“Ancona?” Aha! that’s her name! Tip-of-the-tongue experiences

Tip-of-the-tongue experiences (TOTs) have an intriguing and insidious character. Some philosophers have tried to reduce them to more common states, with some considering these experiences to be beliefs about one’s state of knowledge, and still others considering them feelings about one’s state of knowledge. These two latter views are not mutually exclusive; indeed, one might hold a mixed theory, according to which the TOT is a feeling that depends constitutively on a belief. In the paper I first argue against the idea that beliefs are a constitutive feature of TOTs and hence against both the pure and the mixed belief theories; next I address the feeling theory; finally, I defend a pluralist theory.