Remembering is an imaginative project
Philosophical Studies September 27, 2024 Seth Goldwasser 3 citations
Episodic remembering—recalling specific past events from one's own life—is a form of mental action, not a passive occurrence. It belongs to the same category as active imagining, because both involve deliberately constructing imagistic content in the mind. An agent can bring an episodic memory to mind simply by intending or trying to do so, and the ability to actively remember depends on controlling the construction of the remembered scene. This scene construction is a process of exploring one's personal past as a limited region of possible experience, aimed at accurately representing what actually happened.