| Abstract | This paper challenges a central tenet of most traditional theories of memory, namely, that memory is stored materially in the brain. Arguing that the storage hypothesis makes any contact with the real past impossible (since the transcendent experience of remembering is presumed to arise from purely present physical processes), it goes on to critique mainstream explanations of memory by noting that their plausibility ultimately rests upon an indefensible homuncular explanation of consciousness. Suggested instead is a phenomenological explanation of remembering rooted in E. Husserl's theory of temporality. This immanent-structural model of time is contrasted with the spatial-linear account of temporality underlying practically all traditional theories of memory. The paper then goes on to give a phenomenological account of the recollective process itself. Finally, the theoretical and research implications of this alternative view of memory for the field of psychology are discussed.
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