Reading mind and world in a mcdowellian way: the philosophical therapy of following rules
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31977/grirfi.v26i2.5793Keywords:
John McDowell; Mind and world; Philosophical therapy; Rule-following; Ludwig Wittgenstein.Abstract
In this paper, I aim to show how the therapeutic metaphors in Mind and world (1996), which constitute the main goal of John McDowell's most important work, refer to a Wittgensteinian approach adopted by the author. The conclusion is that an adequate interpretation of Mind and world depends on a clarification of McDowell's therapeutic Wittgensteinianism, drawn from a reading of Wittgenstein on following a rule (1984), and on the fit between this Wittgensteinianism and the therapeutic metaphors of Mind and world. To this end, I will proceed as follows. 1 - I will show how the metaphors in Mind and World relate to a Wittgensteinian approach that goes back to an interpretative dispute waged by McDowell about the rule-following argument in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (1953). 2 - I will briefly present the text Wittgenstein on following a rule, in which McDowell confronts non-therapeutic solutions to the problem of rule-following with his therapeutic alternative, from which one can outline the general characteristics of what would be a model of philosophical therapy. 3 - I will briefly present a reading of Mind and world that focuses on the treatment of two philosophical proposals, coherentism and the myth of the given, leading to two alternatives for dissolving these proposals, namely, the Kantian inextricability between concepts and intuitions, and the idea of second nature. Based on this reading of Mind and world, I will align its methodological aspects with the general characteristics obtained in the second part of the article.
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