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The 62nd Philosopher's Carnival 2008-02-07 06:13:00 is here. ...

McDowell's Kant (Part IV) 2008-02-04 08:40:00 In my previous post I adumbrated the three-tiered approach to (Q1):(Q1): How are we to reconcile the Kantian claim that experience involves making judgements with the Lockean conception of experience as the means by which objects are given to us?If we adopt the three-tiered account, the problem raised by (Q1) begins to take a slightly different form. Commentators such as Strawson and Sellars have suggested that by Kant’s lights, we come to see some object ? as ? by forming an image of ? in accordance with the rule or concept ?. On this view, when one comes to see something as red, one is forming an image of that thing in accordance with the rule or concept red. However, the question quickly arises as to what determines which rule the imagination applies in its synthesis of the sensory manifold and what role (if any) does the manifold itself play in its own synthesis? In the case of the “pure concepts of the understanding”, or the categories, the answer is ...

McDowell's Kant (Part III) 2008-01-28 07:03:00 The Space of Reasons is Back! First off, a special word of thanks to all the commenters who kept The Space of Reasons active while I was away. They’re a number of great insights in your responses, many of which foreshadow much of what I was planning to say. To recap, we began looking at the following question: (Q1): How are we to reconcile the Kantian claim that experience involves making judgements with the Lockean conception of experience as the means by which objects are given to us? As promised, I will like to sketch a response to (Q1) based on some thoughts gleaned from the work of Béatrice Longuenesse who limns what may be described as a three-tier approach (for reasons that will eventually become clear). On Longuenesse’s reading of Kant, the understanding is active not only in W-experience, but in N-experience as well (though she of course does not put the matter in exactly those terms). However, she distinguishes between two “aspects” of the activity of the u ...

Happy Holidays! 2007-12-24 07:13:00 I'm off to Scotland for the Holiday season, so the Space of Reasons will be going into brief hiatus. However, I'll be back early in the new year. Our first item of business will be to finish the series on McDowell's Kant. See you then! ...

McDowell's Kant (Part II) 2007-12-16 19:46:00 In my previous post, I concluded that the question that motivates McDowell’s Kant may be put as follows: (Q1): How are we to reconcile the Kantian claim that experience involves making judgements with the Lockean conception of experience as the means by which objects are given to us? One straightforward response to (Q1) is to distinguish between two meanings of the word “experience” as used by Kant in the Critique. The first, which I will refer to as narrow experience (or N-experience), refers to raw “sensory impressions”. N-experience corresponds with the Lockean conception of experience. The second, which I will refer to as wide experience (or W-experience), refers to “empirical knowledge”.On the present proposal, when Kant talks about experience involving the understanding, it is W-experience that he has in mind. Thus, on this picture, the categories only apply to experience understood in terms of empirical knowledge or W-experience. However, N-experience, which corres ...

McDowell's Kant (Part I) 2007-12-10 06:55:00 It’s been a while since I’ve blogged on McDowell. So for the next few posts I will be returning to this blog’s original inspiration with a series on McDowell’s Kant. In the next few posts I will be attempting to re-express the dialectic McDowell sets up in the introduction to Mind and World in Kantian terms, thereby displaying the deeply Kantian nature of McDowell’s project. I begin with Kant’s claim that “experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding” (Bxvii). Thus, we arrive at the first Kantian principle I wish to exploit in my discussion of McDowell’s Kant: (K1): experience requires understandingHow are we to interpret the word “understanding” as used by Kant? Perhaps the closest thing to a definition can be found in A69/B94, where Kant writes: “We can reduce all acts of the understanding to judgements, so that the understanding in general can be represented as a capacity for judging.” Thus, we arrive ...

The 58th Philosopher's Carnival 2007-12-03 07:57:00 is here! ...

The 2007 Dewey Lectures 2007-12-01 22:02:00 ...begin tomorrow! This year, Columbia University's Dewey Lectures will be delivered by Tyler Burge. Although I have only recently began examining Burge, I am already a big fan of the clarity and precision of his writing. As for his ideas, let's just say that he is one of the main philosophers I hope to spend lots of time thinking about over the course of my future philosophical career. In short, I am quite excited that he will be delivering the Dewey lectures this year.The overall title of the talks is "Self and Self Understanding", and the schedule is as follows:Lecture One: "Some Origins of Self"December 3rd 2007, 6:15-8:00 PM, Davis Auditorium (Shaipro), Reception to FollowLecture Two: "Self and Constitutive Norms"December 4th 2007, 6:15-8:00 PM, Davis Auditorium (Shapiro) Lecture Three: "Self-Understanding"December 5th 2007, 6:15-8:00 PM, Heyman Center Common Room ...

