A Minimalist Approach to the Development of Episodic Memory

Mind and Language 27 (1):29-54 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Episodic memory is usually regarded in a Conceptualist light, in the sense of its being dependent upon the grasp of concepts directly relevant to the act of episodic recollection itself, such as a concept of past times and of the self as an experiencer. Given this view, its development is typically timed as being in the early school-age years. We present a minimalist, Non-Conceptualist approach in opposition to this view, but one that also exists in clear contrast to the kind of minimalism espoused by Clayton and Dickinson with regard to memory in food-caching birds. While emphasising the nonconceptual elements of episodic memory we also insist on the essentially phenomenological nature of the memory. We propose the third year of life as a plausible onset period. Our view is rooted in Kantian assumptions about the spatiotemporal content of experience and about the synthetic unity of experience—and thus of re-experience. We answer two objections to this position

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: A first-person approach.John M. Gardiner - 2002 - In Alan Baddeley, John Aggleton & Martin Conway (eds.), Episodic Memory: New Directions in Research. Oxford University Press. pp. 11-30.
Consciousness, self‐consciousness and episodic memory.Rocco J. Gennaro - 1992 - Philosophical Psychology 5 (4):333-47.
Elements of Episodic Memory.Endel Tulving - 1983 - Oxford University Press.
Is memory preservation?Mohan Matthen - 2010 - Philosophical Studies 148 (1):3-14.
Concepts and Imagery in Episodic Memory.James Genone - 2006 - Anthropology and Philosophy 7 (1-2):95-107.
Episodic memory and autonoesis: Uniquely human.Endel Tulving - 2005 - In Herbert S. Terrace & Janet Metcalfe (eds.), The Missing Link in Cognition: Origins of Self-Reflective Consciousness. Oxford University Press. pp. 3-56.
Episodic memory and autonoetic awareness.Mark A. Wheeler - 2000 - In Endel Tulving & Fergus I. M. Craik (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Memory. Oxford University Press. pp. 597-608.

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-01-13

Downloads
103 (#156,436)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

James Russell
Trent University
Robert Hanna
University of Colorado, Boulder

Citations of this work

Memory.Kourken Michaelian & John Sutton - 2017 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Remembering events and remembering looks.Christoph Hoerl - 2014 - Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (3):351-372.
What has episodic memory got to do with space and time?Ian Phillips - forthcoming - In Sara Aronowitz & Lynn Nadel (eds.), Space, Time, and Memory. Oxford: OUP.

View all 16 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Mind and World.John Henry McDowell - 1994 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Reference and Consciousness.John Campbell - 2002 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Critique of Pure Reason.Immanuel Kant - 1998 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edited by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Translated by Paul Guyer & Allen W. Wood.
Critique of Pure Reason.I. Kant - 1787/1998 - Philosophy 59 (230):555-557.
Mind and World.Huw Price & John McDowell - 1994 - Philosophical Books 38 (3):169-181.

View all 41 references / Add more references