Memory Traces, Phenomenology and the Simulationist vs Causal Theory Dispute

Abstract

Philosophy of memory is a hot topic in the cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind. This work examines the dispute between simulations and causal theories of memory by means of an examination of the feeling of familiarity and its relation to memory traces, more specifically how they increase the fluency of reconstruction of past episodes. Understanding the relationship between familiarity and memory traces and, furthermore, the relation between a fully-fledged phenomenology of memory and a sense of subjective certainty of the episode has occurred in the past, lead to a dif- ferent interpretation of the rivalry between the CTM and the simulationist account.