Experience and conceptual content in Kant and McDowell. Remarks on “empty thoughts” and “blind intuitions”

Main Article Content

Anna Tomaszewska

Abstract

In Mind and World, John McDowell appeals to Kant’s dictum that thoughts without content are empty and intuitions without concepts are blind as encapsulating the idea of conceptualism about the content of perceptual experience. I argue that the appeal is inadequate, and this for a variety of reasons, one of them being that if Kant endorsed conceptualism along the lines of McDowell, he would be committed to returning to positions which he explicitly criticized, i.e. those of rationalist metaphysics; alternatively, he would lapse into an idealism very much akin to Hegel’s. This is because McDowell’s conceptualism ultimately neglects the role of sensibility in mediating the relation between “mind” and “world”, which is crucial to recognizing the limits on cognition which Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism imposes upon subjects.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
Tomaszewska, Anna. 2011. “Experience and Conceptual Content in Kant and McDowell. Remarks on “empty thoughts” and ‘blind intuitions’”. Diametros, no. 28 (June):82-100. https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.28.2011.439.
Section
Articles
Author Biography

Anna Tomaszewska

Anna Tomaszewska - doktorantka w Zakładzie Historii Filozofii Instytutu Filozofii UJ.
Share |

References

A. The works of Immanuel Kant
View in Google Scholar

All the quotations from Kant’s texts are from the Akademie-Ausgabe von Immanuel Kants Gesammelten Werken (hrsg. von der Königlich-Preussischen Akademie de Wissen- schaften zu Berlin 1902-). Only the Kritik der reinen Vernunft is quoted after Jens Timmermann’ s edition. The following abbreviations have been used in this paper:
View in Google Scholar

GUGR – Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume (AA 02).
View in Google Scholar

HN – Handschriftlicher Nachlass (AA 14-23).
View in Google Scholar

KrV – Kritik der reinen Vernunft, hrsg. von. J. Timmermann, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1998.
View in Google Scholar

Log – Logik (AA 09).
View in Google Scholar

MSI – De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (AA 02).
View in Google Scholar

Prol – Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (AA 04).
View in Google Scholar

Refl – Reflexion (AA 14-19).
View in Google Scholar

UDGTM – Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und Moral (AA 02).
View in Google Scholar

B. Secondary literature
View in Google Scholar

Brewer [2006] – Bill Brewer, Perception and Content, “European Journal of Philosophy” 14 (2) 2006: 165-181, available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/ people/faculty/brewer/pc2.pdf [24.03.2011]: 1-30 (quotations in this paper come from the online version of Brewer’s article).
View in Google Scholar

Caimi [2005] – Mario Caimi, “Gedanken ohne Inhalt sind leer”, “Kant-Studien” (96) 2005: 135-146.
View in Google Scholar

Crowther [2006] – T.M. Crowther, Two Conceptions of Conceptualism and Nonconceptualism, “Erkenntnis” 65 (2) 2006: 245-276.
View in Google Scholar

Dretske [1993] – Fred Dretske, Conscious Experience, “Mind” 102 (406) 1993: 263-283.
View in Google Scholar

Dretske [1995] – Fred Dretske, Meaningful Perception, [in:] Visual Cognition. An Invitation to Cognitive Science, vol. 2, D.N. Osherson, S.M. Kosslyn et al. (eds.), The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1995: 331-352.
View in Google Scholar

Dretske [2000] – Fred Dretske, Perception, Knowledge, and Belief. Selected Essays, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000.
View in Google Scholar

Falkenstein [2004] – Lorne Falkenstein, Kant’s Intuitionism. A Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 2004.
View in Google Scholar

Ginsborg [2008] – Hannah Ginsborg, Was Kant a nonconceptualist?, “Philosophical Studies” 137 (1) 2008: 65-77.
View in Google Scholar

Gunther [2003] – Essays on Nonconceptual Content, York Gunther (ed.), The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, London 2003.
View in Google Scholar

Guyer [2000] – Paul Guyer, Absolute idealism and the rejection of Kantian dualism, [in:] The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, K. Ameriks (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000: 37-56.
View in Google Scholar

Hanna [2003] – Robert Hanna, Kant, Science and Human Nature, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2003.
View in Google Scholar

Hanna [2005] – Robert Hanna, Kant and Nonconceptual Content, “European Journal of Philosophy” 13 (2), 2005: 247-290.
View in Google Scholar

Hanna [2011] – Robert Hanna, The Myth of the Given and the Grip of the Given, “Diametros” (27) 2011: 25-46.
View in Google Scholar

Hanna [forthcoming] – Robert Hanna, Kant's Non-Conceptualism, Elusive Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction, available at: http://www.colorado.edu/ philosophy/paper_hanna_KNC_elusive%20_objects_and_the_gap_march11.pdf [05.05.2011]: 1-22.
View in Google Scholar

Hegel [1968] – G.W.F. Hegel, Glauben und Wissen oder die Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität in der Vollständigkeit ihrer Formen, als Kantische, Jacobische und Fichtesche Philosophie, Hegels Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4: Jenaer kritische Schriften, Felix Meiner Vg., Hamburg 1968.
View in Google Scholar

LaRock [2010] – Eric LaRock, Cognition and Consciousness: Kantian Affinities with Contemporary Vision Research, “Kant-Studien” (101) 2010: 445-464.
View in Google Scholar

McDowell [1996] – John McDowell, Mind and World, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, London 1996.
View in Google Scholar

McDowell [1998] – John McDowell, Lecture III: Intentionality as a Relation, “The Journal of Philosophy” 95 (9) 1998: 471-490.
View in Google Scholar

Peacocke [1992] – Christopher Peacocke, Scenarios, concepts, and perception, [in:] The Contents of Experience. Essays in Perception, T. Crane (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge-New York 1992: 105-135.
View in Google Scholar

Peacocke [2001] – Christopher Peacocke, Does Perception Have a Nonconceptual Content?, “The Journal of Philosophy” 98 (5), 2001: 239-264.
View in Google Scholar

Perzanowski [1994] – Jerzy Perzanowski, Teofilozofia Leibniza, [in:] G.W. Leibniz, Pisma z teologii mistycznej, transl. by M. Frankiewicz, Znak, Kraków 1994: 243-351.
View in Google Scholar

Sellars [1956/1995] – Wilfrid Sellars, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, [in:] Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 1, Herbert Feigl, Michael Scriven (eds.),
View in Google Scholar

University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 1956: 253-329; available at: http://www.ditext.com/sellars/epm.html [05.05.2011] (edited in Hypertext by Andrew Chrucky, 1995).
View in Google Scholar

Smith [2002] – Reading McDowell: On Mind and World, N.H. Smith (ed.), Routledge, London-New York 2002.
View in Google Scholar

Tye [2005] – Michael Tye, Nonconceptual Content, Richness, and Fineness of Grain, [in:] Perceptual Experience, T. Gendler, J. Hawthorne (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York 2005: 504-530.
View in Google Scholar