O que é o lembrar? Quando podemos dizer que um sujeito lembra um evento do passado? Essas são duas questões centrais na filosofia da memória, uma área que vem experimentando uma rápida expansão nos últimos anos. Por quase meio século, a teoria causal da memória, inicialmente proposta por Martin e Deutscher, dominou o debate sobre como devemos responder às duas questões iniciais. Mais recentemente, no entanto, a teoria causal se tornou alvo de duras críticas, o que motivou os filósofos da (...) memória a desenvolverem duas novas teorias sobre o lembrar: a teoria simulacionista e a teoria funcionalista. Neste artigo, exploramos essas teorias em mais detalhes com o objetivo de tornar mais claro quais são seus comprometimentos, assim como suas vantagens e desvantagens. (shrink)

In this essay I will argue that natural selection is more important to functional explanations than what has been thought in some of the literature in philosophy of biology. I start by giving a brief overview of the two paradigms cases of functional explanations: etiological functions and causal-role functions. i then consider one particular attempt to conciliate both perspectives given by David Buller. Buller's trial to conciliate both etiological functions and causal-role functions results in what he calls a weak etiological (...) theory. I argue that Buller has not succeeded in his construal of the weak etiological theory: he underestimates the role that selective processes have in functional explanations and so his theory may not be classified as an etiologial theory. As an alternative, I consider the account of etiological functions given by Ruth Millikan and I argue that Millikan's theory is more comprehensive to assess contentious case in biology like exaptations. Finally, I conclude by analyzing where the adoption of Millikan's theory leave us. I argue, contrary to Millikan and others, that once we assume the importance of natural selection in functional explanations, there is no strong reason to resist a linguistic reform of the word function and hence that the attempts to conciliate both etiological functions and causal-role functions are misplaced. (shrink)