McDowell’s new position and the problem of generality: a contribution to Cheng’s analysis on the notion of conceptuality

Abstract

This paper engages with Tony Cheng’s view on John McDowell’s notion of “conceptuality.” In chapter 7 of his John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity, Cheng offers some reasons why one should drop the idea that concepts play a central role in McDowell’s project. According to Cheng, McDowell’s shift from a propositional to a non-propositional view of perceptual content gives one the opportunity to abandon the controversial idea of perceptual experiences having a conceptual nature. McDowell’s new position indeed admits non-conceptual content. However, Cheng’s thesis misses one point. Although he is correct in saying that according to McDowell’s new position, the objects of perceptual experiences no longer exhibit a conceptual nature, McDowell insists that perceptual experiences still involve conceptual contents. In this paper, I argue that McDowell’s distinction between objects and contents of experience is central to his new view on the philosophical nature of perceptual experiences. To show the significance of this distinction, I start with a closer look at the relationship between the so-called “Travis-McDowell Debate” and McDowell’s more recent reading of Kant. Pace Cheng, I then argue that the contents of experience are still conceptual, according to McDowell, for the particular cases of experience and the general ways for things to be have the same grammar. In the end, I present some obstacles to McDowell’s idea that generalities can figure in particular cases of experience. More than a critique, I aim to give a contribution to Cheng’s discussions on the notion of “conceptuality.”