Aporia Undergraduate Philosophy Conference 2007-11-29 07:00:00 Aporia, Dartmouth College's Philosophy Journal, is organizing a conference for promising undergraduate philosophers. The core part of the Dartmouth Undergraduate Philosophy Conference will take place on Saturday April 5th with welcoming and closing events on Friday the 4th and Sunday the 6th.The Aporia Editorial Board is now accepting submissions for presentation and question and answer sessions on Saturday. Top papers will be awarded prizes and be published in the spring issue of Aporia. They are also encouraging volunteers to provide comments on selected papers. The Dartmouth community will aid students with travel arrangements and housing when possible.The paper submission deadline is January 1st. Students may register any time before the conference for $30. Those who register before January 1st will get $10 off the registration fee. Additionally, if five or more students from one institution register, they will all get $10 off the registration fee.All those wishing to attend may ...

Woodbridge Lecture-Links 2007-11-25 23:17:00 You can find links to the full text of Robert Brandom's Woodbridge lectures here.Also, be sure to check out Selbst's response to the lectures. ...

Woodbridge Lectures 2007 2007-11-12 07:20:00 The Columbia University Woodbriddge Lectures, featuring Robert Brandom, begin today! The title of the four day series is "Animating Ideas of Idealism". The program is as follows:Lecture One: “Norms, Selves, and Concepts" November 12, 6:15-8:00pm, 301 Philosophy Hall Reception to follow Lecture Two: “Autonomy, Community, and Freedom” November 13, 6:15-8:00pm Heyman Center Common Room Lecture Three: “History, Reason, and Reality" November 14, 2007 6:15-8:00pm Heyman Center Common Room DISCUSSION SECTION November 15, 2007 4:10pm–6pm 716 Philosophy Hall ...

Shopping for Apples and Appendixes 2007-11-04 19:35:00 This is the final installment of my ongoing series of posts on Reid's shop argument. In my previous post, I noted that the sceptic’s attempt to refute step (1) of the Shop Argument fails. However, the sceptic can also attempt to undermine the Shop Argument by refuting step (2); that is, the sceptic may argue that the fact that two faculties come from the same shop does not imply that they are equally trustworthy. In fact, it is quite easy to construct a counterexample to step (2) of the Shop Argument. For instance, the Apple computer company manufactures both ipods and desktop computers. Now I am a big fan of the Apple ipod and would gladly class it among the ten greatest 21st century inventions. However, I also believe that the Apple desktop operating system remains the most non-user friendly invention to curse the planet and that their production should be immediately discontinued. (Okay, so I don't really believe this, but let us just suppose that this is true for the sake ...

The 55th Philosopher's Carnival 2007-10-28 19:55:00 is here. ...

Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 2) 2007-10-21 21:03:00 In my previous post, Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 1), I presented an argument against Reid's "same shop" argument. In this post, I will say why I think the previous argument fails and point towards a more effective strategy for combating the Shop Argument. As we noted earlier, Reid accepts the first three premises aforementioned argument. Moreover, premise 4 follows from premises 2 and 3. However, premise 5 does not follow from premises 1 and 4. Premise 5 confuses the claim of premise 4, that sensory receptions and rational judgements have different efficient causes (a thesis Reid would accept), with the thesis that the sensory faculty and the rational faculty have different efficient causes (a thesis Reid would reject). Although we are the efficient cause of our rational judgements, we are not (by Reid’s lights) the efficient cause of our rational faculty. What is at issue in the Shop Argument is not the acts of judging or sensing but rather the faculties involved. R ...

Shopping for an Efficient Cause (Part 1) 2007-10-15 17:18:00 I am continuing my series of posts on Thomas Reid. Let us recap Reid’s Shop Argument: Reason, says the sceptic, is the only judge of truth, and you ought to throw off every opinion and every belief that is not grounded on reason. Why, sir, should I believe the faculty of reason more than that of perception?—they came both out of the same shop, and were made by the same artist; and if he puts one piece of false ware into my hands, what should hinder him from putting another?This argument can be broken down into three steps: 1. Reason and the senses both come from the same shop. (premise)2. That two things come from the same shop implies they are equally reliable. (premise)3. Reason and the sense are equally reliable. (From 1 and 2) Given that reason and the senses are equally reliable, the sceptic who privileges reason above the senses is guilty of an unwarranted epistemological prejudice. One way in which the sceptic can resist the Shop Argument would be to reje ...