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Reasons, Language, and Tradition: The Idea of Conceptual Content in McDowell’s Mind and World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2018

VITALY KIRYUSHCHENKO
VITALY KIRYUSHCHENKO*
Affiliation:
York University
*
*<kiryushc@yorku.ca>
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Abstract

In Mind and World, John McDowell claims that we need to steer our way between bald naturalism and rampant platonism as two ways to explain our capacity to use concepts. Performing this task requires an explanation of how concepts can be both socially charged and, at the same time, genuinely involving the world as it really is. I suggest that McDowell’s explanation is insufficient and that Wilfrid Sellars’s idea of sense impressions might be used to clarify the relationship between social practices and conceptual knowledge without incurring too much damage to the overall architectonics of McDowell’s theory.

Dans Mind and World, John McDowell affirme que nous devons nous éloigner du naturalisme dépouillé et du platonisme exubérant comme étant deux manières d’expliquer notre capacité à utiliser des concepts. Pour accomplir cette tâche, il est nécessaire d’expliquer comment les concepts peuvent être à la fois chargés socialement et réellement engagés avec le monde tel qu’il est. Je suggère que l’explication de McDowell est insuffisante et que l’idée de Wilfrid Sellars des impressions sensorielles peut être utilisée pour clarifier la relation entre les pratiques sociales et la connaissance conceptuelle, et ceci sans faire encourir trop de dégâts à l’architectonique générale de la théorie de McDowell.

Keywords

conceptual contentexperienceopenness to the worldsecond naturesense impressions
Type
Original Article/Article original
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 491 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2018 

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