The Phenomenology of Remembering Is an Epistemic Feeling
Frontiers in Psychology July 3, 2020 D. Perrin, K. Michaelian, A. Sant'Anna
This philosophical paper proposes that the feeling of pastness in episodic remembering is a form of epistemic feeling, building on psychological research on metacognitive feelings. The authors argue that a feeling-based metacognition is involved in episodic remembering and develop an integrated view that addresses the feeling's status as a feeling, its content, and its relationship to the first-order memories it accompanies. They draw on conceptual and empirical reasons to support treating this phenomenology as an epistemic feeling, offering a new philosophical account of autonoetic consciousness.