Conceptual schemes, we are told, are ways of organizing experience; they are systems of categories that give form to the data of sensation; they are points of view from which individuals, cultures, or periods survey the passing scene. — On the very idea, p.1
What would Davidson's criticism of this be? Basically, he would say that I've overstepped in claiming that a spider has a conceptual scheme. In order to know for sure, I'd need to go beyond the human format and somehow come to know what spiders experience. But this is the very thing I've said I can't do, so I'd have to contradict myself. Davidson would say that by the time I've verified that spiders actually have experiences different from my own, I will have destroyed scheme-content duality. — frank
The basic idea in Davidson's paper is fairly straight forward. That folk have different points of view can make sense only if there is some common framework from which we might notice the difference. But if we have such a common framework, then by that very fact, aren't we working in the same conceptual scheme? Doesn't the difference now become that of a disagreement within a conceptual scheme, and not between conceptual schemes? — Banno
Davidson would say that by the time I've verified that spiders actually have experiences different from my own, I will have destroyed scheme-content duality. — frank
The basic idea in Davidson's paper is fairly straight forward. That folk have different points of view can make sense only if there is some common framework from which we might notice the difference. But if we have such a common framework, then by that very fact, aren't we working in the same conceptual scheme? Doesn't the difference now become that of a disagreement within a conceptual scheme, and not between conceptual schemes?
And if that is the case, then any plurality of conceptual schemes reduces to at most one. — Banno
Our beliefs are tested against the world, not against competing conceptual schemes. — Banno
Excellent OP. — Banno
Our beliefs are tested against the world, not against competing conceptual schemes. — Banno
In other words, I don't think I have to prove that spiders have experiences before I can tentatively believe that they're incommensurable to mine. Do I? — frank
Again, that looks to be more than Davidson is saying. While some of our beliefs are caused, it does not follow that they all are. The belief in that pain in your back is not a rational deduction. But go ahead.Davidson has been criticized for rejecting any rational influence of the world on our beliefs. — frank
Well, ↪Pierre-Normand's AI starts off by talking about "raw sensory data" in. a way which is not found in the article. Looks to be a confabulation, again. — Banno
I read through your conversation with the LLM about Davidson vs McDowell in the thread you linked. From the little I know of Davidson's work I had formed the opinion that the idea that experience is always already interpreted is central to his philosophy. If that is the case, I am not seeing how his view differs in any important way from McDowell's.
Any ideas? — Janus
But that's because Davidson conceives of the content of experience as the contents of (conceptually informed) belief states that are somehow caused to occur in an individual by the world. The whole thrust of McDowell's Mind and World (which is the reprinting of his 1991 John Locke Lectures) is to thread a middle path between a conception (like Quine's) where the empirical source of our beliefs (the "irritations of our nerve endings") resides outside of the sphere of the conceptual, but cause events within that sphere (in the form of intentional attitudes that are "Given", as Sellars would put it) and a conception like Davidson's where empirical contents reside within that sphere, and aren't "Given" in the Sellarsian sense, but still are caused by the world to occur in a non-normative fashion that makes them unsuitable for grounding empirical beliefs, according to McDowell. — Pierre-Normand
For instance, I agree with anthropologists that agriculture brought about changes in human life that would represent a shift in conceptual schemes related to the passage of time and the idea of home. — frank
The problem I see is that if our experience of the world is always already interpreted, and we acknowledge that we are being affected pre-cognitively by the world, and we refer to what we cognize as 'the world', then it seems that when we speak of the world we are not speaking unequivocally. — Janus
Where is the problem, though? If our epistemology is Cartesian and representationalist, then "The World" is what it is regardless of the manner in which we conceive it to be and it is also forever hidden behind a veil of perceptions. — Pierre-Normand
Our disagreements about the world don't stem from an inability to agree on what it is "in itself" but rather are manifestations of our willingness to negotiate how it is that we can most perspicuously define it in relation to us and us in relation with it. — Pierre-Normand
Well, if we are always and only working with and within the always interpreted world that would seem to dispel any significant difference between Davidson's and McDowell's positions. Within that interpreted world we inhabit and understand there would seem to be no problem regarding the rationality of our judgements, at least when it comes to empirical matters. — Janus
The idea that Davidson would deny that some of our beliefs might be the product of ratiocination is absurd. — Banno
Davidson denies, as the third dogma of empiricism, that a distinction can be maintained between a conceptual component and an empirical component; between supposed objective and a subjective aspects of knowledge. — Banno
You might be. I think the discussion should be somewhat broader.We were talking specifically about empirical judgements and their justification. — Pierre-Normand
Of course it is an expression of his conception of belief. How could it be one and not the other? That would be to reintroduce the scheme - content dualism he rejects. He denies that there is a place for experience in our knowledge apart from our beliefs. There can be no "pure experience" separate from our ratiocinations; any empirical judgements already have the whole web of belief "built in". If McDowell seeks to seperate out again the experience from the judgement, he is a long way from Davidson.Davidson's claim that experiences cause agents to acquire beliefs is an expression of his conception of empirical experience, not belief. — Pierre-Normand
Of course it is an expression of his conception of belief. How could it be one and not the other? That would be to reintroduce the scheme - content dualism he rejects. He denies that there is a place for experience in our knowledge apart from our beliefs. There can be no "pure experience" separate from our ratiocinations; any empirical judgements already have the whole web of belief "built in". If McDowell seeks to seperate out again the experience from the judgement, he is a long way from Davidson. — Banno
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