哲学
Online ISSN : 1884-2380
Print ISSN : 0387-3358
ISSN-L : 0387-3358
応募論文
傾向としての記憶について
櫻木 新
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ジャーナル フリー

2010 年 2010 巻 61 号 p. 227-243_L14

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Reflecting the variety of memory's roles, memory explains a vast variety of things. This paper begins with investigation into an interesting type of explanation which involves the relation of memory to other psychological states/events. “Why am I struck by the thought that I have to buy a birthday gift for my wife today? Because I remember that today is her birthday.” This is a causal explanation to the extent that it conveys causal information about its explanandum. However, very frequently, an explanation by appeal to one's memory is not a singular causal explanation, but rather a dispositional explanation. Thus, we often explain things by citing memory as a dispositional state, namely, a dispositional memory.
Traditionally, dispositional concepts are analyzed in terms of a subjunctive conditional statement specifying how the disposition is manifested. However, as I discuss in this paper, if we adopt this naïve picture, and analyze dispositional memory simply in terms of a subjunctive conditional, how explanatory information is conveyed by appeal to dispositional memory will remain inexplicable. When an appeal to my memory successfully explains my being struck by a thought, the explanation suggests that my past plays an important causal role in the explanandum event in a specific way. But, as I argue, an appeal to a subjunctive conditional statement cannot always convey the same information. My solution is simply to adopt an indicative clause in the analysans to capture the causal implication. To exemplify my proposal, in the final part of this paper, I focus on one specific type of memory, propositional memory, and outline its analysis.

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© 2010 日本哲学会
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