An Aesthetic Grounding for the Role of Concepts in Experience in Kant, Wittgenstein and Mcdowell

• Authors: Tim Thornton
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The paper begins by asking, in the context of McDowell's Mind and World, what guides empirical judgement. It then critically examines David Bell's account of the role of aesthetic judgement, or experience, in Kant and Wittgenstein, in shedding light on empirical judgement. Bell's suggestion that a Wittgensteinian account of aesthetic experience can guide the application of empirical concepts is criticised: neither the discussion of aesthetic judgement nor aesthetic experience helps underpin empirical judgement. But attention to the parallel between Wittgenstein's discussion of understanding rules and the question of how empirical concepts can be applied to particulars suggests how to dissolve the felt need for an answer. This in turn helps shed light on McDowell's conceptualist account of experience.

Keywords

EN

aesthetics; Bell, David; experience; Kant, Immanuel; Wittgenstein, Ludwig; Mcdowell, John

• Publisher: Akademia Ignatianum w Krakowie
• Journal: Forum Philosophicum
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 227-245

Dates

published

2007

Contributors

author

Tim Thornton

• University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

References

• Bell, David. “The Art of Judgment.” Mind 96 (1987): 221–244.
• Barrett, Cyril, Margaret Paton and Harry Blocker. “Wittgenstein and Problems of Objectivity in Aesthetics.” British Journal of Aesthetics 7, no. 2 (1967): 158–174.
• Brandom, Robert B. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
• Caygill, Howard. The Art of Judgment. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
• Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan 1929.
• Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment. Edited by Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987.
• Kripke, Saul A. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Oxford: Blackwell, 1982.
• McDowell, John. Mind and World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
• McDowell, John. Mind. Value and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
• Mulhall, Stephen. On Being in the World. London: Routledge, 1990.
• Osboume, Harold. “Wittgenstein on Aesthetics.” British Journal of Aesthetics 6, no. 4 (1966): 385–390.
• Slater, Hartley. “Wittgenstein's Aesthetics.” British Journal of Aesthetics 23, no. 1 (1983): 34–37. doi:10.1093/bjaesthetics/23.1.34.
• Thornton, Tim. John McDowell. Chesham: Acumen, 2004.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1953.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955.
• Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978.

Identifiers

DOI

10.5840/forphil20071222

URI

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31609801&lang=pl&site=ehost-live

URI

http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2007_0012_0002_0227_0245