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- Italo Testa (2007). Criticism From Within Nature: The Dialectic Between First and Second Nature From McDowell to Adorno. Philosophy and Social Criticism 33 (4):473-497.I tackle the definition of the relation between first and second nature while examining some problems with McDowell's conception. This, in the first place, will bring out the need to extend the notion of second nature to the social dimension, understanding it not just as `inner' second nature — individual mind — but also as `outer' second nature — objective spirit. In the second place the dialectical connection between these two notions of second nature will point the way to a critical use of the concept itself, which will link up with a theory of reification. Furthermore, I shall endeavor to fit my reflection into the problematic constellation of critical theory : my analysis in fact rests on the question whether, within a critical theory, the philosophy of nature can be recaptured today, in such a way as to give meaning to the very notion of socio-philosophical criticism of reality. Key Words: Theodor Adorno • critical theory • dialectics • Jürgen • Habermas • G. W. F. Hegel • John McDowell • mind naturalism • nature • quietism • reification • second nature • world.
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No categories
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John McDowell argues for minimal empiricism via using the notion of second nature of human beings. I should like to invite him to discuss Helmuth Plessner's Philosophical Anthropology in order to elaborate a more substantial conception of second nature. McDowell seems to think that it is adequate for his more epistemological aim to remind us of second nature as though it were to be taken for granted. But I think, following Plessner, that this right reminder needs a therapeutic elaboration in Kant's sense of propaedeutics. What had been called our second nature found itself being questioned in order to limit the range of ways of treating the self we can authorize.
No categories
The concept of second nature plays a central role in McDowell's project of reconciling thought's external constraint with its spontaneity or autonomy: our conceptual capacities are natural in the sense that they are fully integrated into the natural world, but they are a second nature to us since they are not reducible to elements that are intelligible apart from those conceptual capacities. Rather than offering a theory of second nature and an account of how we acquire one, McDowell suggests that Aristotle's account of ethical character formation as the acquisition of a second nature serves as a model that can reassure us that thought's autonomy does not threaten its naturalness. However, far from providing such reassurance, the Aristotelian model of second nature actually generates an anxiety about how the acquisition of such autonomous conceptual abilities could be possible.
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Discussion of Italo Testa, Criticism from within nature: The dialectic between first and second nature from McDowell to Adorno
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