Modern conceptions of memory. Kurtzman, H. S Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 44(1):1–19, 1983. ![Modern conceptions of memory [link]](https://bibbase.org/img/filetypes/link.svg "link")
Paper doi abstract bibtex [first paragraph] Recent work in the philosophy of mind has been dominated by the functionalist, or cognitivist, approach.' On this approach, mental states are characterized abstractly by their causal relations not only with inputs (stimuli) and outputs (responses) but also with one another. Thus it is the internal functional structure of a system which underpins the ascription to it of mentality. The immediate impetuses behind the development of functionalism were the inadequacy of previous attempts to describe and explain mental phenomena materialistically, as in the programs of the logical behaviorists and mind-brain identity theorists, and also the apparently promising prospects for the success of the new discipline of cognitive psychology, which explicitly views minds as computer-like systems. Most accounts of functionalism couch it in these contexts. Little treatment, however, has been given to the position of the functionalist/cognitivist approach within the broader historical context of philosophy and psychology over the past several centuries. An account of this position would, of course, amount to a detailed critical history of much of modern thought concerning mind. In lieu of attempting such a project, this paper provides a hint of what the nature of its results might be by briefly exploring how conceptions of one crucial component of mind-memory-have unfolded since Locke. Memory is an interesting and useful topic for an initial comparison of functionalism with other approaches because cognitive psychologists have already produced fairly precise theories of its operation which may be referred to both as real applications of the functionalist approach and as detailed specifications of its central claims.
@article{Kurtzman1983,
abstract = {[first paragraph] Recent work in the philosophy of mind has been dominated by the functionalist, or cognitivist, approach.' On this approach, mental states are characterized abstractly by their causal relations not only with inputs (stimuli) and outputs (responses) but also with one another. Thus it is the internal functional structure of a system which underpins the ascription to it of mentality. The immediate impetuses behind the development of functionalism were the inadequacy of previous attempts to describe and explain mental phenomena materialistically, as in the programs of the logical behaviorists and mind-brain identity theorists, and also the apparently promising prospects for the success of the new discipline of cognitive psychology, which explicitly views minds as computer-like systems. Most accounts of functionalism couch it in these contexts. Little treatment, however, has been given to the position of the functionalist/cognitivist approach within the broader historical context of philosophy and psychology over the past several centuries. An account of this position would, of course, amount to a detailed critical history of much of modern thought concerning mind. In lieu of attempting such a project, this paper provides a hint of what the nature of its results might be by briefly exploring how conceptions of one crucial component of mind-memory-have unfolded since Locke. Memory is an interesting and useful topic for an initial comparison of functionalism with other approaches because cognitive psychologists have already produced fairly precise theories of its operation which may be referred to both as real applications of the functionalist approach and as detailed specifications of its central claims.},
author = {Kurtzman, Howard S},
doi = {10.2307/2107576},
file = {:Users/michaelk/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded/Kurtzman - 1983 - Modern conceptions of memory.pdf:pdf},
issn = {00318205},
journal = {Philosophy and Phenomenological Research},
number = {1},
pages = {1--19},
title = {{Modern conceptions of memory}},
url = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/2107576?origin=crossref},
volume = {44},
year = {1983}
}
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