McDowell and His Critics

The most comprehensive discussion available of the work of philosopher, John McDowell.

• Contains newly commissioned papers by distinguished philosophers on McDowell’s work, along with substantial replies to each by McDowell himself.
  
• The contributors are philosophers with international reputations for their work in the areas in which they are contributing.
  
• Covers the whole of McDowell’s philosophy, including his contributions in ancient philosophy, moral philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, metaphysics and epistemology.
  
• McDowell’s replies to the contributions in this volume contribute to the body of his work.

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction ix

1 Austerity and Openness 1
R. M. Sainsbury

Response to Sainsbury 14
JOHN McDOWELL

2 Reason and Language 22
Richard G. Heck, Jr.

Response to Heck 45
JOHN McDOWELL

3 Some Philosophical Integrations 50
Akeel Bilgrami

Response to Bilgrami 66
JOHN McDOWELL

4 Self-Knowledge and Inner Space 73
CYNTHIA MacDONALD

Response to Macdonald 89
JOHN McDOWELL

5 Personal Identity, Ethical not Metaphysical 95
Carol Rovane

Response to Rovane 114
JOHN McDOWELL

6 Acting in the Light of the Appearances 121
Jonathan Dancy

Response to Dancy 134
JOHN McDOWELL

7 External Reasons 142
Philip Pettit and Michael Smith

Response to Pettit and Smith 170
JOHN McDOWELL

8 Aristotle’s Use of Prudential Concepts 180
T. H. Irwin

Response to Irwin 198
JOHN McDOWELL

9 Julius Caesar and George Berkeley Play Leapfrog 203
Simon Blackburn

Response to Blackburn 217
JOHN McDOWELL

10 The Two Natures: Another Dogma? 222
GRAHAM MacDONALD

Response to Macdonald 235
JOHN McDOWELL

Index 240

"This is an excellent collection of essays on the wide-ranging work of one of the most significant and original philosophers of our day. They raise some fundamental questions about McDowell's views on a variety of topics, to which his own exemplary responses provide extremely valuable further elaboration and development of his thought." Bill Brewer, University of Warwick

"A very welcome addition to the ‘Philosophers and their Critics’ series: there is much to be learnt from the interplay between the ten contributors’ probing papers and McDowell’s responses to them." Jennifer Hornsby, Birkbeck College

Cynthia Macdonald is Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Her previous publications include Mind–Body Identity Theories (1989), Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics (Blackwell, 2005), and she is co-editor, with Stephen Laurence, of Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1998).

Graham Macdonald is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and Distinguished International Fellow at the Institute of Cognition and Culture, Queen’s University Belfast. He is co-author, with Philip Pettit, of Semantics and Social Science (1980). In addition, he is editor of Perception and Identity: Essays Presented to A. J. Ayer, with His Replies to Them (1979), co-editor, with Crispin Wright, of Fact, Science, and Morality (Blackwell, 1986), and co-editor, with Philip Catton, of Karl Popper: Critical Appraisals (2004).

Together, they have edited Philosophy of Psychology: Debates on Psychological Explanation and Connectionism: Debates on Psychological Explanation (both Blackwell, 1995).

John McDowell’s work has had an immense and lasting influence on philosophical thought. This volume contains newly commissioned papers by distinguished philosophers on McDowell’s work, along with substantial replies to each by McDowell himself. The essays cover the full range of McDowell’s seminal contributions in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, ancient philosophy, moral philosophy, and epistemology. Together, they offer by far the most comprehensive discussion of his work currently available.

Contributors are: Akeel Bilgrami, Simon Blackburn, Jonathan Dancy, Richard G. Heck, Jr., T. H. Irwin, Cynthia Macdonald, Graham Macdonald, Philip Pettit, Carol Rovane, R. M. Sainsbury, and Michael Smith.