Selfless Memories

Dados Bibliográficos

ID21461641
AutoresRaphaël Millière (0000-0001-6965-6073, Columbia University, autor correspondente), Albert Newen (0000-0001-5906-6061, Ruhr University Bochum)
Ano2024
Volume89
Fascículo3
Páginas897-918
Data de publicação2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoErkenntnis (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0165-0106 • E-ISSN: 1572-8420
EditoraSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10670-022-00562-6
OpenAlexW4280609617
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas55

Many authors claim that being conscious constitutively involves being self-conscious, or conscious of oneself . This claim appears to be threatened by reports of ‘selfless’ episodes, or conscious episodes lacking self-consciousness, recently described in a number of pathological and nonpathological conditions. However, the credibility of these reports has in turn been challenged on the following grounds: remembering and reporting a past conscious episode as an episode that one went through is only possible if one was conscious of oneself while undergoing it. Call this the Memory Challenge. This paper argues that the Memory Challenge fails to undermine the credibility to reports of selfless episodes, because it rests on problematic assumptions about episodic memory. The paper further argues that we should distinguish between several kinds of self-representation that may be involved in the process of episodic remembering, and that once we do so, it is no longer mysterious how one could accurately remember and report a selfless episode as an episode that one went through. Thus, we should take reports of this kind seriously, and view them as credible counter-examples to the claim that consciousness constitutively involves self-consciousness

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Consciousness · Credibility · Episodic memory · Epistemology · Ontology · Political science · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Law · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Memory Processes and Influences · Neuroscience · Philosophy · Psychology