Abstract

ABSTRACTGaneri's [2018] article considers three distinct Buddhist accounts of episodic memory to see whether they are able to give a coherent conception of memory while defusing the weight of the self-implication requirement, which he associates most strongly with Endel Tulving's work on episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness. The aim of this commentary is not to consider whether they are successful in this task, but rather to argue that the task itself is unnecessary. Despite the undeniable strengths of Tulving's position, not only does it appear to offer a far too literal account of episodic memory as a form of mental time travel, but the specific version of the self-implication requirement that Tulving appears to affirm confuses the fact that a self is implicated in episodic memory with the idea that episodic memory always implicates myself, in the sense of the one who is having the memory.