Why Does the Conceptualism/Nonconceptualism Debate Come to an End for McDowell?

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to show that the conceptualism/nonconceptualism debate does not matter in the direction suggested by McDowell's current position. In section 1 I introduce the distinction between perception and judgment that is the premise of conceptualism. I then present three interpretations (content, state, and capacity) of perceptual experience as “conceptual”. Section 2 takes up McDowell's later article “Avoiding the Myth of the Given”, in which he makes the substantive change. In section 3, I show that the conceptualism debate should not be taken seriously, by pointing to “the capacity view” presented by McDowell as a Disjunctivist and his successors, according to which the distinction between perception and judgment disappears.