Intentionality and the Myths of the Given : Between Pragmatism and Phenomenology

209 Pages·2015·1.033 MB·English

by  Sachs, Carl B

Studies in American Philosophy
Intentionality and the
Myths of the Given
Carl B. Sachs
INTENTIONALITY AND THE MYTHS OF
THE GIVEN: BETWEEN PRAGMATISM AND
PHENOMENOLOGY
Studies in American Philosophy
Series Editors: Willem deVries
Henry Jackman
Forthcoming Titles
Richard Rorty, Liberalism and Cosmopolitanism
David E. McClean
www.pickeringchatto.com/sap
INTENTIONALITY AND THE MYTHS OF
THE GIVEN: BETWEEN PRAGMATISM AND
PHENOMENOLOGY
by
Carl B. Sachs

PICKERING & CHATTO
2014
Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited
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© Carl B. Sachs 2014
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british library cataloguing in publication data
Sachs, Carl B., author
Intentionality and myths of the given: between pragmatism and phenomenol-
ogy. – (Studies in American philosophy)
1. Intentionality (Philosophy) 2. Sellars, Wilfrid 3. Lewis, Clarence Irving,
1883–1964. 4. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 1908–61
I. Title II. Series
128.2-dc23
ISBN-13: 9781848935075
Web-PDF ISBN: 9781781444788
ePUB ISBN: 9781781444795
∞

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: Why a New Account of Intentionality ? 1
1 Intentionality and the Problem of Transcendental Friction 7
2 Th e Epistemic Given and the Semantic Given in C. I. Lewis 21
3 Discursive Intentionality and ‘Nonconceptual Content’ in Sellars 43
4 Th e Retreat from Nonconceptualism: Discourse and Experience in
Brandom and McDowell 71
5 Somatic Intentionality and Habitual Normativity in Merleau-Ponty’s
Account of Lived Embodiment 101
6 Th e Possibilities and Problems of Bifurcated Intentionality 131
Conclusion 155
Appendix: Is Phenomenology Committed to the Myth of the Given? 157
Works Cited 169
Notes 177
Index 197

