Publications

Articles

• Álvarez, J. F. (2025). Remembering and relearning: Against exclusionism. Philosophical Studies, 182(2), 403-423. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-024-02265-w

Abstract: Many philosophers endorse “exclusionism”, the view that no instance of relearning qualifies as a case of genuine remembering, and vice versa. Appealing to simulationist, distributed causalist, and trace minimalist theories of remembering, I develop three conditional arguments against exclusionism. First, if simulationism is right to hold that some cases of remembering involve reliance on post-event testimonial information, then remembering does not exclude relearning. Second, if distributed causalism is right to hold that memory traces are promiscuous, then remembering does not exclude relearning. Finally, if trace minimalism is right to hold that vicarious experiences sometimes produce the minimal traces that ground remembering, then remembering does not exclude relearning. While advocates of these theories might incorporate additional conditions designed to accommodate exclusionism, the only reason they can appeal to in favor of doing so is intuition: neither the fundamental components of the theories nor the empirical results on which they are based provide a reason to endorse exclusionism. An investigation of exclusionism thus raises metaphilosophical questions, so far overlooked in philosophy of memory, about the appropriate role of intuition in theorizing about remembering.

• Michaelian, K., Álvarez, J. F., & Openshaw, J. (2025). Is De Brigard a simulationist? Philosophy and the Mind Sciences, 6. https://doi.org/10.33735/phimisci.2025.11720

Abstract: Though De Brigard is generally classified as a simulationist, the relationship of his view to the various theories that have emerged in the simulationist-causalist debate has so far been unclear. He himself seems to think that he has now made that relationship clear: he is a simulationist, but the form of simulationism that he defends “dissolves the conflict” between simulationism and causalism. In this commentary, we argue, in response to his recent book and to a recent paper that further develops some of the ideas proposed therein, first, that the view that De Brigard defends does not in fact dissolve the conflict between simulationism and causalism and, second, that he in fact has yet to take a clear stand with respect to the claim that distinguishes simulationism from causalism. While our focus throughout is on De Brigard, our discussion sheds light on the nature of the relationship between simulationism and causalism in general, reveals that certain causalists have, like De Brigard, failed to take a clear stand with respect to the claim that distinguishes simulationism from causalism, and raises more general issues about the nature and future of the simulationist-causalist debate.

• Michaelian, K., Dranseika, V., & Álvarez, J. F. (2021). Experimental philosophy of memory. Acta Scientiarium: Human and Social Sciences, 43(3), e60875. https://doi.org/10.4025/actascihumansoc.v43i3.60875

Abstract: Experimental philosophy is now some twenty years old and has a large body of work to its credit. Little of this work focusses directly on memory, but it has, as the philosophy of memory has come into its own over the last several years, become increasingly clear that there are numerous questions about the concept of memory to which the tools developed by experimental philosophers might profitably be applied. By describing a sample of these questions, explaining how and why they might be approached using experimental methods, and providing a snapshot of published and in-progress experimental work, this article makes a case for experimental philosophy of memory.

Chapters

• Rudnicki, J., Michaelian, K., & Álvarez, J. F. (Forthcoming). Memory and imagination. In A. Sant'Anna & C. F. Craver (Eds.), Oxford handbook of philosophy of memory. Oxford University Press.

Abstract: The consensus in twentieth-century philosophy was that memory is sharply distinct from imagination. This consensus has been challenged in recent years by a growing body of empirical research that reveals extensive similarities in the neural underpinnings of remembering the past and imagining the future and has gradually given way to a debate between “continuists” and “discontinuists” about the relationship between memory and imagination. This chapter begins by reviewing first-order arguments for continuism and discontinuism. It then discusses recent meta-level attempts to clarify the debate’s central concepts, namely, memory and imagination. Finally, it discusses a recent attempt to characterize the continuist-discontinuist debate in terms of metalinguistic negotiation and then develops a novel approach to bringing conceptual clarity to the debate, outlining different ways in which the (dis)continuity question itself can be and has been interpreted—irrespective of the various possible construals of the concepts of memory and imagination identified by earlier meta-level approaches.

Reviews and comments

• Álvarez, J. F. (2021). Review of J. Fernández, Memory: A Self-Referential Account (OUP 2019). Estudios de Filosofía, (64), 237-243. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n64a13

• Álvarez, J. F. (2018). Comentario sobre ‘¿Triunfará el nuevo gnosticismo?’ de J. Reichmann, Ideas y Valores, 67(166). https://doi.org/10.15446/ideasyvalores.v67n166.70607

Translations

• Sant'Anna, A. (2023). Viaje mental en el tiempo y filosofía de la memoria. Lampião - Revista de Filosofia, 4(1), 323-352. Translated into Spanish by Álvarez, J. F.

• Chudnoff, E. (2018). Argumentos de contraste fenoménico a favor de la fenomenología cognitiva. Estudios de Filosofía, (57), 175–203. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ef.n57a09. Translated into Spanish by Cardona-Muñoz, E., & Álvarez, J. F.

In progress

• A paper on the causal theory of memory.

• A co-authored paper on the concept of memory.

• A paper on the discontinuism-continuism debate.

• A paper on infantile amnesia.