John McDowell
- LAST REVIEWED: 10 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 September 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0286
- LAST REVIEWED: 10 November 2022
- LAST MODIFIED: 29 September 2015
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0286
Introduction
John McDowell was born in Boksburg, South Africa, in 1942 and educated at University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and at New College Oxford. He was a fellow in philosophy at Oxford from 1966 to 1986 where much of his work drew on Greek philosophy, on broadly analytic philosophy of language and thought, and on Wittgenstein. He translated Plato’s Theatetus and edited the late Gareth Evans’s seminal work Varieties of Reference, which defends a neo-Fregean approach to singular, or object dependent, thoughts. McDowell’s work on Wittgenstein is most significant for understanding his approach to philosophy. While many commentators took Wittgenstein to offer a radical and revisionary view of meaning, McDowell argued that we should take seriously Wittgenstein’s insistence that philosophy leaves everything as it is. Rather than taking Wittgenstein’s arguments to advance a kind of ‘meaning scepticism’, he argued that they were directed against a misleading Cartesian assumption about the nature of mind that made meaning merely seem mysterious. Without that assumption, the relation of mind and world becomes clearer. A second aspect of McDowell’s approach was apparent in another aspect of his discussion of meaning from this period. While most Wittgensteinians shun the project of devising formal theories of meaning, McDowell wrote several papers on Donald Davidson’s highly systematic approach. These papers are effectively descriptions of the best way to interpret what Davidson was attempting. The aim is clear: philosophical problems about meaning can be eased by attention to other philosophers even if they themselves are systematic theory builders. In 1986 McDowell became a professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he remains. He has been described, by Richard Rorty, as a member of the “Pittsburgh School of Neo-Hegelians” (alongside Robert Brandom and John Haugeland), a label he rejects. While one misleading connotation of that label is to overemphasize the similarity between McDowell’s work and Brandom’s, it does capture the increasing influence of Kant and Hegel on McDowell’s work while he has been in the States. A second influence is that of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars (already a strong influence on Brandom and Rorty) who himself used Kant to try to develop an account of intentionality. Sellars’s views on the importance of experience in understanding how thought can connect with the world while at the same time rejecting the epistemological foundationalism are central to McDowell’s recent writing.
General Overviews
There are a handful of book-length studies of McDowell. Three relate primarily to McDowell’s Mind and World (McDowell 1994, cited under McDowell’s Works). They are de Gaynesford 2004, Dingli 2005, and Gaskin 2006. The first two are introductory overviews. The third is a more critical study. Thornton 2004 provides a synoptic overview of the whole of McDowell’s work up to about 2000. More recently there have been books that place McDowell’s work into a broader context. Maher 2012 considers Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom to form a coherent school of thought. Redding 2007 examines the debt of these philosophers to Hegelian thought. Barber 2011 discusses McDowell and Brandom in the context of phenomenology.
Barber, Michael. The Intentional Spectrum and Intersubjectivity: Phenomenology and the Pittsburgh Neo-Hegelians. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2011.
Barber describes disagreements between McDowell and Brandom on a number of technical topics from within their philosophy such as rational constraint, disjunctivism, and nonconceptual content. This makes the book inappropriate as an introduction, but neither does it shed much critical light on McDowell and Brandom’s disagreements.
de Gaynesford, Robert Maximilian. John McDowell. Oxford: Polity, 2004.
Robert de Gaynesford’s book is a good introduction to McDowell’s work, which takes Mind and World as its starting point and main focus.
Dingli, Sandra M. On Thinking and the World: John McDowell’s Mind and World. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
This book focuses on McDowell’s therapeutic aims to dissolve a number of philosophical dualisms in Mind and World and elsewhere.
Gaskin, Richard. Experience and the World’s Own Language: A Critique of John McDowell’s Empiricism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1093/0199287252.001.0001
This is a more difficult book but offers a sustained critical investigation of the account of the relation of language and mind-independent nature in Mind and World. Although the argument is worth consideration in its own right, Gaskin does not seem sensitive to McDowell’s own dialectic.
