In this paper I argue, with many leading commentators, that Kant is a conceptualist. I support this conclusion, argued for independently by Hannah Ginsborg and John McDowell, by appeal to the analyticity of Kant’s apperception principle in the transcendental deduction. I argue that the apperception principle, if taken as an analytic proposition, implies that any mental representation that figures into discursive cognition is the product of a priori synthesis. I further argue that making a priori synthesis a condition for the possibility of any mental representation is sufficient to make mental representation conceptual in the relevant sense. This, I argue, strongly suggests that Kant is a conceptualist.

This dissertation traces the development of classical American pragmatism in the work of C.S. Peirce and Josiah Royce, and its convergence with the naturalist project that currently dominates anglophone philosophy. I argue that naturalism, as it is typically construed, either neglects or underestimates the importance of a rich and nuanced model of selfhood, one that captures not only the biological, but also the cultural features of human persons; what is needed is an account that shows how culture and human selves are themselves "natural." John McDowell has recently offered a promising line of thought which pursues this intuition, but his model has faced heavy criticism and its viability remains questionable. My project, then, is an alternative account that incorporates the best of McDowell's intuitions, but which is immune to the most common objections brought against his model. I proceed by focusing on one aspect of what it means to be a human person that has enormous significance for all areas of philosophical inquiry and which has a rich, if often overlooked, philosophical history. This is the inherent finitude or ignorance which characterizes human knowledge and practice, what Peirce referred to as "fallibilism." Peirce's notion of fallibilism, which today remains his greatest legacy, tempers philosophical discussions of universal concepts such as truth and "the good" by way of considerations of scope and context, forcing such abstractions to find their place within the practical environments of actual lived existence. I offer that Peirce is perhaps a unique figure in the Western philosophical tradition with respect to the importance he gives to fallibilism and in his understanding the doctrine not only in terms of its negative consequences, but also a positive theory that generates a practical response to the sort of existential crisis introduced by the recognition of human fallibility and finitude. Ultimately, Pierce offers a naturalized model of the self which is both a semiotic artifact and communal in nature. The self is a sign that emerges within an interpretive community and which manifests itself as an individual primarily through its fallibility. As such, the self is a cultural artifact, but Peirce's metaphysics makes this a natural process continuous with those processes studied by natural sciences. As a scientist, he was committed to naturalism but not reductionism; his account, therefore, embraces the work of culture and the importance of cultural idioms which are often left out of modern naturalist projects. In this, Peirce offers a promising way to fulfill McDowell's project of "naturalizing" culture and "re-enchanting" nature, thereby eliminating the gap between "mind and the world." However, despite its importance to his philosophical system, Peirce's explicit treatment of selfhood is notably unfocused. It is therefore necessary to couple his philosophical system with that of another of the classical pragmatists who was deeply influenced by Peirce's philosophy but who extended its development into detailed discussions of selfhood and community. The figure I have in mind is Josiah Royce. Royce's philosophy hinges on two central notions, loyalty and community. Loyalty is, for Royce, the means by which individual selves are connected with communities and moral concerns. For Royce, loyalty is given first and foremost to an individual community. However his development of this concept comes to include loyalty to loyalty itself, thus making an individual's loyalty to a particular community continuous with a loyalty to a global community. Moreover, his account of community picks up on Peirce's semiotic theory of interpretation, and connects his account of the individual with Peirce's metaphysical and epistemological concerns. I read the theory of selfhood Royce develops as providing the crucial element that Peirce's philosophical system requires but does not explicitly provide. Throughout this discussion, I show how this model is a promising direction for the future course of contemporary philosophical naturalism. / Philosophy

