Epistemology as Therapy: John McDowell on Truth and "the Space of Reasons"
Humanities
Philosophy 190: The Pittsburgh School
This paper examines the epistemological position of the philosopher John McDowell, and especially his close intellectual relationship to his predecessor Wilfred Sellars. While in some ways, McDowell suggests that he is simply extending or refining Sellars work, in places their views are radically divergent. McDowell argues that philosophy can only resolve questions that stem from a misconception of a particular topic; it cannot make any theoretical contributions. Applied to epistemology this means that the only role of philosophy should be to show that there is nothing problematic about our ability to hold knowledge of the world and that skeptical concerns are simply misguided. By contrast Wilfred Sellars presents an in depth positive and theoretical account of epistemology. Yet despite the apparent tension between these two positions, McDowell relies heavily on Sellars' work, and rereads his own restrictive conception of epistemology into a fundamentally Sellarsian framework. The focus of this paper is the way in which McDowell achieves this integration, and the ways in which he must appropriate or reject Sellars work to do so. In particular it will examine the role of the Sellarsian notion of 'the space of reasons', which separates rational thought from natural causation, and the way in which McDowell accepts his idea without suggesting that there is any divide between the mind and the world.
