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McDowell and Idealism

2008; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 51; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00201740701859009

1502-3923

Adrian Haddock,

Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Abstract John McDowell espouses a certain conception of the thinking subject: as an embodied, living, finite being, with a capacity for experience that can take in the world, and stand in relations of warrant to subjects' beliefs. McDowell presents this conception of the subject as requiring a related conception of the world: as not located outside the conceptual sphere. In this latter conception, idealism and common‐sense realism are supposed to coincide. But I suggest that McDowell's conception of the subject scuppers this intended coincidence. The upshot is a dilemma: McDowell can retain his conception of the subject, but lose the coincidence; or he can keep the coincidence, but abandon his conception of the subject. Notes 1. Williams, B. (1974) "Wittgenstein and Idealism" in: Understanding Wittgenstein, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, vol. 7, 1972–3, p.77 (London: Macmillan). 2. Wittgenstein, L. [1921](1961) Tractatus Logico‐Philosophicus, trans. Pears, D.F. & McGuiness, B.F. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 5.632; 5.641. 3. Tractatus, 5.64. 4. McDowell, J. (1996) Mind and World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), p. 44. 5. McDowell, J. (2004) "Reality and colours: comments on Stroud", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, LXVIII, 2. 6. McDowell, J. (1998)"Wittgenstein on Following a Rule", in his Mind, Value and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), p. 254. 7. Mind and World, p. 99. 8. Op. cit., p. 103. 9. McDowell, J. (1998) "Having the world in view: Sellars, Kant, and intentionality", Journal of Philosophy, XCV, 9, p. 445. 10. Mind and World, p. 99. 11. McDowell, J. (1999) "Sellars's Transcendental Empiricism", in: J. Nida‐Rümelin (Ed.), Rationality, Realism, Revision, Proceedings of the 3rd international congress of the Society for Analytical Philosophy (Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York). 12. These papers are McDowell, J. (2003) "Hegel's Idealism as a Radicalisation of Kant"; published as "L'idealismo di Hegel come radicalizazzione di Kant", in L. Ruggiu and I. Testa (Eds.) Hegel Contemporaneo: la ricezione americana di Hegel a confronto con la traduzione europea (Milan: Guerini), and McDowell, J. (2003) "Hegel and the Myth of the Given", in: W. Welsch & K. Vieweg (Eds.), Herausg, Das Interesse des Denkens: Hegel aus heutiger Sicht (Munchpen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag). All references are to manuscript versions of these papers. 13. Kant, I. [1781] (1929) Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Kemp‐Smith, N. (London: Macmillan), A51/B75. 14. Mind and World, p. 4. There may well be something eccentric about this particular elaboration. There are passages where Kant is naturally read as acknowledging the possibility of thoughts without content, in the sense of thoughts that are not connected with experiential intake, and concern things in themselves (B146; A771‐772/B779‐800). But, in this paper, I do not need to affirm (or deny) such a reading of Kant, because my concern is not transcendental philosophy and transcendental idealism as Kant understands them, but transcendental philosophy and transcendental idealism as McDowell takes Kant to understand them, and as McDowell understands them himself. 15. "Having the World in View", p. 491, n. 22. 16. Mind and World, p. 6. 17. Op. cit., p. 7. 18. Davidson, D. (2001) "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", in his Subjective, Intersubjective, Objective (Oxford: Clarendon Press). 19. Mind and World, p. 9. 20. "Having the World in View", p. 472. 21. Mind and World, p. 139. 22. Op. cit., p. 9. 