In the Sellarsian idiom, the space of reasons distinguishes rational beings as those invested in the game of giving and asking for reasons as set apart from beings merely susceptible to the space of causes, i.e. the realm of law. In this work I open a path toward perceiving and thinking that human beings characteristically live their lives in the space of motivations, an intelligible realm of perception, thought, and action whereby non-rational, non-causal descriptions and explanations of behavior serve as the primary and legitimating backdrop of those lives. The idea of motivations stems from the underdeveloped notion within the corpus of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In preparing a path toward the space of motivations, I argue for three claims. First, in the philosophy of mind, I argue for what I call the attentionality thesis (chapter 1), which states that the mind is primarily structured by attention in two senses: that consciousness has the capacity for re-direction toward different and multiple intentional objects, and that remaining directed toward an intentional object reveals different qualitative features of that object or mode of comportment. The attentionality thesis, which I draw from Merleau-Ponty's work, broadens the Brentano-Husserl intentionality thesis. I further argue that the attentionality thesis undercuts the distinction in kind between cognitive intentionality and motor intentionality (chapter 2), reveals shared problematic presuppositions of qualia theorists and functionalists (chapter 3), and challenges key concepts in Alva Noë's enactive theory of mind. Second, in light of the attentionality thesis, I diagnose concerns about whether perception is conceptual or nonconceptual, particularly with respect to John McDowell's conceptualism and Hubert Dreyfus's and Sean Kelly's nonconceptualism. I show that considerations of these arguments suggest an impasse between the claims that perception is conceptual, even in motor intentional comportments (chapter 2), and nonconceptual, in light of the fineness of grain argument (chapter 4). This leads to the final claim that the primary way to understand human perception, thought, and action is not via conceptual or nonconceptual considerations, but rather via motivations in the significance they lend (chapter 5). / Philosophy

<p>Enligt ett argument mot nonkognitivismen som många kritiker hänvisat till, så är denna teori oförenlig med förekomsten av så kallade ‘tjocka moraliska begrepp’. Argumentet har dock aldrig artikulerats och preciserats ordentligt, vilket lett till att det ofta misstolkats av både anhängare och kritiker av nonkognitivismen. I uppsatsen rekonstrueras och utvärderas argumentet såsom det formulerats av John McDowell. Enligt argumentet är nonkognitivismen bristfällig eftersom den inte både kan ge en tillfredsställande analys av tjocka moraliska begrepp och framställa moralisk argumentation och debatt som rationell. Uppsatsen visar dock att nonkognitivister kan undvika denna slutsats på flera sätt. Uppsatsen innehåller även en översikt över olika nonkognitivistiska perspektiv på tjocka moraliska begrepp.</p> / <p>Many critics of non-cognitivism have argued that the existence of ‘thick moral concepts’ constitutes a serious challenge to non-cognitivist views of moral language. While this argument is frequently invoked, it has never been clearly articulated. Hence, the argument is often misinterpreted by both friends and foes of non-cognitivism. In this thesis, John McDowell’s forceful rendering of the argument is reconstructed and evaluated. According to the argument, non-cognitivism is not an adequate metaethical view because it cannot both provide an adequate analysis of thick moral concepts and construe moral discourse as rational. It is argued in this thesis that there are several ways in which non-cognitivists can avoid this conclusion. The thesis also contains a survey of various non-cognitivist views on thick moral concepts.</p>

Enligt ett argument mot nonkognitivismen som många kritiker hänvisat till, så är denna teori oförenlig med förekomsten av så kallade ‘tjocka moraliska begrepp’. Argumentet har dock aldrig artikulerats och preciserats ordentligt, vilket lett till att det ofta misstolkats av både anhängare och kritiker av nonkognitivismen. I uppsatsen rekonstrueras och utvärderas argumentet såsom det formulerats av John McDowell. Enligt argumentet är nonkognitivismen bristfällig eftersom den inte både kan ge en tillfredsställande analys av tjocka moraliska begrepp och framställa moralisk argumentation och debatt som rationell. Uppsatsen visar dock att nonkognitivister kan undvika denna slutsats på flera sätt. Uppsatsen innehåller även en översikt över olika nonkognitivistiska perspektiv på tjocka moraliska begrepp. / Many critics of non-cognitivism have argued that the existence of ‘thick moral concepts’ constitutes a serious challenge to non-cognitivist views of moral language. While this argument is frequently invoked, it has never been clearly articulated. Hence, the argument is often misinterpreted by both friends and foes of non-cognitivism. In this thesis, John McDowell’s forceful rendering of the argument is reconstructed and evaluated. According to the argument, non-cognitivism is not an adequate metaethical view because it cannot both provide an adequate analysis of thick moral concepts and construe moral discourse as rational. It is argued in this thesis that there are several ways in which non-cognitivists can avoid this conclusion. The thesis also contains a survey of various non-cognitivist views on thick moral concepts.

