Teaching and Learning Guide for: Episodic Memory in Animals

Episodic memory is the kind of memory which gives us rich and detailed recollections of past events.Whether any animals have episodic memory is a contested question in psychology, behavioural biology and philosophy: some argue that episodic memory is widely distributed in the animal kingdom, whilst others suggest that it is uniquely human.This topic raises philosophical questions of relevance to courses in Philosophy of Mind, Animal Ethics, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Philosophy of Biology and Epistemology.One set of questions relates to natural kinds in the mind: what does it mean for humans and animals to have the same kinds of memory systems, even when those memory systems inevitably differ in some respects?Others relate to the evolution of the mind: what does episodic memory do for us, why did it evolve and how might it have evolved differently in other lineages?And some are ethical: how might different forms of memory and different ways of relating to one's past self affect animals' ethical status?All of these provide concrete case studies that can be used to introduce students to more general questions: for example, how can we identify the 'same' kinds of mental states across species?How can we study the evolution of the mind, and what does doing so tell us about minds today and the ways in which we use memory to gain and store knowledge?How do the kinds of mind different animals have relate to their moral status?This guide accompanies the following article(s):