John McDowellISBN: 978-0-7456-3036-6
Hardcover
224 pages
August 2004, Polity
This is a Print-on-Demand title. It will be printed specifically to fill your order. Please allow an additional 10-15 days delivery time. The book is not returnable.
Other Available Formats: Paperback
|
The guiding argument of the book is that the variety of
McDowell’s interests disguises a core concern with a single
basic goal: ‘giving philosophy peace’. Since the dawn
of the subject, philosophy has struggled with the question: can our
experience of the world give rational support to what we think and
say; and if so, how? McDowell claims that philosophy has itself to
blame if these questions seem problematic, and this book’s
animating purpose is to see what sense can be made of this
notorious claim. In McDowell’s view, the illusion that our
fundamental relations with the world are truly problematic is
traceable to false views about nature. We should give proper weight
to a natural fact about the world: that human beings are of a kind
that is naturally placed within the natural order.
De Gaynesford analyses McDowell’s densely argued and meticulous work in a lucid, balanced and engaging way, that will prove invaluable for all students and scholars of McDowell and philosophy.