Mc Dowell And Davidson
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- Mc Dowell’s Problem with Davidson*
In the seminar last week Bruin mentioned that no-one seems to have a clear idea of what it actually is about Davidson’s position that Mc Dowell has a problem with. I think I have at least some idea (although it seems a little obvious - but at least it will provide a starting point for further discussion/investigation).
McDowell’s objection to Davidson seems to hinge upon Rawls’ description of Davidson’s response to the “brain in a vat” thought experiment. Apparently, Davidson was of the opinion that under his conception of the relation between mind and world, nothing would change is it turned out that we were just brains in vat being fed electrical impulses that simulate sense impressions of the external world. For Mc Dowell this is unacceptable, he wants any account of the relation between mind and world to enable us to be sensitive to changes in the underlying nature of reality.
Perhaps an example might help me make my point clear: suppose that there is a mind independent reality that is just the way it seems to be (chairs exist independently of us and are ” Chair - Like“, etc.). Next, suppose that I go to sleep tonight and whilst asleep someone sedates me, removes my brain, places it in a vat and hooks me up to the exciting new”world-computer” which exactly replicates all the impressions I would have were I still in the “real” world. Under Davidson’s account this fundamental change in my account would not be noticeable to me. It is this aspect of Davidson’s account that is unacceptable to Mcc Dowell - for him, we cannot be floating free of the nature of the world even in this minimal sense.
What is slightly confusing is McDowell’s apparent endorsement of Davidson’s “truth-ensuring” argument (on page 13 of lecture I believe). I take this to mean that he agrees that Davidson’s argument is valid and gets us the truth of our impressions (most of the time anyway). However, he does not think that it gets us any guarantee of the truth of the underlying nature of the world being as it appears.
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