Distributed Remembering and Cognitive Philosophy

Citation

Sutton J (2025) Distributed Remembering and Cognitive Philosophy. In: Erll A & Hirst W (eds.) Cognition, Culture, and Political Momentum: breaking down the silos in collective memory research. New York: Oxford University Press New York, pp. 27-43. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197788332.003.0003

Abstract
This chapter introduces the idea that remembering, as a cognitive process, is spread or ‘distributed’ over bodily and worldly resources as well as the brain. It sets this claim, natural enough in cultural memory studies, within a ‘situated cognition’ movement that has transformed the cognitive sciences and philosophy of mind from within over 40 years. After critically surveying broader debates in contemporary philosophy of memory, the chapter focusses on this ‘distributed remembering’ framework in theory and application. The approach demands insistently interdisciplinary methods, because the material, technological, and environmental resources that compose disparate ecologies of memory are heterogeneous and dynamic. Research on socially distributed remembering challenges assumptions in cognitive psychology that other people are sources of error or distortion in memory, instead identifying groups and microprocesses that produce benefits in collaborative recall. Our mnemonic interdependence with others and with diverse external scaffolding is one key source of our cognitive-affective vulnerability.

Keywords
4E cognition; cognitive philosophy; collaborative recall; distributed memory; ecologies of memory; philosophy of memory; situated cognition; socially distributed remembering; remembering together; vulnerability in memory