Maher, Chauncey. The Pittsburgh School of Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2012.
Maher examines the views of Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom on a number of general issues such as the nature of belief, meaning, rules, and the Given, stressing the similarities of views. She pays less attention to the differences between the different philosophers. The book works well as an introduction to the issues, however, and offers some insight into McDowell’s philosophy.
Redding, Paul. Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
A challenging text relating themes from Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom back to the Hegelian and Kantian philosophy to suggest historical continuity.
Thornton, Tim. John McDowell. Chesham, UK: Acumen, 2004.
This book provides an introduction to, and overview of, all broad areas of McDowell’s published papers leading up to and including Mind and World.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- A Priori Knowledge
- Abduction and Explanatory Reasoning
- Ability
- Abortion
- Abstract Objects
- Action
- Addams, Jane
- Adorno, Theodor
- Aesthetic Hedonism
- Aesthetics, Analytic Approaches to
- Aesthetics, Continental
- Aesthetics, Environmental
- Aesthetics, History of
- African Philosophy, Contemporary
- Alexander, Samuel
- Analytic/Synthetic Distinction
- Anarchism, Philosophical
- Animal Rights
- Anscombe, G. E. M.
- Anthropic Principle, The
- Applied Ethics
- Aquinas, Thomas
- Argument Mapping
- Art and Emotion
- Art and Knowledge
- Art and Morality
- Artifacts
- Assertion
- Astell, Mary
- Atheism
- Augustine
- Aurelius, Marcus
- Austin, J. L.
- Autonomy
- Bacon, Francis
- Bayesianism
- Beauty
- Belief
- Bergson, Henri
- Berkeley, George
- Biology, Philosophy of
- Bolzano, Bernard
- Boredom, Philosophy of
- British Idealism
- Buber, Martin
- Buddhist Philosophy
- Burge, Tyler
- Business Ethics
- Camus, Albert
- Canterbury, Anselm of
- Carnap, Rudolf
- Causation
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Certainty
- Chemistry, Philosophy of
- Childhood, Philosophy of
- Chinese Philosophy
- Cognitive Ability
- Cognitive Phenomenology
- Cognitive Science, Philosophy of
- Coherentism
- Color
- Communitarianism
- Computational Science
- Computer Science, Philosophy of
- Comte, Auguste
- Concepts
- Conceptual Role Semantics
- Conditionals
- Confirmation
- Confucius
- Connectionism
- Consciousness
- Constructive Empiricism
- Contemporary Hylomorphism
- Contextualism
- Contrastivism
- Cook Wilson, John
- Cosmology, Philosophy of
- Critical Theory
- Culture and Cognition
- Daoism and Philosophy
- Davidson, Donald
- de Beauvoir, Simone
- de Montaigne, Michel
- Death
- Decision Theory
- Deleuze, Gilles
- Democracy
- Depiction
- Derrida, Jacques
- Descartes, René
- Descartes, René: Sensory Representations
- Descriptions
- Dewey, John
- Dialetheism
- Disability
- Disagreement, Epistemology of
- Disjunctivism
- Dispositions
- Doing and Allowing
- du Châtelet, Emilie
- Dummett, Michael
- Dutch Book Arguments
- Early Modern Philosophy, 1600-1750
- Eastern Orthodox Philosophical Thought
- Education, Philosophy of
- Emotion
- Engineering, Philosophy and Ethics of
- Environmental Philosophy
- Epicurus
- Epistemic Basing Relation
- Epistemic Defeat
- Epistemic Injustice
- Epistemic Justification
- Epistemic Philosophy of Logic
- Epistemology
- Epistemology and Active Externalism
- Epistemology, Bayesian
- Epistemology, Feminist
- Epistemology, Internalism and Externalism in
- Epistemology, Moral
- Epistemology of Education
- Ethical Consequentialism
- Ethical Deontology
- Ethical Intuitionism
- Eugenics and Philosophy
- Events, The Philosophy of
- Evidence
- Evidence-Based Medicine, Philosophy of
- Evidential Support Relation In Epistemology, The
- Evil
- Evolutionary Debunking Arguments in Ethics
- Evolutionary Epistemology
- Experimental Philosophy
- Explanations of Religion
- Extended Mind Thesis, The
- Externalism and Internalism in the Philosophy of Mind
- Faith, Conceptions of
- Fatalism
- Feminist Philosophy
- Feyerabend, Paul
- Fichte, Johann Gottlieb
- Fiction
- Fictionalism
- Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Film, Philosophy of
- Foot, Philippa
- Foreknowledge
- Forgiveness
- Formal Epistemology
- Foucault, Michel
- Free Will
- Frege, Gottlob
- Gadamer, Hans-Georg
- Geometry, Epistemology of
- God and Possible Worlds
- God, Arguments for the Existence of
- God, The Existence and Attributes of
- Grice, Paul
- Habermas, Jürgen
- Hart, H. L. A.
