June 20, 2012

McDowell and the Challenge of Skepticism – I

It is the apparent insurmountable divide between our thoughts and external reality, the outer and inner regions of our existence that underlies the very persistency of skepticism about the external world. We’re left with a chasm that makes our seemless interactions with the world unjustified and ineffable. The gap between the mind and the world, epistemology and metaphysics, has been so pronounced and problematic since Descartes that it threatens a complete “loss of the world”[1] and puts the very foundation of epistemology on very shaky grounds. The move to undermine this skeptical foundation is not to bridge the gap, but show it lacking in the first place, which demands a different conception of the inner space. The subject cannot be confined to the inner recesses of her own psyche and be in touch with facts as the mind and world interpenetrate. The attempt to integrate the mind and world is supposed to undermine the skeptical consequence of free-standing and autonomous inner realm unresponsive and out of touch with the world. And the account of naïve realism is supposed to leave the world open to us in a way that undermines skeptical motivation that can only grow in dualistic ground and divide between the subject and the external world.

So the problem is rooted in the Cartesian conception of the inner space which can stand independently of the external reality and the divide that ensues by allowing the total separation between the internal and external realms, the possibility of which forms the very ground in which skeptical doubts can sprout. What supports this conception, according to McDowell is the ‘highest common factor’ conception, which implies an interface that closes us off from direct access to the world, and insulated internalism of reason along with the infallibility and transparency of the subjective sphere. We will look at his treatment and argument regarding each.

McDowell’s Diagnosis of Skepticism

MC’s diagnosis of skepticism is that it “expresses an inability to make sense of the idea of direct perceptual access to objective facts about the environment.”[2] He attributes this to the Argument From Illusion that seems to cut us short of the fact even in the best possible scenarios. Since even in genuine cases of perception there is no direct access to facts obtaining objectively, there can be no justification for our beliefs about the external world and therefore any knowledge of objective reality.

McDowell does not attempt a direct answer to skepticism, rather he sees his task as dislodging the prop on which it stands; the prop being that because experience cannot reveal reality to us, i.e., how things are, it cannot provide the grounding for justification of our perceptual claims.[3] So one of the pillars on which the skeptical claim rests, in McDowell’s view, is the untenability of external facts being directly available to the subject, a view which he attempts to disabuse the skeptics of in presentation of his Disjunctive Conception.

In response to Wright’s charge that he refuses “to take skepticism seriously,” he states: “We take skepticism seriously by removing the prop, thereby entitling ourselves to join common sense in refusing to bother with the skeptical scenarios”[4] and suggests that it would be wrong to “attempt direct answers,” while citing Stroud: “the worst thing one can do with the traditional question about our knowledge of the world is to try to answer it.”[5] Rather to avoid “begging questions against skepticism,” he wants to “invert the order” of the argument and change their “tendentious ground rules.”[6] He states: “the thing to do is not to answer the skeptic’s challenges, but to diagnose their seeming urgency as deriving from a misguided interiorization of reason.”[7] For McDowell, the Cartesian mistake is construing the “space of reasons”[8] as merely internal where a satisfactory standing requires a “favor from the world.”[9] And in presenting his version of direct realism, he tries to undermine the skeptical foothold on which it stands, which can only be maintained as long as there is a possibility of real and permanent division between the mind and world with the conception of the inner realm as an autonomous and self-sufficient space of existence. This underlies a motivation for his integration of thought and world and direct access to the external reality which makes possible the idea that the world is, in fact, open to us in experience and a real divide between them untenable.

He states: “When someone has a fact made manifest to him the obtaining of the fact contributes to his epistemic standing on the question. But the obtaining of the fact is precisely not blankly external to his subjectivity, as it would be if the truth about that were exhausted by the highest common factor.”[10] However, the challenge that this poses for him along with his version of direct realism and “openness to the world”[11] is that although the fact might be experientially available, it still remains phenomenally inaccessible to the subject.  So that the world being perceptually manifest does not entail knowledge that the subject is aware of and therefore a justification that would satisfy a skeptic. The highest common factor might give us only appearances, and the fact being present in experience might technically make it the case that it is “not blankly external”[12] to subjectivity, but what makes it difficult to digest is its incongruity (at least on the surface) with subjective indistinguishability in so far as the subject’s ability to know and discern is concerned. One also wonders what is meant by “epistemic standing” here. As the juxtaposition of the notion of “unmediated openness” [13] to the world, which suggests that truth is not external to the subject along with subjective indistinguishability gives us pause.

