Memory, self-understanding, and agency. Oshana, M. In The Philosophy of Autobiography, pages 96–121. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2015.
abstract   bibtex   
[first paragraph] The task of this chapter is to determine what aspects of a person's identity or “selfhood” must be available to the person, and the manner in which they must be available, in order for the person to function as a self- governing agent. For the purposes of this discussion I shall understand agency as a fairly robust state. So understood, an agent is a being who deliberates, refl ects, de- cides, intends, and brings about states of affairs. An agent (ideally) estab- lishes standards of behavior for himself and is in control of himself, unlike a patient, or a being that is acted upon, managed, or caused to assume various states. A patient may well have desires and goals, and a distinctive conception of the good he wishes to realize. He might have the good fortune to see these realized, perhaps on his behalf, by others. But only qua agent is a person in a position to realize these goals by his own effort. To be a self- governing agent calls for a further characteristic.1 This characteristic is the ability to anticipate one's intentions as leading to action by way of self- monitoring behavior. In what follows I will suggest that this robust form of agency is missing from the lives of persons beset by a spectrum of disorders of memory and of senility. I shall argue that memory, and principally autobiographical episodic memory of past experiences, is a central element in our standing as self- governing agents.
@incollection{Oshana2015,
abstract = {[first paragraph] The task of this chapter is to determine what aspects of a person's identity or “selfhood” must be available to the person, and the manner in which they must be available, in order for the person to function as a self- governing agent. For the purposes of this discussion I shall understand agency as a fairly robust state. So understood, an agent is a being who deliberates, refl ects, de- cides, intends, and brings about states of affairs. An agent (ideally) estab- lishes standards of behavior for himself and is in control of himself, unlike a patient, or a being that is acted upon, managed, or caused to assume various states. A patient may well have desires and goals, and a distinctive conception of the good he wishes to realize. He might have the good fortune to see these realized, perhaps on his behalf, by others. But only qua agent is a person in a position to realize these goals by his own effort. To be a self- governing agent calls for a further characteristic.1 This characteristic is the ability to anticipate one's intentions as leading to action by way of self- monitoring behavior. In what follows I will suggest that this robust form of agency is missing from the lives of persons beset by a spectrum of disorders of memory and of senility. I shall argue that memory, and principally autobiographical episodic memory of past experiences, is a central element in our standing as self- governing agents.},
address = {Chicago},
author = {Oshana, Marina},
booktitle = {The Philosophy of Autobiography},
editor = {Cowley, Christopher},
file = {:Users/michaelk/Library/Application Support/Mendeley Desktop/Downloaded/Oshana - 2015 - Memory, self-understanding, and agency.pdf:pdf},
pages = {96--121},
publisher = {University of Chicago Press},
title = {{Memory, self-understanding, and agency}},
year = {2015}
}

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