What Theological Explanation Could and Could Not Be

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-160
Author(s):  
John Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Great Power ◽  
Ultimate Explanation ◽  
Personal Agent

The worldview of theism proposes an ultimate and global explanation of existence itself. What could such “theological explanation” possibly amount to? I shall consider what is unsatisfactory about a widely accepted answer–namely that existence­ is to be explained as produced and sustained by a supernatural personal agent of unsurpassably great power and goodness. I will suggest an alternative way in which existence could be open to a genuinely ultimate explanation, namely in terms of its being inherently directed upon a supremely good end or telos and existing just because that telos is concretely realized. On this “euteleological” view, theological explanation, though it may need to be compatible with our best scientific theoretical explanations, operates in a clearly distinct explanatory dimension.

The “How” of Animacy Effects in Episodic Memory

2015 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 371-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Bonin ◽  
Margaux Gelin ◽  
Betty Laroche ◽  
Alain Méot ◽  
Aurélia Bugaiska
Keyword(s):  
Memory Load ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Human Memory ◽  
Recall Rate ◽  
Interactive Imagery ◽  
Ultimate Explanation ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Observation Results

Abstract. Animates are better remembered than inanimates. According to the adaptive view of human memory ( Nairne, 2010 ; Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010a , 2010b ), this observation results from the fact that animates are more important for survival than inanimates. This ultimate explanation of animacy effects has to be complemented by proximate explanations. Moreover, animacy currently represents an uncontrolled word characteristic in most cognitive research ( VanArsdall, Nairne, Pandeirada, & Cogdill, 2015 ). In four studies, we therefore investigated the “how” of animacy effects. Study 1 revealed that words denoting animates were recalled better than those referring to inanimates in an intentional memory task. Study 2 revealed that adding a concurrent memory load when processing words for the animacy dimension did not impede the animacy effect on recall rates. Study 3A was an exact replication of Study 2 and Study 3B used a higher concurrent memory load. In these two follow-up studies, animacy effects on recall performance were again not altered by a concurrent memory load. Finally, Study 4 showed that using interactive imagery to encode animate and inanimate words did not alter the recall rate of animate words but did increase the recall of inanimate words. Taken together, the findings suggest that imagery processes contribute to these effects.

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