Two opposed movements of thought threaten philosophy as an autonomous practice from the inside: scientific naturalism and quietism. Naturalism (qua methodological thesis) threatens to turn philosophy into a mere ancilla of the sciences, quietism understood as the prescription to remain silent in philosophy would not countenance any more "positive" philosophy. This book reconstructs naturalism and quietism such that it becomes clear naturalism does have the potential to end philosophy as an autonomous practice and that quietism, correctly understood, does not. To (...) this end, this book provides arguments against the prevailing orthodox status of naturalism and a heterogenous reading of Wittgenstein's metaphilosophical quietism as the rejection of a certain kind of theories in philosophy, namely quasi-scientific theories. (shrink)

This chapter considers how Liberal Naturalism interacts with the main problems and theories in the philosophy of perception. After briefly summarising the traditional philosophical problems of perception and outlining the standard philosophical theories of perceptual experience, it discusses whether a Liberal Naturalist outlook should incline one towards or away from any of these standard theories. Particular attention is paid to the work of John McDowell and Hilary Putnam, two of the most prominent Liberal Naturalists, whose work was also very influential (...) in the philosophy of perception. There is also a section focusing on colour, an especially important topic not only for debates about perceptual experience but also for debates concerning how our ‘manifest image’ of the natural world relates to our best theories in the physical sciences. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Epistemological Disjunctivism is a view about paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge. Duncan Pritchard claims that it is particularly well suited to accounting for internalist and externalist intuitions. A number of authors have disputed this claim, arguing that there are problems for Pritchard’s way with internalist intuitions. I share the worry. However, I don’t think it has been expressed as effectively as it can be. My aim in this paper is to present a new way of formulating the worry, in terms (...) of an “explanatory challenge”. The explanatory challenge is a simple, yet powerful and illuminating challenge for Epistemological Disjunctivism. It is illuminating in the sense that it shows us why Epistemological Disjunctivism must take on certain internalistically problematic commitments. A secondary aim of this paper is to examine whether the recently much-discussed distinction between justifications and excuses in epistemology can support an adequate response. I will argue that it cannot. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivism is a philosophical theory that has received special attention in the recent years. Particularly because it has been seen by many as a way of renewing discussions that range from the nature of justification of our daily beliefs to the possibility of unveiling the structure of the problem of radical skepticism and of responding to it. Duncan Pritchard is one of the authors who have offered a particular view of disjunctivism and ways of conceiving of disjunctivist treatments to (...) such questions. His work has as its main source of inspiration the seminal work of John McDowell. In this paper, I present a way of understanding the problem ofradicalskepticism and the mannerin which epistemological disjunctivism aimsto offer solutionsto it. In orderto do that, I present McDowell’s general proposal and discuss in which way his account differs from Pritchard’s own disjunctivism. At the end, I try to show how Pritchard’s approach tries to respond to radical skepticism not only by appealing to a disjunctivist reading of our epistemic position, but also by offering a revision of our structure of reasons. (shrink)

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of perceptual (...) intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics. (shrink)

This paper argues that McDowell is right to claim that disjunctivism has anti-sceptical implications. While the disjunctive conception of experience leaves unaffected the Cartesian sceptical challenge, it undermines another type of sceptical challenge. Moreover, the sceptical challenge against which disjunctivism militates has some philosophical urgency in that it threatens the very notion that perceptual experience can acquaint us with the world around us.

At the very least, externalists about content will accept something like the following claim.

This paper undermines a paradigmatic form of sceptical reasoning. It does this by describing, and then dialectically dissolving, the sceptical-independence presumption, upon which that form of sceptical reasoning relies.