Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-vt8vv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-08-08T00:48:11.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rationality and Engagement: McDowell, Dreyfus and Zidane*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2013

Nicholas H. Smith
Nicholas H. Smith*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, Sydneynicholas.smith@mq.edu.au
Get access

Abstract

The article examines John McDowell's attempt to rehabilitate the classical idea of the rational animal and Hubert Dreyfus's criticisms of that attempt. After outlining the ‘engaged’ conception of rationality which, in McDowell's view, enables the idea of the rational animal to shake off its intellectualist appearance, the objections posed by Dreyfus are presented that such a conception of rationality is inconsistent with the phenomena of everyday coping, characterised by non-conceptual ‘involvement’, and expertise, characterised by non-conceptual ‘absorption’. Drawing on Michael Fried's reflections on the representation of absorption in Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's film Zidane, and invoking other considerations concerning the ‘mindedness’ of skilful activity, the sharp contrast between conceptuality and rationality on the one side and absorption and skilled coping on the other that frames Dreyfus's position in the debate is questioned. The paper concludes by suggesting that in order to see why Dreyfus is so firmly committed to that contrast, we need to widen the lens so that a broader range of philosophical motivations comes into view. For it is not just that there are phenomena that go missing or are mis-described in McDowell's account, according to Dreyfus; there are ideals and excellences that go missing too.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the ‘Engaging McDowell’ conference held in Sydney in July 2010 and the Social Philosophy Kolloquium at Goethe Universität Frankfurt in November 2010. Sincere thanks to those who invited me to speak and gave feedback on those occasions, especially Daniel Loick, David Macarthur, John McDowell, Huw Price, Paul Redding, Titus Stahl, and Frieder Vogelmann. Thanks too to Susan Best and Richard Menary for insightful and encouraging discussions.

References

Brandom, R. (2009), Reason in Philosophy. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennis, P. (2012), ‘Was Heidegger a Conceptualist?’. Ratio 25(1), 108-117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyfus, S. E.Dreyfus, H. L. (1986), Mind Over Machine. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (2007), ‘The Return of the Myth of the Mental’. Inquiry 50: 4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (2007), ‘Response to McDowell’. Inquiry 50: 4.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L. (2007), ‘Detachment, Involvement, and Rationality: are we Essentially Rational Animals?’. Human Affairs 17(2), 101-109.Google Scholar
Dreyfus, H. L.Kelly, S. D. (2011), All Things Shining. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fried, M. (2008), Why Photography Matters as Never Before. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H-G. (1989 [1960]), Truth and Method, trans. J. Weinsheimer and D.G. Marshall. London: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, G. (2011), ‘Unreflective Action and the Argument from Speed’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92: 338-362.Google Scholar
Hammer, E. (ed.) (2007), German Idealism: Contemporary Perspectives. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Haugeland, J. (1998), Having Thought. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M. (1992 [1928]), The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. M. Heim. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Keller, C. M.Keller, J. D. (1996), Cognition and Tool Use: The Blacksmith at Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (1994), Mind and World. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2007), ‘What Myth?’. Inquiry 50: 4.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2007), ‘Response to Dreyfus’. Inquiry 50: 4.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2009), The Engaged Intellect. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McDowell, J. (2009), Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel and Sellars. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962 [1945]), Phenomenology of Perception, trans. C. Smith. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Montero, B. (2010), ‘Does Bodily Awareness Interfere with Highly Skilled Movement?’. Inquiry 53(2), 105-122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinkard, T. (2012), Hegel's Naturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pippin, R. (2008), Hegel's Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rietveld, E. (2010), ‘McDowell and Dreyfus on Unreflective Action’.’ Inquiry 53(2), 183-207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, M. (2004), The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rouse, J. (2000), ‘Coping and its Contrasts’, in M. Wrathall and J. Malpas (eds.), Heidegger, Coping and Cognitive Science. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rouse, J. (2010), ‘What is Conceptually Articulated Understanding?’, available online at https://wesfiles.wesleyan.edu/home/jrouse/DreyMcDPap.doc (downloaded 22/05/2010).Google Scholar
Schear, J. K. (ed.) (2013), Mind, Reason and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Stekeler-Weithofer, P. (2007), ‘Persons and Practices’, in A. Laitinen and H. Ikäheimo (eds.), Dimensions of Personhood. Exeter: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar
Sutton, J. (2007), ‘Batting, Habit and Memory: The Embodied Mind and the Nature of Skill’.’ Sport in Society 10(5), 763-786.Google Scholar