The Imagined Past

Abstract

What is the difference between remembering the past and imagining it? We can remember things we did from an imagined point of view, like when I recall nervously giving a speech as though I were seated in the audience. We can remember past experiences through a generic representation, like when you picture your childhood walk to school. And we can remember feeling one thing through the emotional lens of another, such as past hopefulness in light of a recent disappointment. My dissertation is about the role of imagination in memory, and what its involvement means for the nature of our knowledge of the past.