In this thesis I distinguish between two conceptions of naturalism that have been offered as possible starting points for a virtue based ethics. The first version of naturalism is characterized by Philippa Foot’s project in Natural Goodness. The second version of naturalism can be found, in various forms, among the works of John McDowell, Martha Nussbaum, and Rosalind Hursthouse. I argue that neither naturalistic approach is entirely successful on its own, but that we can fruitfully carve a path between both approaches that points the way to a positive ethical account. I then conclude with a brief sketch of what such a positive account of a virtue ethics may look like.

No description available.

This dissertation constructively explores the implications for natural theology of (especially) John McDowell’s anti-Cartesian philosophy of mind and perception. Traditionally, an important element within natural theology is the idea that nature testifies to its creator, thereby making knowledge of a creator available to humans. In traditional accounts, the relevant knowledge is usually conceived as inferential. From observations of “the things that have been made” (Rom 1: 20), we may reason our way to the existence of a creator. The dissertation presents an alternative construal of creation’s testimony. It argues that biological nature may have expressive properties of a similar kind as human behaviour and art seem to have. We may be able to perceive nature as creation, i.e., as expressive of the mind of a creator. The knowledge of a creator acquired from nature is, according to this construal, perceptual rather than inferential. The viability of the dissertation’s suggestion depends, however, on the rejection of certain common and fundamental assumptions about the nature of mind and perception – assumptions that may rightly be called “Cartesian.” In chapters 1-3, a radically anti-Cartesian outlook on mind and perception, drawn mainly from McDowell’s work, is presented. The outlook (labelled “open-mindedness”) conceives the mind as a system of essentially world-involving capacities. One such capacity is perception, which is portrayed as (when all goes well) a direct, cognitive openness to the world. Chapter 4 argues that open-mindedness makes an attractive construal of our knowledge of “other minds” available. Human behaviour may, as McDowell suggests, be construed as having expressive properties, i.e., perceivable properties the instantiation of which logically entails the instantiation of certain mental properties. The main problem confronting this idea is the so-called “argument from pretence” – a version of the more general “argument from illusion.” The fact that behaviour that is the result of pretence can be indistinguishable, for an observer, from behaviour that is genuinely expressive of the mental property pain, can seem to entail that it is impossible to perceive that somebody else is in pain. It is argued that accepting the outlook of open-mindedness and the view of perception it includes dissolves this problem and makes it possible to construe (some of) our knowledge of the mental states of other people as perceptual rather than inferential knowledge. Chapter 5 argues that the same philosophical moves that dissolve the “problem of other minds” also can be used to overcome the problems confronting the (from a Christian perspective) attractive idea that nature may be perceptibly expressive of the mind of a creator. It is argued that the idea that other phenomena than human behaviour can be genuinely expressive of mind is not at all counter-intuitive. Artworks have, for instance, (according to a common view) expressive properties that make something of the mental life of the artist available to others. Furthermore, many people seem to have experiences in which natural structures appear to them as intentionally created. Even atheists report that biological organisms strike them as “designed.” Experiences in which natural phenomena appear to the subject as intentionally created or “designed” are candidates for being veridical perceptions of expressive properties in nature. It is argued that the suggested construal of biological nature as expressive of the mind of a creator is completely compatible with the fact that biological species have evolved by natural selection. Chapter 6 briefly reflects on the consequences of the dissertation’s argument for Christian theology.

This thesis discusses the central ideas that surround Michael Dummett's claim that there is an incompatibility between a truth-conditional conception of meaning and a minimalist conception of truth. These ideas are brought into relation to the work of John McDowell and Donald Davidson, as all three philosophers can be better understood by locating them within Dummett's dialectic regarding the incompatibility. Dummett's argument crucially depends upon the assumption that a meaning-theory should be full-blooded in nature, against McDowell's insistence that a meaning-theory can only ever be modest. The main contention of this thesis is that neither Dummett nor McDowell is successful in establishing their strong contentions regarding the form that a meaning-theory should take. McDowell only wants to provide trivial answers to questions about the constitutive nature of the meanings and competency of particular items in a language. Dummett, on the other hand, wants to provide a reductive account of the central concepts that concern the philosophy of language. What this thesis will argue is that once both of these claims have been rejected, the position Dummett and McDowell jointly dictate is in fact the position that we should read Davidson as occupying, who lies in a conceptual space between the extremes of maximal full-bloodedness and modesty. This is an understanding of Davidson that is contrary to how McDowell reads him, who has been an influential commentator of Davidson. How Davidson should actually be interpreted is achieved by understanding how he has the resources to avoid Dummett's claim of an incompatibility between a truth-conditional conception of meaning and a minimalist conception of truth.