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Th e concept behind this book was conceived a long time ago, and has developed
over the last ten years. I fi rst became interested in the general problem of whether
normativity and naturalism could be reconciled. Was it possible, I thought, be
both a Kantian and a Darwinian? My fi rst exploration of that question led to
a sustained interest in Nietzsche, which somehow became a dissertation. Aft er
fi nishing graduate school my research led me fi rst to Dewey and then to Sellars .
Merleau-Ponty , whom I encountered in a seminar led by Fred Olafson in my
fi rst year of graduate school, was never far from my concerns. Th e present work
might be conceived as my Habilitationschrift , and I have many people to thank
for their support and help in bringing it fi nally to full term.
First, my profoundest gratitude to my mentor in all things Sellarsian, Willem
deVries . Bill patiently guided me through every stage of the process, including
encouraging me to write a book in the fi rst place, suggesting that I take it to
Pickering & Chatto for their Studies in American Philosophy series, reading
every chapter with exacting criticisms, and answering every frantic email. We
have fi nally ended up agreeing to disagree on many issues, but I shudder to think
how much worse the book would have been if not for his advice and criticisms.
I would also like to extend my appreciation and thanks to Bill’s co-editor in the
Studies in American Philosophy series, Henry Jackman.
Second, a diff erent kind of gratitude must go to Mark Lance and Bill Blattner
at Georgetown University. Th ey agreed to sponsor me as a Sponsored Researcher
at Georgetown for 2013–14, discussed many ideas with me, and went out of
their way to make me feel included in the department. Mark also read much of
the manuscript and off ered a tremendous amount of criticism and encourage-
ment. Special thanks is also due to Wayne Davis, the chair of the GU philosophy
department, for his role in making my position at GU possible.
Th ird, my philosophical community. As someone who works in the rich
intersections of analytic philosophy, Continental philosophy, and pragmatism , I
am blessed with a wide array of outstanding philosophical interlocutors around
the world. Of them, four deserve special commendation: Maureen Eckert, Steve
Levine, Pete Olen and Aaron Schiller. Maureen patiently listened to every idea I
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viii Intentionality and the Myths of the Given
ever had and constantly pushed me to be both more creative and more rigorous.
Steve introduced me to Sellars in 2007, and I vividly recall an aft ernoon spent
with Steve wandering around Prague in May 2011 where we hashed out the cen-
tral ideas that formed the nucleus of this book. Pete and I have corresponded
regularly about both Lewis and Sellars and I have invariably been impressed
with his forceful criticisms of my views, particularly as they bear on the history
of philosophy. Aaron, with whom Bill and I co-founded the Sellars Society in
2012, introduced me to the work of McDowell when we were graduate students
together. I am in the profoundest debt to all of them, and to many more as well.
Fourth, I would like to thank Stephanie Hutchison for the extraordinary
eff ort and dedication she has shown in closely reading the manuscript for gram-
mar and style, and for her immensely helpful criticisms on how to make the book
more accessible to those not completely immersed in these issues.
Fift h, my heartfelt gratitude to Sophie Rudland, Commissioning Assistant at
Pickering & Chatto for Economics and Philosophy, for her continual feedback
and support, for gently keeping me on deadline (more or less), and for her role in
guiding the miraculous transformation of the manuscript into a book.
Lastly, my parents, who generously agreed to support me while living in
Washington, D.C. Without their uncompromising love and support, I would
never have dared to become a philosopher and would never have dared to write
this book. To my mother Kathie Beck Sachs, who has the heart of a poet, and
my father Donald H. Sachs, who has the mind of a psychologist, this book is
lovingly dedicated.
Th e following chapters and sections draw upon material from my previously
published works:
Chapter 4, section 2: ‘McDowell’s Transcendental Empiricism’ draws upon
both C. Sachs, ‘Th e Shape of a Good Question: McDowel, Evolution, and Tran-
scendental Philosophy’, Th e Philosophical Forum, 42:1 (2011), pp. 61–78, and
C. Sachs, ‘Resisting the Disenchantment of Nature: McDowell and the Ques-
tion of Animal Minds’, Inquiry, 55:2 (2012), pp. 131–47.
Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, section 1: ‘Myths of the Given and Transcendental
Friction’ both draw upon C. Sachs, ‘Discursive and Somatic Intentionality: Mer-
leau-Ponty contra “Sellars or McDowell”’, International Journal of Philosophical
Studies, 22:2 (2014), pp. 199–227.
INTRODUCTION: WHY A NEW ACCOUNT OF
INTENTIONALITY?
Looking back on what is now canonized as ‘twentieth-century philosophy’, it is
tempting to think that ‘the problematic of intentionality’ is a persistent preoc-
cupation, oft en implicit even where it is not made explicit. Many of the most
prominent philosophers on both sides of the Atlantic devoted themselves to
such questions as, what is the ‘aboutness’ of thought and perception ? How can
anything material or physical exhibit intentional states? Can intentional states
be modeled or duplicated on a machine? What about animals and babies? Th e
problem of intentionality made its appearance for the twentieth century with
Franz Brentano, was refi ned and reformulated by major fi gures of both ‘analytic’
(Ryle, Chisholm, Sellars , Brandom, Dennett) and ‘Continental’ persuasions
(Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty ), and has continued today as a central
focus of discussion about ‘naturalism’ and its limits. While a few prominent
philosophers (such as Richard Rorty) have denied that intentionality marks out
anything ontologically, epistemologically, or methodologically distinctive, it is
fair to say that most philosophers have been unable to fully dispense with the
suspicion, or ‘intuition’, that there has got to be something to the notion of inten-
tionality .
While I share this intuition, I would not seek to ground any argument as to
the limits of ‘naturalism’ in an account of intentionality ; on the contrary, I have
no reason to deny that ‘intentionality’ cannot be fully ‘naturalized’ – provided
a satisfactory account of intentionality and of naturalism . But I submit that our
grasp on the notions of ‘intentionality’ and ‘naturalism’ is not yet fi rm enough
– at least, not if the fi rmness of our grasp of these notions is measured by the
degree of consensus about what exactly it is that is contentious. In the following
pages I attempt to explicate and defend a new account of intentionality that is,
while not ‘naturalistic’ in a straightforward sense, at least fully naturalizable , in a
sense to be carefully specifi ed.
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