Abstract

Findings from the cognitive sciences suggest that the cognitive mechanisms responsible for some memory errors are adaptive, bringing benefits to the organism. In this paper we argue that the same cognitive mechanisms also bring a suite of significant epistemic benefits, increasing the chance of an agent obtaining epistemic goods like true belief and knowledge. This result provides a significant challenge to the folk conception of memory beliefs that are false, according to which they are a sign of cognitive frailty, indicating that a person is less reliable than others or their former self. Evidence of memory errors can undermine a person’s view of themselves as a competent epistemic agent, but we show that false memory beliefs can be the result of the ordinary operation of cognitive mechanisms found across the species, which bring substantial epistemic benefits. This challenge to the folk conception is not adequately captured by existing epistemological theories. However, it can be captured by the notion of epistemic innocence, which has previously been deployed to highlight how beliefs which have epistemic costs can also bring significant epistemic benefits. We therefore argue that the notion of epistemic innocence should be expanded so that it applies not just to beliefs but also to cognitive mechanisms.

Highlights

  • In this paper we focus on three types of false memory beliefs that have been identified within the cognitive science literature, and on the cognitive mechanisms that produce those mental representations

  • Evidence of memory errors can undermine a person’s view of themselves as a competent epistemic agent, but we show that false memory beliefs can be the result of the ordinary operation of cognitive mechanisms found across the species, which bring substantial epistemic benefits

  • The scope of our discussion includes all of these mechanisms because they all contribute to the production of memory beliefs and our aim is to show that there can be epistemic benefits associated with the possession of the cognitive mechanisms that lead to the production of the false memory beliefs

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Summary

Introduction

In this paper we focus on three types of false memory beliefs that have been identified within the cognitive science literature, and on the cognitive mechanisms that produce those mental representations. Our main task in this paper is to establish that there are frequent, systematic and varied epistemic benefits associated with the operation of the cognitive mechanisms that are implicated in the production of certain types of false memory beliefs. We show that some types of false memory beliefs that are commonly discussed in the cognitive sciences standardly bring no substantial epistemic benefits themselves but are produced by cognitive mechanisms that bring substantial epistemic benefits To achieve this goal, we discuss each of the three types of false memory belief already introduced (DRM illusion, imagination inflation, post-event information effect). We show how an expanded notion of epistemic innocence can usefully achieve this goal

The Deese–Roediger–McDermott illusion
The Phenomenon of the DRM illusion
Epistemic costs of the DRM illusion
Epistemic benefits of cognitive mechanisms underpinning the DRM illusion
The phenomenon of imagination inflation
Epistemic costs of imagination inflation
Epistemic benefits of cognitive mechanisms underpinning imagination inflation
The phenomenon of post-event information effect
Epistemic costs of post-event information effect
A robust but unacknowledged phenomenon
Introducing epistemic innocence
Epistemic innocence and false memory beliefs
Findings
Conclusion
Full Text
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