Varieties of memory, varieties of reconstruction, varieties of memory trace
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21591768 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simon Alexander Burns Brown (0000-0002-5606-6979, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 2008-2034 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-04 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philosophical Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0951-5089 • E-ISSN: 1465-394X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09515089.2025.2574486 |
| OpenAlex | W4415259200 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 87 |
The biological world is rich in variation, both in bodies and in minds. A particularly clear case is memory, where traditional taxonomies increasingly face challenges capturing the full extent of variation. Meanwhile, a central debate within philosophy of memory has focused on whether episodic memory requires memory traces, given the role of simulation in episodic remembering. Do other forms of memory involve traces and simulation in the same way as episodic memory, and if they do, does this undermine episodic memory’s claim to be a natural kind? Trace minimalist approaches see the role of simulation in memory retrieval as a means of extracting a rich, reliable yet fallible representation from a trace storing compressed information. This insight can be generalised to a broader class of theories, Minimal Trace Minimalism. Within this broader class, ‘Trace Pluralist’ theories suggest, surprisingly, that the basic computation of compressed storage and potentially fallible reconstruction shows up not just in episodic memory, but equally in paradigmatic cases of semantic memory. This motivates replacing the episodic/semantic distinction with a richer, more systematic array of categories, and reevaluating our understanding of semantic memory and related notions such as belief
Chronesthesia · Episodic memory · Reconstructive memory · Semantic memory · Identity, Memory, and Therapy · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration
Mental Time Travel
The Rationality of Perception
The Case for Mental Imagery
Recreative Minds
Simulating Minds
Why there are complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex
Event memory
On the prediction of occurrence of particular verbal intrusions in immediate recall.
Mental Imagery
Reconstruction of automobile destruction
What is inference?
Generative memory
The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system.
Predicting the Past from Minimal Traces
Defending Discontinuism, Naturally
Multiple Memory Subsystems
What we mean when we say semantic
Are episodic memory and episodic simulation different in kind
Disagreement & classification in comparative cognitive science
The perception/cognition distinction
Building compressed causal models of the world
The Border Between Seeing and Thinking
A planning theory of belief
What is episodic memory if it is a natural kind
What is so special about episodic memory
Propping up the causal theory
Is episodic memory uniquely human? Evaluating the episodic-like memory research program
Episodic Memory and Unrestricted Learning
Remembering
Semanticization Challenges the Episodic–Semantic Distinction
How We Learn
A generative model of memory construction and consolidation
Episodic Memory in Animals
Border Disputes
The Nature of Memory Traces
Current Controversies in Philosophy of Memory
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |