ABSTRACT
I have divided the essays into five parts. The three essays that make up the first part thematize Mind and World’s location in the philosophical tradition, in particular its relation to Kant and post-Kantian idealism. Richard J.Bernstein reflects on the original way in which Mind and World follows through a Hegelian strategy for building on Kant’s insights, a strategy-Bernstein points out-that is pursued in different forms by the American pragmatists, notably C.S.Peirce. The conceptual issues Bernstein draws attention to are explored more fully in later chapters. Michael Friedman’s essay adopts a more critical perspective on the way McDowell situates himself in relation to the modern philosophical tradition. Friedman begins by challenging McDowell’s interpretation of Kant, especially Kant’s crucial distinction between sensibility and the understanding. He then outlines a genealogy of late twentieth-century analytic philosophy that leads back from Davidson-whose work provides the immediate background for Mind and World-to Quine, logical positivism, and from there to the Kantianism of the Marburg School. In view of this historical recontextualization, Friedman questions whether Mind and World really represents an advance on the position developed by Davidson-indeed, he suspects that the version of “absolute idealism” McDowell sketches there amounts to a regression. The contrast with Robert Pippin’s chapter could not be more striking. While, like Friedman, Pippin is ultimately unconvinced by McDowell’s alternative to Davidsonian coherentism, the source of Pippin’s dissatisfaction is that McDowell is not “idealist” enough. The thrust of Pippin’s argument is that McDowell’s well-motivated idealism is spoiled by an adventitious desire to “reenchant nature.” The misplaced notion that nature requires an even partial re-enchantment embroils McDowell in difficulties-so Pippin arguesthat Hegel, to his credit, managed to avoid. Pippin thus urges a radicalization (rather than a domestication) of the Hegelian spirit informing McDowell’s work.
