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Full Idea
The world's impressions on our senses are already possessed of conceptual content.
Gist of Idea
Sense impressions already have conceptual content
Source
John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], I.6)
Book Ref
McDowell,John: 'Mind and World' [Harvard 1996], p.18
A Reaction
This is a key idea of McDowell's, which challenges most traditional empiricist views, and (maybe) offers a solution to the rationalist/empiricist debate. His commitment to the 'space of reasons' strikes me as an optional extra.
| 8128 | Representation must be propositional if it can give reasons and be epistemological [McDowell, by Burge] |
| 19092 | There is no pure Given, but it is cultured, rather than entirely relative [McDowell, by Macbeth] |
| 8253 | Sense impressions already have conceptual content [McDowell] |
| 8254 | Forming concepts by abstraction from the Given is private definition, which the Private Lang. Arg. attacks [McDowell] |
| 8251 | The logical space of reasons is a natural phenomenon, and it is the realm of freedom [McDowell] |