Working memory is a foundational construct of cognitive psychology, where it is thought to be a capacity that enables us to keep information in mind and to use that information to support goal directed behavior. Philosophers have recently employed working memory to explain central cognitive processes, from consciousness to reasoning. In this paper, I show that working memory cannot meet even a minimal account of natural kindhood, as the functions of maintenance and manipulation of information that tie working memory models and theories together do not have a coherent or univocal realizer in the brain. As such, working memory cannot explain central cognition. Rather, I argue that working memory merely redescribes its target phenomenon, and in doing so it obfuscates relevant distinctions amongst the many ways that brains like ours retain and transform information in the service of cognition. While this project ultimately erodes the explanatory role that working memory has played in our understanding of cognition, it simultaneously prompts us to evaluate the function of natural kinds within cognitive science, and signals the need for a productive pessimism to frame our future study of cognitive categories.

工作记忆是认知心理学的基础结构，在这里人们认为工作记忆是一种使我们能够记住信息并使用该信息来支持目标导向行为的能力。哲学家最近使用工作记忆来解释从意识到推理的中心认知过程。在本文中，我表明工作记忆甚至无法满足自然友善的最低要求，因为将工作记忆模型和理论联系在一起的信息的维护和操纵功能在大脑中没有连贯的或明确的实现者。因此，工作记忆不能解释中心认知。相反，我认为工作记忆只是重新描述了其目标现象，这样一来，就混淆了像我们这样的大脑在认知服务中保留和转化信息的多种方式之间的相关区别。尽管该项目最终侵蚀了工作记忆在我们对认知的理解中的解释作用，但同时也促使我们评估自然科学在认知科学中的功能，并表明需要一种认知。生产性悲观主义构架了我们对认知范畴的未来研究。