Kourken Michaelian
Biographic Data
| ID | 461052 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kourken Michaelian |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kourken |
| FAMILY NAME | Michaelian |
| SIGNATURE | MICHAELIAN K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Institut de philosophie de Grenoble |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5205-3046 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 58 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Causally defective remembering: A study on the folk concept of memory
The standard argument for the causal theory of memory relies on intuitions about scenarios in which subjects accurately represent events from their pasts but do so in a “causally defective” manner. Examples include representations based on suggestion and representations based on relearned information. According to causalists, these scenarios, intuitively, are not cases of remembering. This paper applies the methods of experimental philosophy to d…
Radicalizing simulationism: Remembering as imagining the (nonpersonal) past
On the simulation theory of memory, to remember is to imagine an event from the personal past. McCarroll has recently argued that, because it implies not only that a genuine memory need not be caused by the rememberer’s experience of the remembered event but also that the rememberer need not even have experienced that event, simulationism is unable, first, to explain infantile amnesia (the inability to remember events that occurred in one’s early…
Explanatory Contextualism about Episodic Memory: Towards A Diagnosis of the Causalist-Simulationist Debate
We argue that the causal theory of memory and the simulation theory of memory are not as straightforwardly incompatible as they are usually taken to be. Following a brief review of the theories, we describe alternative normative and descriptive perspectives on memory, arguing that the causal theory aligns better with the normative perspective and the simulation theory with the descriptive perspective. Taking explanatory contextualism about percep…
Reference in remembering: Towards a simulationist account
Experimental philosophy of memory
Experimental philosophy is now some twenty years old and has a large body of work to its credit. Little of this work focusses directly on memory, but it has, as the philosophy of memory has come into its own over the last several years, become increasingly clear that there are numerous questions about the concept of memory to which the tools developed by experimental philosophers might profitably be applied. By describing a sample of these questi…
From authenticism to alethism: Against McCarroll on observer memory
Resisting temptation and overcoming procrastination: The roles of mental time travel and metacognition
Against Perrin’s Embodied Causalism: Still no Evidence for the Necessity of Appropriate Causation
Perrin (2021) has two main goals. First, to attack the simulation theory of memory on its empirical home turf. Second, to defend a novel embodied causal theory of memory designed to avoid the empirical difficulties that beset both the classical causal theory of memory and—if Perrin is right—the simulation theory of memory. In pursuit of his first goal, Perrin argues that the empirical evidence to which simulationists appeal does not in fact suppo…
Current Controversies in Philosophy of Memory
International audience
Are observer memories (accurate) memories? Insights from experimental philosophy
Episodic memory is not immune to error through misidentification: Against Fernández
Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory
Imagining the past reliably and unreliably: Towards a virtue theory of memory
Collective mental time travel: Remembering the past and imagining the future together
New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory
Experiencing Time
Debates between partisans of the A- and B-theories of time can often strike outsiders as somewhat arcane. Fortunately, Prosser has done an admirable job of making his argument, which concerns the nature of our experience of time and the implications thereof for the A-theory and the B-theory, accessible to non-specialist readers, beginning, in ch. 1, with some essential background on the metaphysics of time. The chapter discusses a number of versi…
New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory
Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the Personal Past
Drawing on current research in psychology, a new philosophical account of remembering as imagining the past. In this book, Kourken Michaelian builds on research in the psychology of memory to develop an innovative philosophical account of the nature of remembering and memory knowledge. Current philosophical approaches to memory rest on assumptions that are incompatible with the rich body of theory and data coming from psychology. Michaelian argue…
A Critical Introduction to Testimony
Gelfert's book, the first systematic overview of the epistemology of testimony, does an excellent job of introducing beginners to this rapidly growing field. While the book is primarily introductory in character, Gelfert also judiciously incorporates original insights, and the book will both stimulate researchers and provide them with a useful bird's eye survey of the field. The first three chapters set the stage for the rest of the book. Chapter…