23. The causal theory of perception is the obvious candidate here. But there may be ways of allowing perception to involve causal connections between external reality and something that deserves to count as (or as an aspect of) the subject's sensibility whilst eschewing commitment to the causal theory; a form of disjunctivism that takes the subject's sensibility to include whatever sub‐personal goings‐on enable the subject's personal‐level experience, for example. For more on disjunctivism, see Haddock, A. and Macpherson, F. (Eds.) (2008) Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 24. Mind and World, p. 103. McDowell thinks that Kant cannot accept this conception of the thinking subject, for reasons that are not relevant here. See op. cit., Lecture V. 25. This parenthetic remark is intended to make room for the possibility of plural subjects. See McDowell, J. (2006) "Response to Rovane", in: C. Macdonald & G. Macdonald (Eds.) McDowell and His Critics (Oxford: Blackwell). 26. Mind and World, Lecture IV. 27. "Hegel's Idealism as a Radicalisation of Kant", MS. 28. Mind and World, p. 41. 29. Here McDowell employs a different notion of the transcendental to that sketched in §I of this paper, and with which he regrets saddling Kant. See McDowell, J. (1998) "Précis of Mind and World", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. LVIII. 30. Ibid. 31. Op. cit., p. 27. 32. Op. cit., p. 41. 33. See Lear, J. (1984) "The Disappearing 'We'", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 58. 34. "Having the World in View", p. 464. 35. Mind and World, p. 34. 36. Op. cit., p. 28. 37. Op. cit., p. 42. 38. Op. cit., p. 26. 39. Ibid. 40. Op. cit., p. 44. 41. Ibid. 42. Nagel, T. (1986) The View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p. 90. 43. Op. cit., pp. 91–2. 44. Op. cit., p. 92. 45. See Priest, G. (1995) Beyond the Limits of Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press) for more on paradoxes of this sort. 46. McDowell, J. (1994) "Two Sorts of Naturalism", in his Mind, Value and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 190. 47. The View from Nowhere, p. 95. 48. Ibid. 49. For McDowell, a person is a living individual of a certain kind. See McDowell, J. (1997) "Reductionism and the First Person", in his Mind, Value and Reality. 50. McDowell, J. (1977) "On the Sense and Reference of a Proper Name", in his Meaning, Knowledge and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 197. 51. This motivation is a modified version of some remarks in Williamson, T. (2004) "Beyond the Linguistic Turn?" in: B. Leiter (Ed.) The Future for Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). 52. Mind and Value, p. 40. In a footnote, he makes clear that he is responding to Nagel's charge. 53. McDowell, J. (2002) "Gadamer and Davidson on Understanding and Relativism", in: J. Malpas (Ed.) Gadamer's Century (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press), p. 175. 54. A bit of relevant autobiography: I have struggled with Davidson's paper for a number of years, and cannot see how it can succeed in justifying the refusal, if the first person plural is understood in the way I understand it here. His paper must be read in some other way; specifically, along the lines suggested in Davidson, D. (1999) "Reply to Simon J. Evnine" in L. Hahn (Ed.), The Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Illinois: Open Court). 55. For critical discussion, see, for example, Blackburn, S. (1984) Spreading the Word (Oxford: Clarendon Press); Byrne A. (forthcoming) "Soames on Quine and Davidson", Philosophical Studies; and Hacker, P.M.S. (1996) "On Davidson's idea of a conceptual scheme", Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 184, pp. 289–307. 56. "Wittgenstein on Following a Rule", pp. 254–5. Of course, McDowell does not endorse this conception of the judging subject. 57. Allison, H. (1983) Kant's Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale University Press), p. 290. 58. Critique of Pure Reason, Bxxvii. 59. "Hegel's Idealism as a Radicalisation of Kant", MS. 60. Child, W. (1994) "On the Dualism of Scheme and Content", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, XCIV, p. 56. 61. "Hegel and the Myth of the Given", MS. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid. 64. Ibid. 65. I would like to give special thanks to Peter Sullivan, for his many helpful comments on numerous drafts of this paper, and his encouragement throughout. Thanks are also due to audiences at Essex and UEA, and to Jane Calvert, Nadine Cipa, John Collins, Matthew Grist, Fiona Hughes, Alan Millar, Duncan Pritchard, Angus Ross, and Joel Smith. The usual disclaimers apply, of course.