates directly from one’s own past experience. An account of this phenomenological dimension is offered in terms of an affective experience or feeling specific to episodic memory. On the basis of recent empirical research in the domain of metamemory, it is claimed that a recollective experience involves two separate mental components: a first-order memory about the past along with a metacognitive, episodic feeling of knowing. The proposed two-tiered account is contrasted (...) with other, reductionist two-tiered accounts as well as with reflexive accounts of episodic memory to be found in the literature. (shrink)

Remembering is one of the most characteristic and most puzzling of human activities. Personal memory, in particular - the ability mentally to travel back into the past, as leading psychologist Endel Tulving puts it - often has intense emotional or moral significance: it is perhaps the most striking manifestation of the peculiar way human beings are embedded in time, and of our limited but genuine freedom from our present environment and our immediate needs. Memory has been significant in the history (...) of philosophy as much in relation to ethics and to epistemology as in theories of psyche, mind, and self. (shrink)

I argue that our current practice of ascribing the term “ memory ” to mental states and processes lacks epistemic warrant. Memory, according to the “received view”, is any state or process that results from the sequential stages of encoding, storage and retrieval. By these criteria, memory, or its footprint, can be seen in virtually every mental state we are capable of having. This, I argue, stretches the term to the breaking point. I draw on phenomenological, historical and conceptual considerations (...) to make the case that an act of memory entails a direct, non-inferential feeling of re-acquaintance with one’s past. It does so by linking content retrieved from storage with autonoetic awareness during retrieval. On this view, memory is not the content of experience, but the manner in which that content is experienced. I discuss some theoretical and practical implications and advantages of adopting this more nuanced view of memory. -/-. (shrink)

The most salient aspect of memory is its role in preserving previously acquired information so as to make it available for further activities. Anna realizes that something is amiss in a book on Roman history because she learned and remembers that Caesar was murdered. Max turned up at the party and distinctively remembers where he was seated, so he easily gets his hands on his lost cell phone. The fact that information is not gained anew distinguishes memory from perception. The (...) fact that information is preserved distinguishes memory from imagination. But how do acquisition and retrieval of information contribute to the phenomenology of memory?The exclusive aim of this chapter is to sketch a map of the phenomenology of memory. It is structured as follows. In section 1, I introduce the contrast between content (what is remembered) and psychological attitude (remembering). This distinction will be helpful in disentangling issues in the phenomenology of memory. Section 2 is devoted to the contribution of memory content to phenomenology, section 3 to the contribution of the attitude of remembering. (shrink)

Philosophers and psychologists often distinguish episodic or personal memory from propositional or semantic memory. A vexed issue concerns the role, if any, of memory “impressions” or “seemings” within the latter. According to an important family of approaches, seemings play a fundamental epistemological role vis-à-vis propositional memory judgments: it is one’s memory seeming that Caesar was murdered, say, that justifies one’s judgment that he was murdered. Yet, it has been convincingly argued that these approaches lead to insurmountable problems and that memory (...) seemings are not wellsuited to play this justifying role. As a result, many contemporary accounts of propositional memory dispense with these seemings altogether. Is the idea that memory seemings play a key role in propositional memory really the result of bad theorizing? My aim is to shed light on this issue, which I will approach as follows. In Section 1, I contrast episodic memory with propositional memory so as to clarify the nature of the latter. According to the account I put forward, episodic memory consists in the preservation of acquaintance with objects and events, whereas propositional memory consists in the preservation of thought contents. In Section 2, I turn my attention to the contrast between propositional memory contents and propositional memory as an attitude. I argue that they play different roles. Memory contents satisfy a past awareness constraint and a causal constraint; the attitude of remembering explains why we are inclined to endorse these contents. This distinction leads me to explore the attitude of remembering, and I argue, in Section 3, that the most appealing account of this attitude is in terms of feelings of familiarity. In Section 4, I turn my attention to the epistemology of propositional memory and revisit the claim that propositional memory judgments are justifi ed by memory seemings. In so doing, I contend that the attitude of remembering plays an exclusively explanatory role and does not contribute to the epistemology of propositional memory judgments. I conclude by drawing a more general lesson regarding the respective roles of attitudes and contents. (shrink)