The demands of content : action, experience, intentionality
In this essay I examine what I call the <i>transcendental</i> approach to perceptual experience, which has come to prominence in the philosophy of mind in the last decade under the heading of disjunctivism and related doctrines. The basic premise of this approach is that making sense of empirical thought places substantive constraints on our conception of experience. I focus my efforts on elaborating and defending two claims made by John McDowell, the philosopher most closely associated with the transcendental approach. (1) The intelligibility of empirical judgement (belief) depends essentially on our conception of ourselves as free and rational agents; in particular, judgement formation is responsibly free action. Considered as such, (2) judgementâs intelligibility requires that a subjectâs perceptual experience provide him with justificatory reasons, or evidence, for his empirical judgements. I develop an account of perceptual justification and knowledge around these two claims that eschews many of the more contentious elements of McDowellâs own perceptual epistemology. I give an account in chapter 1 of the fundamentals of intentional content, and of empirical content in particular. In chapter 2, I
De Silva, M. B.
The demands of content : action, experience, intentionality. In this essay I examine what I call the <i>transcendental</i> approach to perceptual experience, which has come to prominence in the philosophy of mind in the last decade under the heading of disjunctivism and related doctrines. The basic premise of this approach is that making sense of empirical thought places substantive constraints on our conception of experience. I focus my efforts on elaborating and defending two claims made by John McDowell, the philosopher most closely associated with the transcendental approach. (1) The intelligibility of empirical judgement (belief) depends essentially on our conception of ourselves as free and rational agents; in particular, judgement formation is responsibly free action. Considered as such, (2) judgementâs intelligibility requires that a subjectâs perceptual experience provide him with justificatory reasons, or evidence, for his empirical judgements. I develop an account of perceptual justification and knowledge around these two claims that eschews many of the more contentious elements of McDowellâs own perceptual epistemology. I give an account in chapter 1 of the fundamentals of intentional content, and of empirical content in particular. In chapter 2, I
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