Memory as Window on the Mind

Abstract

This paper argues for two propositions. The first is that memory is not only indispensable to a mind but also implicated in shaping its operations. As a result, a study of memory systems that dominate a kind of mind opens a unique explanatory window on what that kind of mind can and cannot do. From this perspective, the second proposition is that autobiographical memory, which is unique to humans and emerges late in childhood, operates in ways and with resources that reveal an entirely new kind of mind that only older children develop and adults inherit – a mind unknown in the rest of the animal world.