Wilfrid Sellars ficou conhecido por seus ataques ao empirismo e fundacionismo tradicionais em epistemologia e por desenvolver uma abordagem original aos problemas epistemológicos, que criou certa corrente filosófica que tem com seus principais desenvolvedores Rorty, McDowell e Brandom. Segundo essa corrente, o conhecimento, para ser bem compreendido, deve ser tomado como se dando no interior do espaço lógico das razões, no interior do espaço no qual transitamos ao oferecer e pedir por razões para aquilo que fazemos e acreditamos. Porém, essa visão acaba por se mostrar bastante intelectualizada, principalmente pela sua exigência de reflexividade para o conhecimento e por defender que a presença de estados intencionais seja dependente da posse de uma linguagem como a nossa Minha tese, neste trabalho, é que as posições tardias de Sellars sobre sistemas representacionais animais nos dão ferramentas para rejeitar seu nominalismo psicológico e desenvolver uma concepção menos intelectualista de conhecimento, mesmo que isso signifique abrir mão de uma análise completa do mesmo em condições necessárias e suficientes. Este trabalho é composto por quatro capítulos: no primeiro capítulo reconstruo o projeto filosófico inicial de Sellars para mostrar como a sua compreensão não relacional da semântica o levou a fazer a exigência de reflexividade para o conhecimento, sendo essa exigência uma das razões para a excessiva intelectualização de sua abordagem do conhecimento e comento algumas de suas consequências. O segundo capítulo avalia a defesa de McDowell da tese sellarsiana do conhecimento como se dando no interior do espaço lógico das razões das acusações de intelectualismo e conclui que ela incorre em petição de princípio ou circularidade. O terceiro capítulo avança a proposta de Brandom para assimilar o insight confiabilista numa epistemologia centrada na atividade de dar e pedir por razões, na tentativa de combater seu excessivo intelectualismo. A posição tardia de Sellars ajuda-nos a entender a presença de estados proposicionais em seres que não participam do jogo público de dar e pedir por razões, possibilitando uma concepção menos intelectualista de conhecimento. O quarto capítulo explora a distinção de McDowell entre “razão” e “razão enquanto tal” para alcançar uma noção de racionalidade menos intelectualizada, centrada naquilo que somos capazes de fazer em oposição ao que devemos fazer. / Wilfrid Sellars became known for his attacks on traditional empiricism and foundationalism in epistemology and for developing an original approach to epistemological problems, which has created a certain philosophical current that has its main developers Rorty, McDowell, and Brandom. According to this current, knowledge, in order to be well understood, must be taken as giving itself within the logical space of reasons, within the space in which we go through offering and asking for reasons for what we do and believe. However, this view turns out to be quite intellectualized, mainly due to its reflexivity requirement for knowledge and for defending that the presence of intentional states is dependent on the possession of a language like ours. My thesis, in this work, is that late positions of Sellars on animal representational systems give us tools to reject his psychological nominalism and develop a less intellectualist conception of knowledge, even if that means giving up a complete analysis of it under necessary and sufficient conditions. This work is composed of four chapters: in the first chapter I reconstruct Sellars' initial philosophical project to show how his non-relational understanding of semantics led him to make the demand for reflexivity for knowledge, being this requirement one of the reasons for the excessive intellectualization of his approach to knowledge, and comment on some of its consequences. The second chapter evaluates McDowell's defense of the Sealarsian thesis of knowledge as taking place within the logical space of the reasons for accusations of intellectualism and concludes that it incurs in a petition of principle or circularity. The third chapter advances Brandom's proposal to assimilate the reliabilist insight into an epistemology centered on giving and asking for reasons in an attempt to combat its excessive intellectualism. The late position of Sellars helps us to understand how to extend the presence of propositional states to beings who do not participate in the public game of giving and asking for reasons, enabling a less intellectualist conception of knowledge. The fourth chapter explores McDowell's distinction between "reason" and "reason as such" to achieve a less intellectualized notion of rationality centered on what we are able to do in opposition to what we should do.