Essays

Peter MacAulay
Dr. Robbie Moser
PHIL 3311
February 18, 2024

John McDowell and the Cure for Philosophical Vertigo

John McDowell’s Mind and World deals with the philosophical debate between the dualism of mind and world. This is an issue that has been passed down since the ancients and probably even farther back. Many epistemologies fall into what McDowell diagnoses as “intolerable oscillation”. McDowell avoids this pitfall by acknowledging why the oscillation occurs in the fundamentality of having a dualism. He shows the reader why other views which include dualism are unsatisfactory. McDowell uses the hard path to guide you through a journey rather than telling. The hard path shows you McDowell’s point instilling an understanding deeper than telling. Once freed of the dualism McDowell demonstrates his understanding of life further backing his stance of abolishing dualism.

McDowell characterizes the modern epistemological predicament as an "intolerable oscillation" (Lec I, §8, p23) between two unsatisfactory poles. On one side, we find Givenism, the idea that our empirical knowledge is grounded in non-conceptual, brute data. This view attempts to anchor thought in the world but fails because it does not explain how such non- conceptual content could justify belief. On the other side is Coherentism, which constitutes that knowledge is justified by its coherence within a web of beliefs. However, Coherentism struggles to make sense of how our beliefs are genuinely answerable to the world, risking a detachment from reality. These two positions represent epistemological extremes that force philosophers into

a dilemma: either accept an external constraint on thought that lacks conceptual structure (leading to the Given) or acknowledge only internal rational relations (leading to Coherentism). McDowell claims that both positions are unsatisfactory because they fail to account for the way human perceptual experience is already imbued with conceptual capacities. The goal of Mind and World is to break free from this oscillation giving perspective as to how we live. McDowell expresses his perspective as, “We must not suppose that receptivity makes an even notionally separable contribution to its co-operation with spontaneity” (Lec III, §4, p51). In this quote, McDowell is describing the key faults of Coherentism and Givenism. Other epistemologies try to put the natural world and the space of reasons in neat boxes. The view of separating mind and world is unsatisfactory because we feel it to be untrue. The problem is verbalizing why it is unsatisfactory which is why McDowell shows us the intolerable oscillation. McDowell shows that no matter how you attempt to balance Coherentism and Givenism, you are left with a position that limits what either side can do. By accepting that spontaneity and receptivity are not notionally separable, you begin to see that any point from Coherentism to Givenism is unsatisfactory as they try to separate things that often rely on each other.

McDowell finds that this dualism is founded and supported by several separate foundations. Conceptual inference, cultural, institutional, developmental, genetic, and biological mechanical reasons all tell a different story, each falling on some point of the spectrum between Coherentism and Givenism. When viewing life from the lens of a single or a couple of these foundations, it is easy to see how the dualism makes sense. McDowell puts into perspective that while each one of these foundations are valid and useful, they also blindsight us to the rest of reality. By not acknowledging the other foundations, you are limiting your view.

McDowell’s approach in Mind and World involves what might be called descriptive epidemiology of philosophical pathologies, particularly those stemming from various dualisms. Modern philosophy, influenced by figures like Descartes and Kant, has tended to see reason as something separate from the natural world, leading to rampant Platonism. Kant and Descartes have read Plato in a way that brings philosophical anxieties to the difference of mind and world. Kant and Descartes both have a form of skepticism (Descartes in doubt, and Kant in foundationalism) that is rooted in a valid concern for the role of the mind and its existence. This view ultimately creates a conception that the mind is of a mystical existence potentially influenced by the world but is separate and above nature. Coherentism built from skepticism creates a supernatural existence for the mind which doesn’t feel right with everything else we know about the world. As McDowell puts it, “If we focus on the freedom implied by the notion of spontaneity, what was meant to be a picture of thinking with empirical content threatens to degenerate into a picture of a frictionless spinning in a void” (Lec III, §4, p50). This unsatisfactory position is limiting our understanding because we are again not using the whole picture resulting in a mind detached from empirical truth.

Givenism is another limiting view that has been prevalent in modern philosophy. While rooting our knowledge in empirical results seems like a strong way to disavow any anxieties by using only quantitative facts, we find again that there are aspects of this view that don’t fit with the rest of our world. Givenism takes away our freedom by limiting the mind to only reacting to external stimuli. This takes away our ability to think for ourselves, instead stating that we are only a product of our world.

