PHIL 820 Mind, World, and "Mind and World"
The 20th century saw roughly two dominant threads in analytic philosophy. One thread sought a reductive naturalism, rooted in sense experience and eschewing the "metaphysical flights of fancy" of earlier traditions. Another thread developed in response. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of John Henry McDowell's Mind and World, which constitutes a nuanced engagement with these rival philosophical traditions in analytic philosophy. The course will consider the relationship between human knowers and the world they come to (or fail to) know. We shall first consider the empiricist tradition, and then turn to McDowell's predecessor anti-empiricists. In the third part of the course we shall read Mind and World itself. In the final weeks we shall consider criticisms of McDowell's work, as well as ways in which his thought has developed in the quarter century since its publication.