Individual and collective memory consolidation: Analogous processes on different levels
Anastasio et al. have produced a book which is unusual both in the scope of its interdisciplinary aspirations and in the boldness of its thesis.The authors hail from an exceptionally broad range of fields: Anastasio is a neurobiologist, while his three coauthors are in history/medicine, cognitive neuroscience, and anthropology, respectively.Such truly interdisciplinary collaborations are, unfortunately, rare, and the authors deserve praise for un…
The information effect: Constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck
Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind
Generative memory
This paper explores the implications of the psychology of constructive memory for philosophical theories of the metaphysics of memory and for a central question in the epistemology of memory. I first develop a general interpretation of the psychology of constructive memory. I then argue, on the basis of this interpretation, for an updated version of Martin and Deutscher's influential causal theory of memory. I conclude by sketching the implicatio…
The Epistemology of Forgetting
Is memory a natural kind
Though researchers often refer to memory as if it were a unitary phenomenon, a natural kind, the apparent heterogeneity of the various ‘kinds’ of memory casts doubt on this default view. This article argues, first, that kinds of memory are individuated by memory systems. It argues, second, for a view of the nature of kinds of memory informed by the tri-level hypothesis. If this approach to kinds of memory is right, then memory is not in fact a na…
Is memory a natural kind
Though researchers often refer to memory as if it were a unitary phenomenon, a natural kind, the apparent heterogeneity of the various ‘kinds’ of memory casts doubt on this default view. This article argues, first, that kinds of memory are individuated by memory systems. It argues, second, for a view of the nature of kinds of memory informed by the tri-level hypothesis. If this approach to kinds of memory is right, then memory is not in fact a na…
In defence of gullibility: The epistemology of testimony and the psychology of deception detection
Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory
The information effect: Constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck
Imagining the past reliably and unreliably: Towards a virtue theory of memory
Collective mental time travel: Remembering the past and imagining the future together
Current Controversies in Philosophy of Memory
International audience
Episodic memory is not immune to error through misidentification: Against Fernández
Reference in remembering: Towards a simulationist account
Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the Personal Past
Drawing on current research in psychology, a new philosophical account of remembering as imagining the past. In this book, Kourken Michaelian builds on research in the psychology of memory to develop an innovative philosophical account of the nature of remembering and memory knowledge. Current philosophical approaches to memory rest on assumptions that are incompatible with the rich body of theory and data coming from psychology. Michaelian argue…
Individual and collective memory consolidation: Analogous processes on different levels
Anastasio et al. have produced a book which is unusual both in the scope of its interdisciplinary aspirations and in the boldness of its thesis.The authors hail from an exceptionally broad range of fields: Anastasio is a neurobiologist, while his three coauthors are in history/medicine, cognitive neuroscience, and anthropology, respectively.Such truly interdisciplinary collaborations are, unfortunately, rare, and the authors deserve praise for un…
Privileged Standpoints/Reliable Processes
This article attempts to reconcile Sandra Harding's postmodernist standpoint theory with process reliabilism in first-order epistemology and naturalism in metaepistemology. Postmodernist standpoint theory is best understood as consisting of an applied epistemological component and a metaepistemological component. Naturalist metaepistemology and the metaepistemological component of postmodernist standpoint theory have produced complementary views …
Privileged Standpoints/Reliable Processes
This article attempts to reconcile Sandra Harding's postmodernist standpoint theory with process reliabilism in first-order epistemology and naturalism in metaepistemology. Postmodernist standpoint theory is best understood as consisting of an applied epistemological component and a metaepistemological component. Naturalist metaepistemology and the metaepistemological component of postmodernist standpoint theory have produced complementary views …
The Epistemology of Forgetting
Is memory a natural kind
Though researchers often refer to memory as if it were a unitary phenomenon, a natural kind, the apparent heterogeneity of the various ‘kinds’ of memory casts doubt on this default view. This article argues, first, that kinds of memory are individuated by memory systems. It argues, second, for a view of the nature of kinds of memory informed by the tri-level hypothesis. If this approach to kinds of memory is right, then memory is not in fact a na…
