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"Selling Out" McDowell 1969-12-31 17:59:59 Today, I saw an online news report describing how avid Jimi Hendrix fans have been lamenting the ?selling out? of the late musician by a recent energy-drink advertising campaign. This got me thinking; couldn?t the self-professed goal of this blog be described as ?selling out? McDowell in the name of epistemology? (See Welcome to the Space of Reasons for more on my blog?s overarching goal.) Specifically, I see McDowell as providing a post-Gettier version of justification internalism, in which ?internal? is understood along the lines of Conee and Feldman?s ?mentalism?. This is a position I hope to limn in greater detail in the near future. However, there seems to be at least two initial objections to my description of McDowell as a J-internalist, one methodological (or meta-philosophical) and the other theoretical. In this post I will attempt to address the methodological, or what I will henceforth call the ?sell-out? objection to my proposal.The ?sell-out? objection derives most of its ...

What's Going On... 1969-12-31 17:59:59 First, I owe a word of thanks to Duncan Pritchard for encouraging visitors to his blog to check out mine. And let me just say for the record that at the time he posted his referral, I did not have his book, Epistemic Luck, among my recommended reading, so he was not being self-serving in his recommendation :-).One upshot of Duncan?s promo is the high quality feedback I?ve gotten on my post, Un-discriminating Reliablism (Part 1). I'm particularly grateful to Geoff for getting the ball rolling in this regard. More recently, Ang Tong, from Angasm, has initiated a discussion so engaging that it bridges two blogs! You can find an extended version of the discussion on this blog, with a summarised version over at the Web of Belief. If the quality of feedback I?ve gotten so far is representative of things to come, then I?m certainly in for much more than I originally bargained...at least one can only hope so. Thanks again for your thoughful comments guys!Third, I'll like to alert you to the ...

Welcome to the Space of Reasons 1969-12-31 17:59:59 ?In characterizing an episode or a state as that of knowing, we are not giving an empirical description of that episode or state; we are placing it in the logical space of reasons, of justifying and being able to justify what one says?. - Wilfrid SellarsJohn McDowell?s account of perceptual knowledge is arguably one of the most innovative presently available. However, one risk that often accompanies being innovative is that it is sometimes difficult to see how one?s ideas relate to more traditional lines of thought. If this is true of any analytic philosopher, it is true of McDowell, who is often taken by undergraduate philosophy majors and seasoned practitioners alike as a paradigm case of philosophical obfuscation. Moreover, the terminology and ideas that make up the usual stock and trade of epistemology?e.g., justification, epistemic internalism, content externalism, Twin Earth examples?are seldom explicitly employed or discussed by McDowell. Instead, he tends to resort to obsc ...