Dodd, J orcid.org/0000-0003-1737-7616 (2023) ‘Rails Invisibly Laid to Infinity’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 73 (1). pp. 84-104. ISSN 0031-8094
Abstract
This paper addresses what I call ‘the constitutive question’ concerning the rules we follow: namely, what determines the standard for a rule's correct application. John McDowell has offered a putative ‘middle position’ between two extreme, unacceptable answers: empirical idealism, which takes the requirements of a rule in any given situation to be constituted by our reaction to the case; and hard platonism, which takes these requirements to be delivered by unvarnished reality as absolutely the simplest or most natural way to carry on. Tellingly, however, McDowell's position is itself unacceptably idealist in his picture of the way in which we are ‘involved’ on the right-hand side of biconditionals such as, ‘“Diamonds are hard” is true if and only if diamonds are hard’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Scots Philosophical Association and the University of St Andrews. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of an article published in The Philosophical Quarterly. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | rules, rule-following, Wittgenstein, idealism, platonism, McDowell |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 28 Mar 2022 11:18 |
Last Modified: | 16 May 2024 00:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/pq/pqac012 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:185083 |