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What Counts as a Memory? Definitions, Hypotheses, and “Kinding in Progress”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2022

David Colaço
David Colaço*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
*
Email: djc60@pitt.edu
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Abstract

This paper accounts for broad definitions of memory, which extend to paradigmatic memory phenomena, like episodic memory in humans, and phenomena in worms and sea snails. These definitions may seem too broad, suggesting that they extend to phenomena that don’t count as memory or illustrate that memory is not a natural kind. However, these responses fail to consider a definition as a hypothesis. As opposed to construing definitions as expressing memory’s properties, a definition as a hypothesis is the basis to test inferences about phenomena. A definition as a hypothesis is valuable when the “kinding” of phenomena is ongoing.

Type
Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 89 - 106
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

*

To contact the author, please write to: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, D-80539 München; email: djc60@pitt.edu.

†

Thanks to John Bickle, Eric Hochstein, Edouard Machery, Sarah Robins, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. This paper was presented at York University’s “Natural Kinds in Cognitive Science” workshop as well as “Issues in Philosophy of Memory 2” at Université Grenoble Alps. Thank you to those who attended these presentations.

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