- Heaven and Hell
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Aesthetics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Metaphysics
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of History
- Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich: Philosophy of Politics
- Heidegger, Martin: Early Works
- Hermeneutics
- Higher Education, Philosophy of
- History, Philosophy of
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Horkheimer, Max
- Human Rights
- Hume, David: Aesthetics
- Hume, David: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Husserl, Edmund
- Idealizations in Science
- Identity in Physics
- Images
- Imagination
- Imagination and Belief
- Impossible Worlds
- Incommensurability in Science
- Indian Philosophy
- Indispensability of Mathematics
- Inductive Reasoning
- Infinitism
- Instruments in Science
- Intellectual Humility
- Intentionality, Collective
- Intuitions
- James, William
- Japanese Philosophy
- Kant and the Laws of Nature
- Kant, Immanuel: Aesthetics and Teleology
- Kant, Immanuel: Ethics
- Kant, Immanuel: Theoretical Philosophy
- Kierkegaard, Søren
- Knowledge
- Knowledge-first Epistemology
- Knowledge-How
- Kuhn, Thomas S.
- Lacan, Jacques
- Lakatos, Imre
- Langer, Susanne
- Language of Thought
- Language, Philosophy of
- Latin American Philosophy
- Laws of Nature
- Legal Epistemology
- Legal Philosophy
- Legal Positivism
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Levinas, Emmanuel
- Lewis, C. I.
- Liberty
- Literature, Philosophy of
- Locke, John
- Locke, John: Identity, Persons, and Personal Identity
- Logic
- Lottery and Preface Paradoxes, The
- Lucretius
- Machiavelli, Niccolò
- Martin Heidegger: Later Works
- Martin Heidegger: Middle Works
- Marx, Karl
- Material Constitution
- Mathematical Explanation
- Mathematical Pluralism
- Mathematical Structuralism
- Mathematics, Ontology of
- Mathematics, Philosophy of
- Mathematics, Visual Thinking in
- McDowell, John
- McTaggart, John
- Meaning of Life, The
- Mechanisms in Science
- Medically Assisted Dying
- Medicine, Contemporary Philosophy of
- Medieval Logic
- Medieval Philosophy
- Memory
- Mental Causation
- Mereology
- Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
- Meta-epistemological Skepticism
- Metaepistemology
- Metaethics
- Metametaphysics
- Metaphilosophy
- Metaphor
- Metaphysical Grounding
- Metaphysics, Contemporary
- Metaphysics, Feminist
- Midgley, Mary
- Mill, John Stuart
- Mind, Metaphysics of
- Modal Epistemology
- Modality
- Models and Theories in Science
- Modularity
- Montesquieu
- Moore, G. E.
