John McDowell (Philosophy Now)

✍ Scribed by Tim Thornton

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 272
• Series: Philosophy Now
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

John McDowell's contribution to philosophy has ranged across Greek philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and ethics. His writings have drawn on the works of, amongst others, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sellars, and Davidson. His contributions have made him one of the most widely read, discussed and challenging philosophers writing today. This book provides a careful account of the main claims that McDowell advances in a number of different areas of philosophy. The interconnections between the different arguments are highlighted and Tim Thornton shows how these individual projects are unified in a post-Kantian framework that articulates the preconditions of thought and language. Thornton sets out the differing strands of McDowell's work prior to, and leading up to, their combination in the broader philosophical vision revealed in "Mind and World" and provides an interpretative and critical framework that will help shape ongoing debates surrounding McDowell's work. An underlying theme of the book is whether McDowell's therapeutic approach to philosophy, which owes much to the later Wittgenstein, is consistent with the substance of McDowell's discussion of nature that uses the vocabulary of other philosophers including, centrally, Kant.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 5
Acknowledgements......Page 6
Introduction......Page 7
The Cartesian conception of mind......Page 11
The post-Kantian conception of the world......Page 16
The rejection of
reductionist naturalism......Page 20
A therapeutic conception of philosophical method......Page 23
The role of the philosophical canon......Page 26
III.
The structure of the book......Page 27
1 / Wittgenstein on philosophy,
normativity and understanding......Page 31
I.
The background: Wittgenstein on normativity......Page 33
II.
Opposing interpretations of Wittgenstein......Page 35
Kripke's Wittgenstein......Page 36
Wright's Wittgenstein......Page 39
Objections to Kripke and Wright......Page 42
III.
McDowell's interpretation......Page 45
Diagnosis......Page 46
Sketch of an alternative view: practice......Page 49
IV.
Hearing meaning directly in speech......Page 51
V.
German Idealism, scheme-content dualism, realism and nature......Page 58
The private language argument and post-Kantian
philosophy......Page 60
Rule-following considerations and post-Kantian
philosophy......Page 63
2 /
Value judgements......Page 69
Neo-Humeanism......Page 71
Secondary qualities......Page 74
McDowell's criticism of Mackie......Page 76
Bernard Williams's absolute conception......Page 80
McDowell's criticism of the absolute conception......Page 83
Wright's argument against the analogy of colour
and value......Page 85
II. The grounds of moral judgement and a moral
outlook: Aristotle and Kant......Page 88
The place of moral judgements in a post-Kantian view
of nature......Page 90
Naturalism in moral philosophy......Page 94
III.
The uncodifiability of moral judgement......Page 98
3 /
Formal theories of meaning and theories of sense......Page 107
I.
Davidson and the philosophy of language of the field linguist......Page 108
II.
Davidson and Tarski......Page 115
III.
What is the relation between truth and meaning?......Page 122
IV.
Modest or full-blooded meaning theories?......Page 127
V.
Is a theory of meaning really a theory of sense?......Page 134
Truth theories as theories of sense, 1......Page 136
Truth theories as theories of sense, 2......Page 138
Truth theories as theories of sense,
3......Page 140
The apparent insubstantiality of knowledge of senses......Page 141
The articulation of linguistic abilities......Page 143
4 /
Singular thought and the Cartesian picture of mind......Page 147
Russellian singular propositions......Page 150
Neo-Fregean singular thoughts......Page 153
Recent neo-Fregean and neo-Russellian theories:
one versus two components......Page 157
Objections to a two-component view......Page 162
II.
Singular thought and the philosophy of mind......Page 164
Singular thoughts and the master thesis......Page 165
Cartesian approaches to mind......Page 169
III.
The disjunctive account of experience and openness to the world......Page 177
5 /
Experience, knowledge and openness to the world......Page 183
The standard view of criteria......Page 184
McDowell's criticism of the standard view of criteria......Page 187
II.
McDowell's account of criteria......Page 188
Two intuitive objections to McDowell's account......Page 190
A picture of knowledge based on the argument from
illusion......Page 195
McDowell's positive account......Page 199
IV.
Scepticism......Page 206
6 /
Mind and World and idealism......Page 215
The Kantian slogan......Page 216
Experience and the world......Page 219
Demonstrative concepts......Page 224
McDowell, Brandom and Sellars and the transcendental
role of experience......Page 226
II.
The nature of nature......Page 230
III.
The threat of idealism......Page 239
Glossary......Page 251
Guide to further reading......Page 257
Works by John McDowell......Page 261
Works by other authors......Page 262
Index......Page 267