John McDowell facts for kids

This page is about the philosopher. For other uses, see John McDowell (disambiguation).

Quick facts for kids John McDowell
McDowell in 2007
Born	John Henry McDowell (1942-03-07) 7 March 1942 (age 83) Boksburg, South Africa
Alma mater	University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (as issued by University of London) New College, Oxford

Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Postanalytic philosophy Pittsburgh School Disjunctivism Foundationalism Perceptual conceptualism Direct realism The New Wittgenstein Aristotelian ethics Hegelianism
Doctoral students	Anita Avramides, Alice Crary
Other notable students	Sebastian Rödl
Main interests	Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of perception, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind, ethics, meta-ethics
Notable ideas	Perceptual conceptualism naturalized Platonism, moral particularism, disjunctivism

John Henry McDowell (born on March 7, 1942) is a famous South African philosopher. He used to be a professor at University College, Oxford in England. Now, he is a university professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States.

McDowell has written about many different topics in philosophy. These include how we know things (epistemology), how our minds work (philosophy of mind), and how we use language (philosophy of language). His ideas about the mind and language are especially well-known.

In 2010, he received a special award called the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award. He is also a member of important groups like the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the British Academy.

McDowell sees philosophy as a way to "fix" confusing ideas, not to create new ones. He believes philosophy should help us understand things better, like how our thoughts and words connect to the world. He thinks philosophy can help us see things clearly again when we get stuck on a problem.

He has often disagreed with the idea that science can explain everything about human thought and values. Instead, he supports a type of "naturalism" that includes ideas from thinkers like Hegel and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Life and Education
- Awards and Recognition
McDowell's Philosophical Ideas
See also

Life and Education

John McDowell was born in Boksburg, South Africa. He earned his first degree from the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

In 1963, he moved to Oxford, England. He studied at New College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He earned two more degrees there by 1969.

McDowell taught at University College, Oxford, from 1966 to 1986. After that, he joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. He has also been a visiting professor at many other universities. These include Harvard University, University of Michigan, and University of California, Los Angeles.

Awards and Recognition

McDowell became a member of the British Academy in 1983. He joined the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992. In 2010, he received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award. This award is given for important work in the humanities.

He gave special lectures at Oxford University in 1991. These talks later became his famous book, Mind and World. He also gave important lectures at Columbia University in 1997 and at the University of California at Berkeley in 2006.

In 2008, the University of Chicago gave him an honorary degree. This means they recognized his great achievements.

McDowell's Philosophical Ideas

Early Ideas on Language and Perception

McDowell's first published work was about ancient philosophy. He translated and wrote comments on Plato's book, Theaetetus.

In the 1970s, he worked with other philosophers like Donald Davidson and Gareth Evans. They tried to understand how language gets its meaning. McDowell helped edit a book called Truth and Meaning. He also edited Evans's important book, The Varieties of Reference, after Evans passed away.

McDowell believed that when we understand others, we do it from "inside" our own ways of thinking. He argued against trying to understand language from an "outside" view.

He also developed a special idea about how we see things, called a disjunctive theory of perception. This idea helps explain how we know things directly through our senses.

Understanding What We See

Imagine you see a stick in the water. It might look bent, but you know it's straight. This is an illusion. McDowell's idea says that when we truly see something, like a cat on a mat, our experience directly shows us the cat. It's not like our mind creates a "picture" that might be wrong.

He argues that a true perception (seeing the cat) and a mistaken perception (the bent stick) are very different. They don't share a "highest common factor" that makes us see things indirectly. When we truly see something, our experience matches the real world.

This idea is part of McDowell's belief that our thoughts are connected to our social and physical surroundings. He thinks that if we try to talk about something that doesn't exist, then the thought itself can't really exist.

Ideas on Morality and Values

McDowell also made important contributions to moral philosophy. This is the study of what is right and wrong. He developed a view called "secondary property realism" or "moral sense theory."

He suggests that a truly good person has two abilities. First, they understand moral situations correctly. Second, their moral beliefs are always the most important reasons for their actions. These moral reasons "silence" other reasons they might have. This means moral reasons are very powerful.

McDowell disagrees with the idea that every action comes from a belief and a desire. He thinks that a good person's understanding of a situation can make them want to act in a certain way. So, their belief itself can lead to the desire and the action.

Are Values Real?

McDowell believes that moral facts are real, just like facts about colors. Colors are not "in the world" for someone who can't see them. But we can't deny that colors are part of our experience and help us understand the world.

He thinks that values are similar. They are real because we use them in our judgments. We have ways to argue about them, and they help explain our experiences.

McDowell believes that we should judge what is real from "inside" our own practices and ways of thinking. He argues that values are just as real as things described by science, like quarks or the Higgs boson.

Later Work: Mind and World

McDowell's later work was influenced by philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Wilfrid Sellars. His book Mind and World (published in 1994) explores how our minds actively understand what we see.

He explains that when we experience the world, we are both passive (things happen to us) and active (we use our minds to understand them). He tries to avoid the idea that our minds just create reality. Instead, he focuses on how we actively make sense of our experiences.

In Mind and World, McDowell rejects a simple scientific view of human nature. He suggests that our special mental abilities are a cultural achievement. He calls this our "second nature."

Concepts and Experience

In his later work, McDowell argues against the idea of "nonconceptual content." This is the idea that our experiences contain information that isn't organized by our thoughts or concepts. He believes that everything we experience is already shaped by our concepts.

This idea has caused a lot of discussion among philosophers. Some scientists who study the mind think that the idea of "nonconceptual content" is important for understanding how our brains work. However, McDowell continues to argue for his unique views on language, mind, and values.

Who Influenced McDowell?

Many important philosophers have influenced John McDowell's work. These include:

His colleague at the University of Pittsburgh, Robert Brandom, also explores similar ideas. Both McDowell and Brandom have been influenced by Richard Rorty, especially Rorty's book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. McDowell himself has said that Rorty's work was very important in shaping his own ideas.