McDowell asks: “What does entitle one to claim that one is perceiving that things are thus and so, when one is so entitled? The fact that one is perceiving that things are thus and so.”[14] The fact itself entitles us, he insists, the direct access to the things being “thus and so.” A good epistemic standing requires a favor from the world, i.e., being in contact with the objective fact. But is direct access to the fact enough when it is not recognized by the subject as such? This is the crux of the difficulty and contention between McDowell and skeptics, in my view. (Wright also makes a point about this in his rejoinder to McDowell) He also states: “Of facts to the effect that things seem thus and so to one, we might say, some are cases of things that seem thus and so within the reach of one’s subjective access to the external world, whereas others are mere appearances.”[15] Again in view of his statement regarding “subjective access,” we are compelled to ask about his conception of the subjective configuration in light of subjective indistinguishability. Is it something that is not contained to the phenomenology, which is consciously recognizable by the subject and therefore outside one’s cognitive reach?  But in that case, it hardly meets the internalist justification criterion of it being “subjectively” available. In conjunction with SI, this can only make sense if he is employing a different understanding of the terms subjectivity as well as the internal-external, which we will come to see later in his discourse in Mind & World. But whether it would be enough to supply the internalist justification or allay skeptical doubts will still have to be determined. For now it is sufficient to indicate that the notion of the “subjective” seems to be quite different from the traditional usage of that term.

The issue might be more easily pointed out with an example that he gives of seeing a zebra: “My ability to recognize the zebra and to know that I’m seeing are both fallible. But if there is a zebra in front of me and conditions are favorable and I use my ability (though it is fallible) – then I can see it and know that I do.”[16] It is the last phrase: “and know that I do” that remains contentious as it is a claim not easily justifiable without eliminating all possibility of deceptions. It entails knowing all the conditions pertaining to the experience that make or won’t make it so, i.e., veridical vs. non-veridical. This also brings us close to the question of whether the possibility and condition of fallibility has to preclude knowledge. McDowell, himself sees it as a good idea to sever the link between the two.[17]

While he does not deny the common phenomenal elements shared between perception as well as hallucination and illusion, he argues that subjective and phenomenal indiscernibility does not constitute identical experiences because the fact of experience is not exhausted by its phenomenology. So although McDowell concedes subjective indistinguishability, he rejects the highest common factor conception that denies the difference of epistemic value between the two categories of experiences by reducing them to their common features. However, regardless of their common epistemic elements that yields them indiscernible from the subject’s point of view, he finds it a mistake to take that to be the whole truth about the experiences since one entails a direct access to the factual state of affairs in the world (in veridical cases) and the other what merely appears to be so. In other words, their identical phenomenal features do not make them “through and through the same.”[18] So the highest common factor conception can only be sustained on the possibility of an autonomous inner space that is cut off from the world, which exhausts its truth in subjective infallibility.

The infallibility of subjective realm itself cuts it off from the world so that the truth of a genuine perception becomes “externally blank,” but the whole truth cannot be contained in the internal realm that is transparent and also sustains a phenomenal indiscernibility in relation to the fact. So the fact present to the experiences cannot be wholly contained in their common subjective components as the highest common factor conception suggests since the whole of experience is not present internally without a cooperation from the world. The problem with highest common factor is that all we have are appearances that we can never get beyond, which is insufficient to give us any basis for warrant or justification. And since the commonality of our experiences (in both veridical and non-veridical cases) obtains with or without the external objective reality behind it, we cannot have warranted beliefs about the external world. But McDowell’s response to this Argument From Illusion (as just stated) is that rather than accepting that in veridical cases we are only encountering mere appearances that interpose themselves between the subject and the world (facts) as in deceptive cases, we should “insist that the appearance that is presented to one is a matter of the fact itself being disclosed to the experience.”[19] In veridical scenarios the “object of experience is the fact”[20], whereas in non-veridical cases, the object of experience is a mere appearance. But the highest common factor conception focuses on reducing both to the phenomenal aspect that is consciously perceived by the subject (meaning in both, we have no better than mere appearances), which is what we have without external relations. For McDowell it is not only the content properties shared between veridical and non-veridical cases that are significant but the relational properties to the external reality, which requires the cooperation of the world. He states: “It is not a good idea to suppose that a satisfactory standing in the space of reasons might be part but not the whole of what knowledge is”[21] meaning the satisfactory standing in the space of reasons requires an openness to the world since the whole of knowledge is not contained in the infallible subjective realm. The mental realm that is self-contained is independent of the external reality and does not contain facts about the world and the infallible subjective realm that cannot distinguish between the two categories of experience makes the fact external to it. Yet the fact that is “blankly external” to the subject can hardly be epistemically valuable. Thus the inner realm that is infallible cannot be world-involving since the facts of the external world as to which disjunct obtains do not fall within its transparent domain.[22] The infallibility of the subjective realm can sustain itself only as long as it is cut off from the world as only an independent subjective realm can be infallible. The point here is that the inner realm is infallible as far as its own region is concerned and with a possible gap between the region of infallibility and that of fallibility, there is the danger of never crossing it and reaching the world.

Disjunctive Conception

But according to McDowell’s Disjunctive Conception, experience either reveals an objective state of affairs or merely seems that way; that is a case of genuine perceptual experience vs. a case of mere appearance. In the latter, the objects of experience are not mere appearances, but the contents of the objective world as facts are directly given in experience without any intermediaries in veridical cases. In genuine cases, the object is the fact, it does not fall short of it.[23] One is directly in contact with the world in which the content of experience is the content of the world and part of the difference includes standing in a certain relation to the external world that is lacking in, e.g., deceptive cases of hallucinations. One can construe this as a metaphysical relation to things that lie outside one’s control since the epistemic relation is the same. For without the epistemic relation being the same there would be no question of deception and fallibility. But for McDowell, epistemic relations entail more than subjective accessibility and the epistemic terrain extends farther than what the subject can consciously recognize.

But how can a justification that is not known to the subject in that involves his or her conscious recognition meet the internalism requirement? After all, McDowell’s account of good epistemic standing requires a favor from the world. So his account fails in a fully internalist’s light. But McDowell is not a pure internalist by any means. Although he advocates a Sellarsian idea that Knowledge “is a certain standing in a space of reasons,”[24] he finds the root of the problem to be the interiorization of reason itself, which involves the extent of its domain.  His position contains both internalist and externalist elements which is also why he contrasts his view with full-blown externalism. In so far as an internalist justification involves reasoning and rational basis for judgment, his account falls into the internalist camp, but his sphere of reasons is not confined to the inner space (in that it also includes external facts) and the (isolated) internal domain of subjective thought alone, rather it extends out to encompass the world and all “thinkable” contents. So his notion of the conceptual space does not limit the mental merely to the domain of the internal that can stand free of the external world. For McDowell, “satisfactory standing in the space of reasons”[25] is standing in a certain relation to the world, which closes the distance between truth and justification.[26]

McDowell also introduces the notion of objective purport to support the idea that the nature of perceptual experience is to present objective reality so it can only make sense in relation or accordance to an objective external world.[27]

“This transcendental argument starts from the fact that perceptual experience at least purports to be of objective reality, and yields the conclusion that we must be able to make sense of the idea of perceptual experience that is actually of objective reality. I have urged that that is enough to undermine a familiar sort of skepticism about knowledge of the external world.”[28]

So to make the notion of objective purport intelligible, we have to conceive of genuine perceptual experiences, which he calls the “epistemically distinguished class of experiences,”[29] that reveal to us things as they are. “If one acknowledges that experiences have objective purport, one cannot consistently refuse to make sense of the idea of experiences in which objective facts are directly available to perception.”[30] The significance of objective purport is that it purports to be of an objective reality, so there has to be some objective reality that it purports to be about (although it doesn’t have to go beyond that). And without the existence and possibility of the veridical experiences, the notion of an objective purport would fail to make sense.

There is a commonsensical force behind his argument here, but is he right?  If our experiences have objective purport, it means that they are supposed to be, or purport to be of objective reality, and so does it make sense that they never reveal objective reality to us and we never have access to it? Our justification lies in the rationality and intelligibility of veridical cases, according to McDowell. It lies in our direct access to the world, which entails the truth, and the fact made manifest. Therefore our perceptual experiences are justified, in general, if they are to be intelligible. But he also states:

“The skepticism I am considering purports to acknowledge that experiences have objective purport, but nevertheless supposes that appearances as such are mere appearances, in the sense that any experience leaves it an open possibility that things are not as they appear.”[31]

So skepticism in question accepts that there are appearances that are supposed to be of some objective reality, but questions our cognitive status regarding any knowledge beyond the appearance as they could always mislead us and be unjustified. Thus the skeptical worry stands. Here it becomes obvious that the concern is that we can never get passed the appearances, which points to subjective indistinguishability, not whether we have veridical or non-veridical cases that Disjunctive Conception is proposing, but the previous step, on which it is based. Even if the highest common factor conception goes further in reducing all cases to the common features and treating them the same way, it is a step too late for the question is not whether we have genuine experiences at all but knowing when we do and when we don’t. However, McDowell uses Disjunctive Conception and objective purport to argue that direct access to facts is enough to give us rational justification to take them as true and veridical.

As we’ve seen thus far, the notion of a “self-contained subjective realm” that is “independent of external reality” is problematic for McDowell and is one of the main sources of problems and misunderstandings that forms the motivation for skepticism. He states: “The fantasy of a sphere within which reason is in full autonomous control is one element in the complex aetiology of this dualism.”[32] The gap between the inner and outer does not merely create epistemic challenges for the subject, but it cuts him or her off from the world. Since regardless of the veracity of our beliefs in relation to what in fact obtains externally, our mind cannot reach out to contain the world. However the inner and outer cannot stand independently of each other as the outer impinges itself on the inner and feeds its content. McDowell wants to undermine the concept of the subjective independency and infallibility that emphasizes a gulf between the Cartesian inner and outer space, maintains skepticism and creates an epistemic wedge between the subjective and the objective domains by showing the untenable inseparability of the two realms. It is this independency that inevitably leads to darkness according to McDowell that is void of empirical content. Thus he sees the withdrawal of reason into the autonomy of inner space as one of the main sources of growth for skeptical doubts and wants to give “the idea of something that is both interiorized and still recognizably the space of reasons a run for its money.”[33] He states: “The inward retreat of the mind undermines the idea of a direct openness to the world, and thereby poses the traditional problems of knowledge about ‘external’ reality in general.[34]

The Cartesian view of the mind and the self-contained inner space opens the door to skepticism because it forms a divide between the mind and the world that can never be satisfactorily crossed – drifting the inner and outer realms so far apart that threatens “the loss of the world”[35] regardless of the veracity of our beliefs about it; “the mind never reaches as far as the world.”[36] If the subjective realm is infallible and transparent, it stands independent of external reality. But “If inner truths can be known infallibly then they themselves cannot be world-involving.”[37] So he argues that if the subjective realm is infallible yet has no infallible access to the state of the world as is, regarding which disjunct holds, it cannot be self-sufficient. Thus we cannot have a good epistemic standing in space of reasons without some help from the world, hence the misguidedness of its interiorization.[38] The inner realm that is thoroughly independent and infallible is unresponsive to and disengaged from an external reality; it is cut off from it. And Without the interaction and input from the objective world the appearances cannot be contentful but merely vacuous. But for an external world skeptic, “world-involving” already assumes a world. Is a self-standingly sufficient subjective realm tenable? Or is the idea only unintelligible when an external world is already assumed? 

The Cartesian picture and scientific naturalism are at the root cause of the separation and dualistic conception of the subjective sphere and the objective world, according to McDowell. In his Mind & World, he sets out to integrate and reconcile these two spheres and show them as interpenetrating. The problem that modern science and traditional epistemology have set before us is the unbridgeable gap between the two realms, advanced and entrenched with Descartes’ conception of the subjective sphere and scientific conception of nature. And the growing conception of scientific naturalism has propelled the Cartesian divide to the point where the mind has lost its place in the world.

To rehabilitate a cognitive misconception about the independence of the subjective and the extent of the natural, he presents his own account that steers clear of a reductionist view of nature (bald naturalism) on the one hand as well as a fully withdrawn view of the interior (Rampant Platonism) on the other.[39] McDowell’s theory of justification takes interesting turns that culminates in his attempt to unite the two irreconcilable realms of our existence, one of the most intractable issues in philosophy most saliently since Descartes, which forms the central thread running through his book: “Mind and World.”[40] That is to weave the mind and world back together where reason and nature are not antithetical but part of each other and inextricably intertwined. For his theory to be a viable epistemic view he has to overcome the dualistic frame of mind and world as well as reason and nature. So he goes beyond the opposing views of the Myth of the Given and Coherentism and joins the Kantian faculties of receptivity and spontaneity, loci of sensory intuitions and concepts as well as sensibility and understanding, based on the idea that experience is already concept-laden.[41] Only construing experience as fully conceptualized which places it in the space of reasons can provide the rational relations necessary for justification (p4).[42] For “justification must travel along the paths of conceptual relations.”[43] To that aim, one of the main tasks is to show that perceptual experiences are conceptualized and thus lie within the sphere of reasons and concepts, which knows no boundary.

Reconciling the Mind & World

The central theme of his book Mind and World is that the “concepts mediate the relation between minds and the world” [44] where he expounds on the role and extent of operation of our conceptual capacities in experience and their pivotal part in our justificatory status as subjects of experience. His attempt at justification is to go beyond the endless and unsatisfactory oscillation between two dominant opposing views and their failure to supply us with the justificatory grounding we need.[45] Both Coherentism and the Myth of the Given (foundationalism) fall short of the justificatory desideratum in epistemology for McDowell as he finds the latter inadequate in providing the rational link between our sensibility and beliefs, and the former carries the danger of cutting us off from the world and becoming a “frictionless spinning in a void.” [46]

He believes that the space of reasons is the space of conceptual relations and only concepts can hold rational relations to each other, thus what is outside the conceptual sphere cannot play a rational role in the structure and formulation of our judgments.[47] So the notion of the Given as “bare presence,” and non-conceptual is “useless for its purpose”[48] since it cannot provide the grounding relations for our thoughts about our experiential input.[49] The given that is non-conceptual can put constraints on our thoughts and give us immunity from blame, but not justification, for it merely exerts a brute influence on our thoughts where good reasoning requires freedom, which a mere causal basis does not provide.[50] Justification requires that our sensibility be conceptually infused, less the relation between the sensory components of our experiences and our beliefs about those inputs would be less than rational.[51] Without the conceptual relations necessary for a rational belief-forming process, the chain of events that links the sensory processes of our sensibility to the judgment and propositional attitudes that we subsequently come to hold regarding those sensory impressions would merely play a causal role. And for our thoughts and empirical intuitions to bear on reality and reveal it, they must have some constraint from the outside world.[52]

On the one hand the myth of the given only provides a causal link rather than a rational one, a mere exculpation “where we wanted justification”[53] as extra-conceptual elements cannot play a justificatory role in forming of our beliefs. On the other hand, Coherentism lacks an anchoring locus or grounding for our beliefs to ensure the content of empirical thought and therefore cannot stand both as reflective and independent of outer reality.[54] So to help us retreat (and be free) from the seesaw effect of going back and forth between the Given and Coherentism and their failure to ensure both the rational basis as well as the independence of the world, McDowell offers a third option[55], central to which is the idea that experience is conceptualized[56], built on the Kantian insight: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”[57]

McDowell posits that “The content of experience is conceptual.”[58] and that empirical experiences are the result of a close interplay of sensibility and understanding. Our sensory impressions are conceptually infused making our faculties of receptivity and spontaneity and their operations so closely linked as to make the separation of concepts and intuitions unfeasible.[59] The notion of the Given as raw materials of perception is inseparable from the operation of the Kantian faculty of spontaneity so it is not presented independently of its activity and contains conceptual elements that rationally relates them to active judgments in the conceptual sphere. However, conceptual capacities do not become active in understanding to operate on some “bare presence” or non-conceptual given, but are active in the very operation of sensibility and reception of sensory impressions. [60]

To avoid the pitfalls of both the Given and Coherentism the proper balance of constraint and freedom from the external world is required. Mere brute causation of beliefs from experience seems to eliminate freedom and obviate any exercise of rationality. Thus good reasoning and justification require freedom of choice otherwise the notion of being responsible and blame-worthy for our beliefs would not arise. However, the freedom is operative in our judgments and not the world presented to us in sensibility so the passive conceptualization of sensory input is beyond our choice. The choice enters with the active formation of the belief and not the passive reception of worldly content, although both involve the conceptual operation of spontaneity. Thus the role of concepts is two-fold: passive in experience and active in judgments. This way the extent of freedom in conceptual judgment is tempered by constraints from the world through our choiceless reception; and while the passive receptivity gives us the constraint on our thoughts and thinking from the world, the involvement of spontaneity makes that constraint rational.[61] What is given to us without choice is the impingement of the world on our senses, which is nonetheless conceptually informed as to make it conducive to belief formation. So passive receptivity provides the rational constraint from the empirical world that maintains its independence from the subject; it is supposed to allow us to take the world in as it is. But is mere passivity of receptivity adequately indicative of sufficient constraint from an objective and independent world?

McDowell believes that what poses an obstacle to the acceptance and appreciation of his views regarding the conceptualization of experience is due to modern scientific conception of what is natural, which is confined solely to the realm of law. The scientific view of the world has permanently divided our perceptual and conceptual faculties; it has contributed to the narrow conception of what falls within the natural domain and alienation of reason and mind from the world. McDowell’s type of naturalism, in contrast, requires a broadening of our understanding of the sphere of nature with respect to the realm of law; the former is not limited to the latter or exhausted by it as science delineates but includes it. It is this narrow conception that has led us to the predicament about the place and role of the mind in nature and the world, which has become the core of epistemological problem and philosophy of mind since the time of Descartes. Our sensibility is a natural faculty shared by animals, but our conceptual faculty is an outgrowth of evolution as part of our (Aristotelian) second nature, which has become alienated from nature itself because it falls outside the sphere of law.[62] By acquisition of our second nature as rational animals through development and evolution, the expansion of our conceptual reservoir plays a more extensive role in our capacity to acquire beliefs, which is the extent of conceptualization we bring to bear on our experiences – the expansion of our space of reasons that has been developed beyond the mere passive sensory experiences of animals. And for humans to be part of nature yet maintain their freedom of will and responsibility of beliefs, the integration of nature and reason is imperative.

McDowell’s exposition on the “unboundedness of the conceptual” and lack of an outer boundary to the conceptual sphere has attracted the charge of idealism as he states: “The conceptual is unbounded; there is nothing outside it.”[63] For otherwise, what is could not be perceived and would be closed to us in thought.  He walks a fine line with a difficult and ambitious project when he says: “My point is to insist that we can effect this deletion of the outer boundary without falling into idealism, without slighting the independence of reality.”[64]

In response to the concern that if sense experience is itself permeated and infused by spontaneity, how can the specter of idealism be averted, McDowell appeals to the passivity of experience to secure the independence of the world from our conceptual participation in experience. Our faculty of receptivity, though fully concept-laden,is passively so to ensure the independence of the world from the perceiving subject. So although the sensory material is conceptually processed and cognized, it is a passive reception in which the active conceptualization of judgment is grounded allowing access to the independent external reality. He rejects pure Coherentism with its lack of sufficient external constraints precisely to avoid idealism. For concepts must embrace the world or they become void of empirical content.[65]

Part of his/McDowell’s response is also to delineate the act of thinking from the content of thought. Thought can be understood both as act and content. It’s not that our thinking is superimposed on the world, but that the world can be embraced in thought. He makes a distinction between the sphere of thinking and the “sphere of thinkable content” and draws no boundary for the latter. So although we can point outside the sphere or act of thinking, we cannot point outside the “sphere of thinkable content” or space of concepts.[66] “The constraint comes from outside thinking, but not from outside what is thinkable.”[67] Thinkable contents are bits of sensibility that become bits of understanding. They are what can be captured in thought through the operations of receptivity, which supplies the material for the faculty of spontaneity in the act of thinking. There is some constraint from the world in passive reception of sensory input even if it registers in conceptual cloaking. But the question is can we keep them separate? What is received through receptivity is sensory impressions in conceptual clothing so that we have no control over what is presented. But can we draw a line between the process and its results or control the process itself? The conceptual framing is part of one’s conceptual repertoire and networking capability so that regardless of the constraints from the external, the manner of processing is a contribution of the subject, which is where, I think, lies the danger of slipping into idealism. What comes through receptivity might be outside thinking and judgment, but not its processing and it is the very extent and quality of the contribution – in the act of processing itself that spontaneity makes, which can cast the shadow of idealism. In other words, can we keep the act and content so neatly/distinctively apart?

Final Deliberations

There are many ideas presented by McDowell, which I appreciate and with which I concur, but there is also some shortcomings in his argument against skepticism. He does not fall into one category or polarity of traditional internalism and externalism or Foundationalism and Coherentism. And in as far as McDowell’s work is an attempt in transcending dualism and integrating dichotomies of thought and matter, mind and world, inner and outer realms is concerned, I’m in complete agreement with his intention. After all, if humans are creatures that grew out of nature and live in it, how can their naturally inherent faculty of reason and mind be anything but natural and part of nature itself. And how can there be any inherent conflict or real division between mind and world if there is to be any interaction at all? In as far as the world contains the mind, so does the mind contain the world and without a real barrier between inner and outer realms, thought is as much part of the world as the world is of thought. And I find it impossible to know where to draw the line between the conceptual and non-conceptual components of our experiences for without the conceptual framework we cannot usefully and coherently process the sensory input that could be constitutive of our judgments about them.

