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European Journal of Philosophy (2011) ??-??

McDowell's Conceptualist Therapy for Skepticism

Santiago Echeverri1

(2011)

In Mind and World, McDowell conceives of the content of perceptual experiences as conceptual. This picture is supposed to provide a therapy for skepticism, by showing that empirical thinking is objectively and normatively constrained. The paper offers a reconstruction of McDowell's view and shows that the therapy fails. This claim is based on three arguments: 1) the identity conception of truth he exploits is unable to sustain the idea that perception-judgment transitions are normally truth conducing; 2) it could be plausible only from an externalist point of view that is in tension with the view of normativity that motivates conceptualism; 3) the identity conception of truth is incompatible with McDowell's recent version of conceptualism in terms of ‘nonpropositional intuitive contents'.

1:	IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod

Subject category

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Humanities and Social Sciences/Philosophy/Philosophy of Perception Humanities and Social Sciences/Philosophy/Philosophy of Mind Humanities and Social Sciences/Philosophy/Metaphysics

Keywords : Facts – Conceptualism – Identity Theory of Truth – Perceptual Content

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From: Jérôme Dokic <>

Submitted on: Saturday, 11 July 2009 18:30:27

Updated on: Saturday, 11 July 2009 18:30:27