McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition

Daniel Martin Feige, Thomas J. Spiegel, Daniel Martin Feige, Thomas J. Spiegel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032323022
• eBook ISBN: 9781003829348
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This volume explores the connections between John McDowell's philosophy and the hermeneutic tradition. The contributions not only explore the hermeneutical aspects of McDowell's thought but also ask how this reading of McDowell can inform the hermeneutical tradition itself.

John McDowell has made important contributions to debates in epistemology, metaethics, and philosophy of language, and his readings of Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein have proved widely influential. While there are instances in which McDowell draws upon the work of hermeneutic thinkers, the hermeneutic strand of McDowell's philosophy has not yet been systematically explored in depth. The chapters in this volume open up a space in which to read McDowell himself as a hermeneutic thinker. They address several research questions: How can McDowell's recourse to the hermeneutical tradition be understood in detail? Besides Gadamer, does McDowell's work implicitly convey and advance motives from other seminal figures of this tradition, such as Heidegger and Dilthey? Are there aspects of McDowell's position that can be enhanced through a juxtaposition with central hermeneutic concepts like World, Tradition, and Understanding? Are there further, perhaps yet unexplored aspects of McDowell's infl uences that ought to be interpreted as expressing hermeneutic ideas?

McDowell and the Hermeneutic Tradition will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in American philosophy, Continental philosophy, hermeneutics, history of philosophy, philosophy of language, and epistemology.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 The Quiet Hermeneutics of John McDowell
• 2 On Recognizing and Bridging the Gap Between “Analytic” and “Continental” Philosophy
• 3 Precariousness and the Situated Space of Reasons
• 4 McDowell’s Theory of Perceptual Experience and the Rapprochement Between Hermeneutics and Cognitive Sciences
• 5 Liberalizing Second Nature: McDowell, Dilthey, and the Sociality of Reason
• 6 Second Nature, Hermeneutics, and Objective Spirit
• 7 Gadamer According to McDowell, McDowell According to Gadamer: A Meditation on Some Common Themes
• 8 Indeterminate Life: Themes of a Hermeneutical Anthropology in Gadamer and McDowell
• 9 Coming Full Circle: Experience, Tradition, and Critique in Gadamer and McDowell
• 10 McDowell and the Hermeneutic Approach to the History of Philosophy
• 11 The Fragility of Reflection and the Spectrum of Nature: McDowell, Brandom, and the Debate Between Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
• Index