McDowell's revised view of perceptual experience and the threat of the "pluralism anxiety"

Authors

  • Naiana dos Anjos Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN
  • José Frota Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN
  • Federico Sanguinetti UFRN - Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2020v24n2p459

Abstract

In his essayAvoiding the Myth of the Given(AMG), McDowell gives a new charac-terization both of the content of perceptual experience and of the way in which it enables asubject to know. This new characterization has been charged to give rise to a “pluralism anxi-ety”. The goal of this paper is to explore in detail possible problems linked with the pluralismthat arise from McDowell’s change of mind about the content of perceptual experience, andto evaluate whether McDowell has conceptual resources to avoid them. The structure of thepaper will be the following: first we will reconstruct in detail McDowell’s revised view on per-ceptual experience as it is presented in AMG; then, we will reconstruct arguments in supportof the claim that McDowell’s revised position could give rise to a pluralism anxiety; finallyyet importantly we will discuss whether it is possible to offer an interpretation of McDowell’sposition which offers a way out of such difficulties.

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Published

2020-11-18

Issue

Section

Articles