- Moral Contractualism
- Moral Naturalism and Nonnaturalism
- Moral Responsibility
- Multiculturalism
- Murdoch, Iris
- Music, Analytic Philosophy of
- Nationalism
- Natural Kinds
- Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics
- Naïve Realism
- Neo-Confucianism
- Neuroscience, Philosophy of
- Nietzsche, Friedrich
- Nonexistent Objects
- Normative Ethics
- Normative Foundations, Philosophy of Law:
- Normativity and Social Explanation
- Objectivity
- Occasionalism
- Olfaction
- Ontological Dependence
- Ontology of Art
- Ordinary Objects
- Other Minds
- Pacifism
- Pain
- Panpsychism
- Paradoxes
- Particularism in Ethics
- Pascal, Blaise
- Paternalism
- Patriotism
- Peirce, Charles Sanders
- Perception, Cognition, Action
- Perception, The Problem of
- Perfectionism
- Persistence
- Personal Identity
- Phenomenal Concepts
- Phenomenal Conservatism
- Phenomenology
- Philosophy for Children
- Photography, Analytic Philosophy of
- Physicalism
- Physicalism and Metaphysical Naturalism
- Physics, Experiments in
- Plato
- Plotinus
- Political Epistemology
- Political Obligation
- Political Philosophy
- Popper, Karl
- Pornography and Objectification, Analytic Approaches to
- Practical Knowledge
- Practical Moral Skepticism
- Practical Reason
- Pragmatics
- Pragmatism
- Probabilistic Representations of Belief
- Probability, Interpretations of
- Problem of Divine Hiddenness, The
- Problem of Evil, The
- Propositions
- Psychology, Philosophy of
- Punishment
- Pyrrhonism
- Qualia
- Quietism
- Quine, W. V. O.
- Race
- Racist Jokes
- Rationalism
- Rationality
- Rawls, John: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Realism and Anti-Realism
- Realization
- Reasons in Epistemology
- Reductionism in Biology
- Reference, Theory of
- Reid, Thomas
- Relativism
- Reliabilism
- Religion, Philosophy of
- Religious Belief, Epistemology of
- Religious Experience
- Religious Pluralism
- Ricoeur, Paul
- Rights
- Risk, Philosophy of
- Rorty, Richard
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques
- Rule-Following
- Russell, Bertrand
- Ryle, Gilbert
- Sartre, Jean-Paul
- Schopenhauer, Arthur
- Science and Religion
- Science, Theoretical Virtues in
- Scientific Explanation
- Scientific Progress
- Scientific Realism
- Scientific Representation
- Scientific Revolutions
- Scotus, Duns
- Self-Knowledge
- Sellars, Wilfrid
- Semantic Externalism
- Semantic Minimalism
- Semiotics
- Seneca
- Senses, The
- Sensitivity Principle in Epistemology
- Singular Thought
- Situated Cognition
- Situationism and Virtue Theory
- Skepticism, Contemporary
- Skepticism, History of
- Slurs, Pejoratives, and Hate Speech
- Smith, Adam: Moral and Political Philosophy
- Social Aspects of Scientific Knowledge
- Social Epistemology
- Social Identity
- Sounds and Auditory Perception
- Space and Time
- Speech Acts
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stebbing, Susan
- Strawson, P. F.
- Structural Realism
- Suicide
- Supererogation
- Supervenience
- Tarski, Alfred
- Technology, Philosophy of
- Testimony, Epistemology of
- Theoretical Terms in Science
- Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy of Religion
- Thought Experiments
- Time and Tense
- Time Travel
- Toleration
- Torture
- Transcendental Arguments
- Tropes
- Trust
- Truth
- Truth and the Aim of Belief
- Truthmaking
- Turing Test
- Two-Dimensional Semantics
- Understanding
- Uniqueness and Permissiveness in Epistemology
- Utilitarianism
- Vagueness
- Value of Knowledge
- Vienna Circle
- Virtue Epistemology
- Virtue Ethics
- Virtues, Epistemic
- Virtues, Intellectual
- Voluntarism, Doxastic
- War
- Weakness of Will
- Weil, Simone
- Well-Being
- William of Ockham
- Williams, Bernard
- Wisdom
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Early Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Later Works
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Middle Works
- Wollstonecraft, Mary