Online research in philosophy

In this article the author criticizes Michael Devitt’s Naturalistic Moral Realism, as well as that program in general. The author argues the following: moral explanations do not work; the fact that moral featuressupervene on the non-moral ones does not support the thesis of Realism; moral principles can not be tested like factual ones; Moral Realists Naturalists water down their thesis so much that it ceases to be a form of realism; there are no moral observations in any interesting sense.

John McDowell espouses a certain conception of the thinking subject: as an embodied, living, finite being, with a capacity for experience that can take in the world, and stand in relations of warrant to subjects' beliefs. McDowell presents this conception of the subject as requiring a related conception of the world: as not located outside the conceptual sphere. In this latter conception, idealism and common-sense realism are supposed to coincide. But I suggest that McDowell's conception of the subject scuppers this intended coincidence. The upshot is a dilemma: McDowell can retain his conception of the subject, but lose the coincidence; or he can keep the coincidence, but abandon his conception of the subject.

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.

According to Field’s influential incompleteness objection, Tarski’s semantic theory of truth is unsatisfactory since the definition that forms its basis is incomplete in two distinct senses: (1) it is physicalistically inadequate, and for this reason, (2) it is conceptually deficient. In this paper, I defend the semantic theory of truth against the incompleteness objection by conceding (1) but rejecting (2). After arguing that Davidson and McDowell’s reply to the incompleteness objection fails to pass muster, I argue that, within the constraints of a non-reductive physicalism and a holism concerning the concepts of truth, reference and meaning, conceding Field’s physicalistic inadequacy conclusion while rejecting his conceptual deficiency conclusion is a promising reply to the incompleteness objection.

John McDowell's Mind and World is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important contributions to philosophy in recent years. In this volume leading philosophers examine the nature and extent of McDowell's achievement in Mind and World and related writings. The chapters, most of which were specially commissioned for this volume, are divided into five parts. The essays in part one consider Mind and World 's location in the modern philosophical tradition, particularly its relation to Kant's critical project. Parts two and three cover issues in epistemology and philosophy of mind, while in part four the focus turns to problems of rationality, realism and ethics. In the final part of the book McDowell responds to the contributors and further elaborates his own views. Together, the essays provide an indispensable resource for understanding McDowell's work and they offer a timely snapshot of the state of play in contemporary philosophy. Reading McDowell is an important and critical contribution to the debates in analytic philosophy and will be a valuable resource for all those interested in Mind and World , philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

McDowell, responding to Mackie’s argument from queerness, defended realism about values by analogy to secondary qualities. A certain tension between two interpretations of McDowell’s response is highlighted. According to one, realism about values would indeed be vindicated, but at the cost of failing to provide an appropriate response to Mackie’s argument; whereas according to the other, McDowell does provide an adequate response, but evaluative realism is jeopardized.

In this paper I argue that it is more difficult to see how Godel's incompleteness theorems and related consistency proofs for formal systems are consistent with the views of formalists, mechanists and traditional intuitionists than it is to see how they are consistent with a particular form of mathematical realism. If the incompleteness theorems and consistency proofs are better explained by this form of realism then we can also see how there is room for skepticism about Church's Thesis and the claim that minds are machines.

In this volume leading philosophers examine the nature and extent of McDowell's achievement inMind and Worldand related writings.