ABSTRACT
The present chapter is concerned with one particular type of memory, namely with memories that have experiential characteristics. Such ‘recollective’ memories (or ‘R-memories’) are a familiar occurrence in our everyday mental lives; indeed, R-memories play a characteristic (and important) epistemological role; that is, they play a characteristic (and important) role with respect to a subject’s knowledge about the past. At the same time, R-memories also have characteristic features of activity and passivity: A subject who experiences an R-memory is characteristically passive with respect to the occurrence of the R-memory itself, but subjects nevertheless also can be, and often are, actively involved with respect to their R-memories. What is more, there are important links between the epistemological role R-memories play on the one hand, and our R-memories’ characteristic features of passivity and activity on the other, and we can understand both these aspects of the phenomenon of R-memory better by setting out to understand them together. Thus, the following chapter aims to develop both the Epistemological Role Claim and the Activity and Passivity Claim in tandem, and it thereby aims to further our understanding of the phenomenon of R-memory as a whole.
