John McDowell

Work

The first work published by McDowell related to the Théétète of Plato. In the Seventies, it took an active share with the davidsonien project to provide a semantic theory of the natural language. Within the framework of this debate, he in particular criticized the position defended by Michael Dummett and Crispin Wright, and it as for him defended a prospect according to which the linguistic behavior of the other speakers could not be apprehended since an external point of view, but only from the interior of our own linguistic practices. McDowell published in collaboration with Gareth Evans a volume of tests entitled Truth and Meaning . He was also the editor of the posthumous work of G. Evans entitled The Varieties off Refers (1982). The principal work of McDowell is to date Mind and World (1994). This work, which exerted a major influence on the philosophical thought of these last years, proposes a theory of the empirical justification of the beliefs which takes again on its account some criticisms addressed by Hegel to Kant, while being interested in the contemporary forms of scientific realism.

Influences

The work of McDowell testifies to an influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, P.F. Strawson, David Wiggins, and especially of Wilfrid Sellars. McDowell has itself in its turn exerted an influence on his/her colleague of Pittsburgh Robert Brandom. A common point with these two thinkers is their reference to Richard Rorty, and in particular to the work of this last which is entitled Philosophy and the Mirror off Natural (1979; the Specular Man French ).

Principal ideas

In its work, McDowell was interested of close with the second philosophy of Wittgenstein, of which it developed the topics on an original mode. Wittgenstein, he always considered philosophy as a “therapeutic” step which “leaves all things in the state”. From there form of Quiétisme philosophical according to which philosophy must give up any step of the explanatory type (for example about the report/ratio which exists between language and world), to adopt on the contrary a descriptive step which, only, is likely to release the spirit of confusions in which it is plunged. This therapeutic will to dissolve the philosophical non-problems however did not prevent McDowell from developing original and personal theses about the language, of the spirit and the values.

McDowell in general defends a realism without Empirisme, which underlines the limits of our aspiration to objectivity. As well the spirit as the significance are reflected according to him directly in the action, and more particularly in the properly linguistic behaviors. There from the point of view of its theory of perception, McDowell defends still a moderated realism, which is opposed to the argument of the illusion by disputing the postulate representationnalist on which it rests. This postulate is that which would like that there exists psychological contents or a “greater common factor” between the true belief and the illusory belief. McDowell in addition defends a position externalist about the mental one, according to which the thoughts could have clean existence only within the framework of their social environment and physics.

Parallel to these designs relating to the spirit and the language, McDowell contributed to a significant degree to the contemporary debates in moral philosophy, and more particularly to the debates méta-ethics relating on the reasons and moral objectivity. In this field, it developed a theory of the moral direction which one can characterize like a realism of the properties. McDowell is interested in the motivations of the action and the authority of the reasons morals by analyzing the part which the beliefs and the desires of the agent in its rational choices play. It raises the question of the metaphysical statute of the values, which could not be included/understood like objective or observable facts. However, that does not oblige us to give up a moderately realistic position in their connection: without being an object of experiment, the values do not play of it less one essential function in our apprehension of our own experience. It is consequently justified to affirm their reality insofar as this one constitutes an essential postulate without which it would be impossible to give an account of the experiment. This is why the values could be regarded as objective as of the moment when one will be able to resort to it to form judgments, and thus to use them as criteria for our rational choices. This objectivity will however be never absolute, but will always remain, in a certain measurement, subjective, without this subjectivity carrying reached to their reality. The position of McDowell about the values occupies in this direction a medium between a strict realism and a subjectivism skeptic.

What is released from these considerations as well about the metaphysics in general as of the particular status of the values, it is the thesis according to which all the proposals concerning objectivity must in any event themselves be formulated since the internal prospect for our own practices. From the point of view wittgensteinienne, McDowell disputes the idea according to which there would be a point of view external with our own theories from which one could treat on a hierarchical basis the properties according to their degree of reality or objectivity.

More recent work of McDowell testifies to an influence of Richard Rorty and Wilfrid Sellars. In Mind and World , McDowell develops an overall Kantian design of the intentionality included/understood like faculty of the human spirit to represent the world. It takes again on its account the criticism developed by Sellars about the “Mythe of given” which would like that a report/ratio of strict causality between the facts and the judgments can be used as sufficient base with our beliefs without it being necessary to bring additional rational justification to them. Such a design could not be defended, insofar as our perceptive experiments are not, in any event, something of liability where we would be subject to only the causal influence of reality. McDowell thus defends the thesis according to which the conceptualization is not something of posterior with the experiment: there is on the contrary a conceptual structure essential with the experiment. A point-key of last work of McDowell is thus its rejection of the idea (itself dependant on the myth of given) of “not-conceptual contents”, which would like that our experiment includes/understands representations former to any conceptualization. The approach which it develops bases on the Kantian theory of the spontaneousness of the judgments in the perceptive experiment. However, there remains faithful to its overall realistic position, and is denied any idealistic consequence which could be associated with such an approach. Into this work, McDowell also rejects the reducing position naturalist which it characterizes like a “bad naturalism”, and which it opposes to a prospect broader naturalist regarding the capacities for the spirit as the result of the acquisition of the one “second nature”. Lastly, Mind and World is concluded on a criticism from the design from the experiment such as it is developed by W.V.O Quine, as on a criticism from the approach coherentist from the beliefs such as it is developed by Donald Davidson.

Since the publication of Mind and World , McDowell continued to develop its criticisms of the designs of the language, the spirit and the values such as they are developed by a certain number of contemporary American philosophers.

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