Nikola Andonovski
I am philosopher of mind and cognitive science, currently working as a Marie Curie postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Philosophy of Memory.
Project
My project, A Theory of Memory Causation (2022-2024), examines causation in episodic memory, aiming to clarify what it means to say that memories are caused by past experiences and to establish whether such causation is necessary for genuine remembering.
The project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon research and innovation program under
the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement (101062754).
About Me
My research lies at the intersection of philosophy and the sciences of memory. I am interested in the causal and representational structure of episodic memories, the nature of consolidation, and the relationship between memory and reasoning.
I received my PhD from the Department of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Steven Gross. I have been an affiliated member of the Centre for Philosophy of Memory since 2020.
Selected Publications
For a full list of publications, please consult my C.V.
Causation in Memory
I argue that causal theories of memory are typically committed to two independent theses. The first thesis pertains to the necessity of appropriate causation in memory, specifying a condition token memories need to satisfy. The second pertains to the explanation of memory reliability in causal terms, and it concerns memory as a type of mental state. Post-causal theories can reject only the first or both theses.
Episodic Representation
The paper offers a modeling account of episodic representation. I argue that the episodic system constructs mental models: representations that preserve the spatiotemporal structure of represented domains. In prototypical cases, these domains are events: occurrences taken by subjects to have characteristic structures, dynamics and relatively determinate beginnings and ends.
Memory as Triage
I argue that declarative memory is a faculty performing a kind of cognitive triage: management of information for a variety of uses under significant computational constraints. In such triage, memory representations are preferentially selected and stabilized, but they are also systematically modified and integrated into generalized, model-like representational structures.
Singularism About Episodic Memory
I argue that, contrary to a widely held opinion, episodic memories are not always about singular personally experienced past events. In support, I marshal evidence from the psychology of memory, concerning general event memories, the transformation of memory traces and the minimized role temporal information plays in major psychological theories of episodic memory.