Episodic memory traces: Causal, content and epistemic aspects of the link between experience and recall

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Many memory theorists have postulated memory traces as a means by which information about events experienced in the past is stored such that this information, at a later point in time, can be recalled for the purpose of remembering. In this spirit, the Causal Theory of Episodic Memory postulates memory traces not only as a causal link between experience and remembering, but also as a preserver of representational content. The main goal of the project, on the one hand, is to criticize the preservationist notion of memory traces, as defended by the Causal Theory, and to replace it with a minimal generative notion of memory traces in the framework of Generative Episodic Memory. On the other hand, the project also opposes the radical denial of memory traces proposed by the simulation theory, i.e., the view that remembering need not be coupled to experience through a memory trace at all, not even through a causal link, but merely consists of a simulation of a past episode.While rejecting the Causal Theory, Minimal Generationism, the view to be developed in the project, accepts four main desiderata of the Causal Theory: (i) What is remembered should bear an appropriate content relation to what was experienced. (ii) A remembering should be about a particular event in the past – not just a type of event – and thus must have reference. (iii) Any theory of episodic memory should render episodic memory epistemically reliable because episodic memory is a genuine source of knowledge. (iv) Any theory of episodic memory should avoid the problem of relearning: A situation where a once experienced event has been forgotten and later, due to an external information source, the relevant information is re-acquired should not count as a case of remembering. Finally, an overall constraint on any theory of episodic memory, as has been proposed by Cheng & Werning (2016) and taken up by several authors, is that it should correspond to a natural kind. That is, an account of episodic memory should explain why instances of episodic memory share a characteristic set of properties because of some underlying uniform causal mechanism.The projects proceeds along six work packages: In (WP1) we will develop a minimal generative notion of memory traces as causal links without representational content. In (WP2) we will demonstrate how minimal memory traces provide an appropriate content relation between experience and remembering and secure the reference of remembering. We will show in (WP3) how minimal memory traces render episodic memory epistemically reliable and in (WP4) how Minimal Generationism avoids the problem of relearning. In (WP5) we will revise a previous analysis we gave on episodic memory – the Sequence Analysis – in the light of Minimal Generationism and show that it succeeds in identifying a natural kind. Finally, in (WP6) we will outline the strengths of Minimal Generationism vis-à-vis the Causal Theory and the Simulation Theory.