McDowell’s project is to diagnose and expose these artificial dichotomies as symptoms of a deeper philosophical illness: the failure to see human beings as rational animals whose conceptual capacities are a natural part of their perceptual experience. Rather than treating reason as an alien faculty hovering above the natural world, McDowell insists that it is an integral part of human nature itself. This diagnostic approach allows him to offer an alternative account of knowledge that avoids the traditional pitfalls of epistemology. Similarly, McDowell does not allow nature to be the only reason for our thoughts while accepting that it would be ridiculous to assume it has no part in them. This is the point at which McDowell’s view begins to look like the centrist position between Coherentism and Givenism. Despite its resemblance, McDowell does not take this position. The centrist position, like the other ends of the spectrum, sets hard boundaries for mind and world. McDowell does not set any boundaries, instead, he understands the space of reasons and the space of nature. In understanding the spaces, we do not need to abolish our concepts of them for they are useful concepts. McDowell only posits that we must not say there are clear boundaries where the space of reasons becomes the space of nature and vice versa. Through viewing the whole picture using views intrinsic to life, and not just viewing certain aspects in the story of life, we can see that there is no possible way that a dualism between mind and world could ever exist.

The key to McDowell’s resolution lies in what he calls an "Aristotelian" understanding of human nature. Aristotle, in contrast to modern dualistic thinking, viewed humans as rational animals whose capacities for thought and perception are continuous with their biological nature. McDowell appropriates this insight to argue that conceptual capacities are not something mysterious or detached from nature but are instead a natural extension of our human form of life. This move allows him to integrate reason into nature without collapsing into reductionism. By reintroducing this Aristotelian perspective, McDowell provides a way out of the oscillation. Instead of choosing between Givenism and Coherentism, we can recognize that our perceptual experience is already shaped by conceptual understanding. This means that knowledge does not require a mysterious foundational Given, nor does it float freely in a self-contained web of belief. Rather, it is grounded in our rational engagement with the world, an engagement that is itself a natural feature of human life.

The concept McDowell has developed from this view is second nature. McDowell describes how all animals have a nature that is intrinsic to them. A human’s nature is different from a cat’s or a monkey’s nature. McDowell says, “Exercises of spontaneity belong to our way of actualizing ourselves as animals” (Lec IV, §6, p78). By this, McDowell suggests the difference with humans is that we can cultivate second nature from our nature. It’s a human’s ability to be governed by reason that allows us to cultivate second nature. Although a child does not have much of a second nature when they’re born, they still can cultivate it. A human has the capacity to not only learn but ask why. Whereas an animal can only learn. This example of second nature to our nature is a great way to see how McDowell views the relationship between mind and world. As second nature is dependent on our nature but develops into its own space, so does the mind from the world. To say that second nature is separate from our nature is not true as it was cultivated from it.

McDowell’s second nature shows that there isn’t a clear divide between animals and humans, but it is a gradient. As humans, we still use our nature in conjunction with second nature. I am a product of second nature but that doesn’t nullify my being a product of my nature as well. Just as Marx shows that we become animals again when alienated (Lec VI, §4, p118), McDowell shows that without second nature we are animals. Only through the cultivation of second nature does our ability to produce come through. Just as humans are alone in being able to cultivate second nature, we are also alone in our ability to produce. An alienated or uncultivated human is just responding to stimuli. Whereas the human who has cultivated their second nature is still responding to stimuli but can produce thoughts of their own. This is all not to say that animals aren’t able to use reason, they are just not able to operate in the space of reasons as we do. This is to say that while an animal can learn to do something, they cannot build upon that without experiential help.

McDowell’s Mind and World has been greatly clarifying at least for me. I feel as though he has clarified how I think about the world. Too often, I limit my view due to dualism. Through understanding and treating the situation, rather than disengaging and ignoring when faced with new information, I am plagued less by wondering what it is I believe. It’s not clear how much the intolerable oscillation between Givenism and Coherentism affects you until it’s gone. McDowell’s Aristotelian approach speaks to me as I’ve always found virtue ethics to be appealing but McDowell completes it for me (Not to mention I love the Marx tie-in). McDowell’s view does not prioritize any particular foundation from our society and instead focuses on the fact that receptivity and spontaneity cannot be notionally separable as that separation sets a hard line in every aspect of life which limits our view on what happens in reality.

Works Cited

McDowell, John. “Mind And World”, Harvard University Press, 1996.