One of the strongest points in his argument, mentioned in passing, with which I fully concur is the “Third Sellarsian idea: “that reality is prior, in the order of understanding, to appearance.”[68] That is the idea of appearances vis-à-vis an interiorized space of reasons isolated from the objective world is unintelligible. For the very notion of appearances fail to make any sense without a reality behind it. Surely an appearance implies something that it is an appearance of and by the same token, the notion of non-veridical case such as hallucination only makes sense against a veridical case and the contrasts of the inner and outer implies an external world already. The concept of a dream can only be intelligible if there is a waking state. This doesn’t imply total or even direct epistemic access, but only its existence at a minimum. It doesn’t answer skepticism in terms of our knowledge about it, only that there is an external reality behind and beyond the perceived at any moment as such.

McDowell presents a coherent and cogent argument, but it does not engage the skeptical concern, most specifically regarding the issue of SI, sufficiently enough to seriously undermine it. While McDowell regards the highest common factor conception as a major source of problem[69], what stands at the root of skepticism seems to be the issue of subjective indistinguishability; it is the main pillar of skeptical views and the basis of motivation for their arguments. And although he concedes the issue, he seems to downplay its significance as nothing more than the case of fallibility. Yet merely construing it as perceptual fallibility does not allay skeptical concern because it is the very nature of that fallibility that can keep us in the dark regarding the state of the external world. So the move from subjective indistinguishability to Disjunctive Conception seems to remain faulty since the latter is only supposed to replace the highest common factor conception. And even if we accept the disjunctive conception over the highest common factor, the problem of subjective indistinguishability still seems to loom over our conception of what it means to be in direct contact with the fact without a conscious cognitive access to it from the epistemic and traditionally subjective vantage point. And without addressing subjective indistinguishability properly, the notion of having direct access to the state of affairs cannot seem to gain its proper weight. The skeptic believes that subjective indistinguishability precludes any warrant regarding our perceptual experiences. So how does direct access help here if it leaves subjective indistinguishability intact short of complete re-conceptualization of the subjective and the sphere of reason? McDowell’s position, on the other hand, is that we can only make sense of the phenomenology of our perceptual experiences, in general, if we take them to be true. The combination of direct access to the facts and objective purport give more weight to the intelligibility and rationality of giving primacy to veridical aspects of our experiences. He believes that notwithstanding subjective indistinguishability, it’s rational to believe that our perceptions put us in touch with the state of actual affairs because our experiences as a whole would not make sense otherwise. It is an emphasis on the underlying logic of phenomenal perception itself rather than how it is presented to us. For McDowell, it is the very function, purpose and intrinsic nature of the phenomenal aspect of experience itself that gives weight to the veracity of our perception. While the skeptics insist that objective purport and having veridical experiences are not the issue, since regardless of the fact, we cannot tell which disjunct obtains at any given point.

For example, supposing I have a faulty eye condition that my doctor has informed me about, which causes me to misperceive things at times, but it is not always active and I won’t know the conditions under which it becomes active, so that I have a good defeasible reason for not believing what I see, (all the time anyway).  But given that I don’t know when the condition is active or not, would that justify me to believe in my visual experiences?  In light of the possibility of defeaters even when we’re unaware of the specific cases in which they are present seems to undermine our justification for relying and believing our perceptions. I could admit that at times I have access to the way things are through genuine visual experiences, but if I can’t know in which cases, am I justified in believing my eyes in general?  The purpose of my eyes is to see, so they have visual purport, but knowing that I’m not able to know when my vision is in accord to things as they are and when they are not at any given time seems to undermine my confidence to form judgments about them.

The skeptical dilemma seems to be at an impasse. Perhaps what is needed to advance this philosophical impasse is defining and reaching some common ground by adopting a radical re-conceptualization and re-thinking of our views regarding subjectivity, nature and the interconnectivity of the inner and outer realms as McDowell suggests. He is quite right in not wanting to start with the ground rules as set by the skeptics and rather wanting to change the order for he’ll never be able to achieve the desired aim. On the other hand, why should the skeptics want to forgo their position? A move from inner space of infallibility to the outer fallibility always seems to pose a problem, a barrier.  But doesn’t any other point seem to already assume an external world? It would seem to depend on one’s starting point and assumptions, whether it is indubitable knowledge and infallibility or assuming the world. Dreaming precludes knowledge and knowledge precludes dreaming, but which comes first?  Since neither camp wants to play with the other’s ground rules, is there a more rational or logical way to choose the starting point and give more priority to one set of rules over another? Or does it come down merely to a matter of common sense or philosophical proclivity? Justification is after all a matter of degree. Does it come down to our predilection for infallibility or psychological security? Perhaps they all play a part, but regardless, the issue still remains and any shortcuts to quell our philosophical worries won’t do.

