John McDowell
| John Henry McDowell | |
|---|---|
John McDowell in Paris, October 2007
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| Born |
7 March 1942 Boksburg, South Africa |
| Alma mater |
University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland New College, Oxford |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
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Main interests
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Metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of mind, ethics |
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Notable ideas
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Perceptual content is conceptual "all the way down" |
John Henry McDowell (born 7 March 1942) is a South African philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford and now University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Although he has written extensively on metaphysics, epistemology, ancient philosophy, and meta-ethics, McDowell's most influential work has been in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. McDowell was one of three recipients of the 2010 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's Distinguished Achievement Award. and is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the British Academy.
McDowell has, throughout his career, understood philosophy to be "therapeutic" and thereby to "leave everything as it is", which he understands to be a form of philosophical quietism (although he does not consider himself to be a "quietist"). The philosophical quietist believes that philosophy cannot make any explanatory comment about how, for example, thought and talk relate to the world but can, by offering re-descriptions of philosophically problematic cases, return the confused philosopher to a state of intellectual quietude. However, in defending this quietistic perspective McDowell has engaged with the work of leading contemporaries in such a way as to both therapeutically dissolve what he takes to be philosophical error, while developing original and distinctive theses about language, mind and value. In each case, he has tried to resist the influence of what he regards as a misguided, reductive form of philosophical naturalism that dominates the work of his contemporaries, particularly in North America.
McDowell completed a B.A. at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland before moving to New College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar in 1963.
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