In defence of gullibility: The epistemology of testimony and the psychology of deception detection
Generative memory
This paper explores the implications of the psychology of constructive memory for philosophical theories of the metaphysics of memory and for a central question in the epistemology of memory. I first develop a general interpretation of the psychology of constructive memory. I then argue, on the basis of this interpretation, for an updated version of Martin and Deutscher's influential causal theory of memory. I conclude by sketching the implicatio…
Is external memory memory? Biological memory and extended mind
The information effect: Constructive memory, testimony, and epistemic luck
Individual and collective memory consolidation: Analogous processes on different levels
Anastasio et al. have produced a book which is unusual both in the scope of its interdisciplinary aspirations and in the boldness of its thesis.The authors hail from an exceptionally broad range of fields: Anastasio is a neurobiologist, while his three coauthors are in history/medicine, cognitive neuroscience, and anthropology, respectively.Such truly interdisciplinary collaborations are, unfortunately, rare, and the authors deserve praise for un…
Mental Time Travel: Episodic Memory and Our Knowledge of the Personal Past
Drawing on current research in psychology, a new philosophical account of remembering as imagining the past. In this book, Kourken Michaelian builds on research in the psychology of memory to develop an innovative philosophical account of the nature of remembering and memory knowledge. Current philosophical approaches to memory rest on assumptions that are incompatible with the rich body of theory and data coming from psychology. Michaelian argue…
A Critical Introduction to Testimony
Gelfert's book, the first systematic overview of the epistemology of testimony, does an excellent job of introducing beginners to this rapidly growing field. While the book is primarily introductory in character, Gelfert also judiciously incorporates original insights, and the book will both stimulate researchers and provide them with a useful bird's eye survey of the field. The first three chapters set the stage for the rest of the book. Chapter…
New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory
Experiencing Time
Debates between partisans of the A- and B-theories of time can often strike outsiders as somewhat arcane. Fortunately, Prosser has done an admirable job of making his argument, which concerns the nature of our experience of time and the implications thereof for the A-theory and the B-theory, accessible to non-specialist readers, beginning, in ch. 1, with some essential background on the metaphysics of time. The chapter discusses a number of versi…
New Directions in the Philosophy of Memory
Collective mental time travel: Remembering the past and imagining the future together
Are observer memories (accurate) memories? Insights from experimental philosophy
Episodic memory is not immune to error through misidentification: Against Fernández
Memory without content? Radical enactivism and (post)causal theories of memory
Imagining the past reliably and unreliably: Towards a virtue theory of memory
Experimental philosophy of memory
Experimental philosophy is now some twenty years old and has a large body of work to its credit. Little of this work focusses directly on memory, but it has, as the philosophy of memory has come into its own over the last several years, become increasingly clear that there are numerous questions about the concept of memory to which the tools developed by experimental philosophers might profitably be applied. By describing a sample of these questi…
From authenticism to alethism: Against McCarroll on observer memory
Resisting temptation and overcoming procrastination: The roles of mental time travel and metacognition
Against Perrin’s Embodied Causalism: Still no Evidence for the Necessity of Appropriate Causation
Perrin (2021) has two main goals. First, to attack the simulation theory of memory on its empirical home turf. Second, to defend a novel embodied causal theory of memory designed to avoid the empirical difficulties that beset both the classical causal theory of memory and—if Perrin is right—the simulation theory of memory. In pursuit of his first goal, Perrin argues that the empirical evidence to which simulationists appeal does not in fact suppo…
Current Controversies in Philosophy of Memory
International audience
Radicalizing simulationism: Remembering as imagining the (nonpersonal) past
On the simulation theory of memory, to remember is to imagine an event from the personal past. McCarroll has recently argued that, because it implies not only that a genuine memory need not be caused by the rememberer’s experience of the remembered event but also that the rememberer need not even have experienced that event, simulationism is unable, first, to explain infantile amnesia (the inability to remember events that occurred in one’s early…
Epistemology (24 works) · Philosophy (22 works) · Psychology (22 works) · Cognitive science (15 works) · Cognitive psychology (14 works) · Memory and Neural Mechanisms (14 works) · Memory Processes and Influences (14 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (10 works) · Cognition (9 works)