Michael Huemer states: “half of your epistemic aim is to gain true beliefs. When P seems to you to be true and there are no grounds for doubting it (no defeaters), what more are you looking for? This is as good as it gets.” But that’s exactly what a skeptic would contend he has: “grounds for doubt.” He also states: “Epistemic justification is the kind of justification that is assessed from the standpoint of the pursuit of the truth and the aversion to error.”[70] And asks: “You would not let the mere possibility that P is true suffice for you to accept it, so why let the mere possibility that P is false suffice for you not to accept it?”[71] This statement tends to make both choices equally rational so that it seems to come down to a matter of philosophical preference. If it makes as much sense to believe as to not to believe, it does not do much for any argument against skepticism except in so far as they go against common sense. But is a theory based on common sense enough to undermine skepticism? Or is it a matter of psychology?  Is the skeptic merely negatively motivated in avoiding error as a non-skeptic is seeking psychological security in his pursuit of knowledge?

The Role of Common Sense

Common sense occupies a special place in philosophy; it underpins many philosophical positions such as direct realism. Huemer defines skepticism as “any position that challenges a significant class of common sense beliefs,” which he adds is held only by philosophers and madmen.[72] So it is only appropriate that we inquire a little into its nature and applicability. Is it anything more than a set of acquired experiential and habitual knowledge? And why should it serve as a guide to our philosophical inquiries? One can see that within the realm of societal relations such as ethical relations and pragmatic concerns, it is invaluable. But when it comes to underlying truths and facts about the world, why should it have any weight? After all, it is not a very reliable guide when it comes to the most successful theory in science, viz., quantum physics, in as far as how the physical world operates. So can it be applied to the conditions that contain the rules themselves? It might be meaningfully applied to everything within this world. But everything has a domain of applicability and operates within a framework including common sense. When we are considering the context and domain that comes under philosophical skepticism, we are questioning the very extent to which it is supposed to apply. Can common sense be applied to something that puts the whole of reality in question including common sense? Considering the plausibility of something within an accepted framework is different from doubting the plausibility of the whole framework and skepticism asks about the conditions that underlie that framework, e.g., whether it is an illusion, a dream or direct access to facts as they are. Skepticism about the external world or the infrastructure of our perceptual experiences requires us to step outside of the framework itself, hence the difficulty. Interpreting fallibility within and in light of real objective world whose facts are made available to one is quite different from a fallibility that puts the very existence of a real objective world on line. So when McDowell construes subjective indistinguishability as mere fallibility, it puts it within a framework that is already assumed. The framework being that we exist in an objective reality and have access to it through direct perception.

Perhaps our rationality can extend only in so far as the existence of some external reality is concerned (though not necessarily the one we perceive). For inner to be, there must be an outer; an internal world necessitates an external one. But to make any claims about it, especially in terms of the totality of all our perceptual experiences and the possibility of this so-called external reality being contained in a dream or some illusion, it cannot be approached from within the authority of the perceptual realm itself. So although McDowell’s argument has some logical cogency, it doesn’t necessarily have the force to allay skeptical concerns in that regard. How do we know the entire external reality is not contained within a larger one and we’re not living (being trapped) in the “bad” or illusory side of the disjunct no matter how absurd it may seem to us?  It is conceivable that there may be concentric circles of reality and the most that we can posit is the existence of a larger reality that contains our current one. Even if our external reality is actually an internal one to another larger scheme, all we can posit is an existence of a further circle of being. And the external reality that we seem to experience with our senses can still be obtaining in a way that McDowell suggests and not be blind or empty, but whether or not this is part of a bigger dream and illusion is something that cannot be ascertained without stepping outside the whole sphere of our current experiences – an almost seemingly impossible task. Appearance can only make sense in relation to some reality, so does a dream with respect to a waking state. We may not be able to step out of our own experiences perceptually, but can we stand outside of them logically? And if so, would we be conceding anything more than the Kantian noumena – the possibility of something beyond without any justifiable knowledge?

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