Premium
The impure phenomenology of episodic memory
Author(s) -
Boyle Alexandria
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12261
Subject(s) - episodic memory , phenomenology (philosophy) , psychology , cognitive psychology , autobiographical memory , cognitive science , epistemology , cognition , recall , philosophy , neuroscience
Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology: it involves “mentally reliving” a past event. It has been suggested that characterising episodic memory in terms of this phenomenology makes it impossible to test for in animals, because “purely phenomenological features” cannot be detected in animal behaviour. Against this, I argue that episodic memory's phenomenological features are impure , having both subjective and objective aspects, and so can be behaviourally detected. Insisting on a phenomenological characterisation of episodic memory consequently does nothing to damage the prospects for detecting it in nonhuman animals.