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

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Published: Jun 1, 2011
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13153/diam.28.2011.439

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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.

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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.
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No. 28 (2011)
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Author Biography

Anna Tomaszewska

Anna Tomaszewska - doktorantka w Zakładzie Historii Filozofii Instytutu Filozofii UJ.
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References

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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:

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

HN – Handschriftlicher Nachlass (AA 14-23).

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

Log – Logik (AA 09).

MSI – De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (AA 02).

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

Refl – Reflexion (AA 14-19).

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

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