Arieh Schwartz

Which animals have episodic memory? One reason this is difficult to answer is that episodic memory could be expected to vary across species, making it hard to give a principled account of what ‘counts’ as an episodic memory system. In this paper, we propose that the investigation of episodic memory in animals should be guided by an account of its proximal proper functions: its most basic selected effects. In short, an animal has episodic memory if it has a memory system with the proximal functions of episodic memory. Whilst there are many accounts of episodic memory’s distal functions, little attention has been paid to its proximal functions. To remedy this, we develop a preliminary account of episodic memory’s proximal functions and use this to evaluate existing evidence about episodic memory in animals.

Which animals have episodic memory? One reason this is difficult to answer is that episodic memory could be expected to vary across species, making it hard to give a principled account of what ‘counts’ as an episodic memory system. In this paper, we propose that the investigation of episodic memory in animals should be guided by an account of its proximal proper functions: its most basic selected effects. In short, an animal has episodic memory if it has a memory system with the proximal functions of episodic memory. Whilst there are many accounts of episodic memory’s distal functions, little attention has been paid to its proximal functions. To remedy this, we develop a preliminary account of episodic memory’s proximal functions and use this to evaluate existing evidence about episodic memory in animals.

Cognitive maps play a crucial role in mammalian navigation. They provide the organism with information about its own location and the locations of landmarks within known environments. Cognitive maps have yet to receive ample attention in philosophy. In this article, we argue that cognitive maps should not be understood along the lines of conceptual mental states, such as beliefs and desires. They are more plausibly understood to be non-conceptual. We clarify what is at stake in this claim, and offer two empirically-informed arguments in its favor. Both arguments submit that cognitive maps are probably non-conceptual because their representational structure seems to differ from that of conceptual mental states.

Simulation theory is a radical and yet increasingly popular view about episodic memory. It is the view that episodic memory and episodic simulation are the same natural kind. I argue that while simulation theory offers an important insight, it also makes an overreach. While episodic memory and episodic simulation likely reflect a common natural kind, they also differ in natural kind. They differ in natural kind because episodic memory is partly defined by projectible properties and memory trace mechanisms that episodic simulation lacks.

Dretske has provided very influential arguments that there is a difference between our sensory awareness of objects and our awareness of facts about these objects—that there is a difference, for example, between seeing x and seeing that x is F. This distinction between simple and epistemic seeing is a staple of the philosophy of perception. Memory is often usefully compared to perception, and in this spirit I argue for the conditional claim that if Dretske’s arguments succeed in motivating the posit of simple seeing, then parallel arguments should equally motivate a posit I call simple remembering. Simple remembering would be a conscious form of memory about an object or event which is prior to and independent of any beliefs the subject may or may not form about the object or event simply remembered.

According to simulationism, the function of episodic memory is not to remember the past, but to help construct representations of possible future episodes, by drawing together features from different experiential sources. This article suggests that the relationship between the traditional storehouse view, on which the function of memory is remembering, and the simulationist approach is more complicated than has been typically acknowledged. This is attributed, in part, to incorrect interpretations of what remembering on the storehouse view requires. Further, by appeal to function pluralism, the article questions both the assumption that the traditional view and simulationism are inconsistent, and the simulationist’s inference to the best explanation strategy that is based upon this assumption. The article then provides an evaluation of the simulationist argument against the traditional view, and finds it in need of further support.

Recent analyses of memory propose necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a mental state to be a memory, which are meant to set memory apart from related mental states like illusory memory and confabulation. Each of the proposed taxonomies includes accuracy as one of the necessary conditions such that only accurate representations are memories. I argue that inclusion of an accuracy condition implies a sort of disjunctivism about seeming to remember. The paper distinguishes several types of disjunctivism that these taxonomies could be committed to. If these taxonomies are meant to be empirically informed, however, then plausibly they should be seen to endorse the principle of psychological internalism. The causal argument, a standard objection to disjunctivism, is then used to show that the sort of disjunctivism that endorses psychological internalism is mistaken. The ultimate goal is to underscore a lack of clarity in the status of recent accounts of memory as either epistemic, nonreductively ontological, or reductively ontological in approach.

Intellectualism is the claim that practical knowledge or ‘know-how’ is a kind of propositional knowledge. The debate over Intellectualism has appealed to two different kinds of evidence, semantic and scientific. This paper concerns the relationship between Intellectualist arguments based on truth-conditional semantics of practical knowledge ascriptions, and anti-Intellectualist arguments based on cognitive science and propositional representation. The first half of the paper argues that the anti-Intellectualist argument from cognitive science rests on a naturalistic approach to metaphysics: its proponents assume that findings from cognitive science provide evidence about the nature of mental states. We demonstrate that this fact has been overlooked in the ensuing debate, resulting in inconsistency and confusion. Defenders of the semantic approach to Intellectualism engage with the argument from cognitive science in a way that implicitly endorses this naturalistic metaphysics, and even rely on it to claim that cognitive science support Intellectualism. In the course of their arguments, however, they also reject that scientific findings can have metaphysical import. We argue that this situation is preventing productive debate about Intellectualism, which would benefit from both sides being more transparent about their metaphilosophical assumptions.