Giuseppina D'Oro

The Myth of Collingwood's Historicism

Abstract This paper seeks to clarify the precise sense in which Collingwoods “metaphysics without ontology” is a descriptive metaphysics. It locates Collingwoods metaphysics against the background of Strawsons distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics and then defends it against the claim that Collingwood reduced metaphysics to a form of cultural anthropology. Collingwoods metaphysics is descriptive not because it is some sort of historicised psychology that describes temporally parochial and historically shifting assumptions, but because it is a high level form of conceptual analysis premised on the claim that ontological questions are actually internal ones and that metaphysics, understood as an attempt to answer external questions, is not a possible philosophical enterprise. This non-historicist reading of what it means to take the ontology out of metaphysics has broader implications which go beyond a scholarly debate in so far as it shows that it is possible to maintain objectivity in the absence of strong ontological underpinnings.

Reasons and Causes: The Philosophical Battle and The Meta-philosophical War

‘Are the reasons for acting also the causes of action?’ When this question was asked in the early 1960s it received by and large a negative reply: ‘No, reasons are not causes’. Yet, when the same question ‘Are the reasons for acting the causes of action?’ is posed some twenty years later, the predominant answer is ‘Yes, reasons are causes’. How could one and the same question receive such diverging answers in the space of only a couple of decades? This paper argues that the shift from an anti-causalist to a causalist consensus is not fully accounted for by the results of first-order debates in the philosophy of action and is owing instead to a change in second-order meta-philosophical assumptions concerning the role and character of philosophical analysis.

Unlikely Bedfellows? Collingwood, Carnap and the Internal/External Distinction

Idealism is often associated with the kind of metaphysical system building which was successfully disposed of by logical positivism. As Humes fork was intended to deliver a serious blow to Leibnizian metaphysics so logical positivism invoked the verificationist principle against the reawakening of metaphysics, in the tradition of German and British idealism. In the light of this one might reasonably wonder what Carnaps pragmatism could possibly have in common with Collingwoods idealism. After all, Carnap is often seen as a champion of the logical positivists critique of metaphysics, whilst Collingwood is renowned for his defence of the possibility of metaphysics against the attack to which Ayer subjected it. The answer is that they have more in common than one might suspect and that, once the relevant qualifications are made, there is as much convergence as there is contestation between Carnapian pragmatism and Collingwoodian idealism.

Idealism and the Philosophy of Mind1

This paper defends an idealist form of non‐reductivism in the philosophy of mind. I refer to it as a kind of conceptual dualism without substance dualism. I contrast this idealist alternative with the two most widespread forms of non‐reductivism: multiple realisability functionalism and anomalous monism. I argue first, that functionalism fails to challenge seriously the claim for methodological unity since it is quite comfortable with the idea that it is possible to articulate a descriptive theory of the mind. Second, that as an attempt to graft conceptual mind‐body dualism onto a monistic metaphysics, the idealist alternative bears some similarities to anomalous monism, but that it is superior to it because it is not vulnerable to the charge of epiphenomenalism. I conclude that this idealist alternative should be given serious consideration by those who remain unconvinced that a successful defence of the non‐reducibility of the mental is compatible with the pursuit of a naturalistic agenda.

Collingwood and Ryle on the Concept of Mind

Abstract This paper argues that Collingwoods philosophy of mind offers an interesting and compelling account of the nature of the mind and of the irreducibility of the mental, an account whose viability and relevance to contemporary debates ought to be given serious consideration. I suggest that the reason why Collingwoods contribution to the philosophy of mind has been neglected is due to the fact that his philosophy of mind is widely, even if mistakenly, regarded as the target of Ryles attacks on the dogma of the ghost in the machine and proceed to undermine the assumption that Collingwood is a twentieth century adherent of the dogma.

Pathological Experience: A Challenge for Transcendental Constitution Theory?

Husserl’s theory of transcendental constitution relies on the idea that the intentional subject – particularly the subject of motor acts orientated towards a goal – has within itself the resources needed to make sense of objects and, in general, of all salient aspects, all confi gurations and formations invested with meaning in his lifeworld ( Lebenswelt ). Already anticipating the naturalization of phenomenology as embodied cognition (Petitot 1999 ; Petit 2015 ), transcendental constitution places special emphasis on the role of kinaesthesia, the body’s intimate feeling of doing, and in so doing, it makes of the kinaesthetic system the source of the meaning structures of the Lebenswelt , and the guide to its systematic description. From a narrowly naturalistic point of view one might object to this programme on the grounds that it remains dependent upon the transcendental idealism of the Cartesian tradition, to the extent that it seems to suppose that the subject of motor acts necessarily enjoys an optimal control of the use of its motor system, as if it were exempt from disabilities. Hence the objection: surely the programme of transcendental constitution simply makes of successful voluntary movement the rule for all of human experience without regard to the pathological experience? This despite the fact that the empirical approach of biomedical sciences shows how very precarious and limited our capabilities to make sense are using only the normal resources of the body. JeanLuc Petit 1

The Philosopher and the Grapes: On Descriptive Metaphysics and Why It Is Not ‘Sour Metaphysics’

Abstract There is a widespread view according to which descriptive metaphysics is not ‘real’ metaphysics. This paper argues that first-order philosophical disagreements cannot be settled without re-opening the debate about the nature of philosophical enquiry and that failure to scrutinize and justify one’s own metaphilosophical stance leads to arguments which are circular or question begging.