The Buddhist accounts of episodic memory: a constructivist approach

Abstract

This paper asks two questions about episodic memory and seeks the answers from the Buddhist tradition. The two questions are: (1) Are both non-conceptual and conceptual contents stored in episodic memory? (2) Does episodic memory change over time? Following the Buddhist notion that episodic memory is a type of cognition that has a past cognition as its cognitive object. I first lay out a Buddhist model of cognition, and then depict the basic structure of episodic memory and how it is stored in the mental continuum, before I investigate how the Buddhist tradition might respond to the two questions. My answers to them are: (1) The content of episodic memory contains both non-conceptual and conceptualized elements; the conceptualized elements may help reinforce the memory; (2) episodic memory undergoes constant changes, in two respects. First, for retrieved memory, since every retrieval comes with new co-arising mental concomitants, it also reshapes the memory. Second, for episodic memory that remains dormant, it still undergoes constant changes. Namely, when one associates relevant experience in general with thoughts about their desirable or undesirable aspects or results, that episodic memory becomes stronger or weaker accordingly. With the above conclusions, this paper echoes the idea of “constructive memory” proposed by Tulving and others.