John W. Yolton

On Being Present to the Mind: A Sketch for the History of an Idea

I want to discuss a doctrine and a concept in theory of knowledge which has various manifestations from at least the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The concept is that of direct or immediate cognition, the doctrine says that only what is like mind can be directly or immediately present to mind. This doctrine raises the question of how we can know things other than ourselves and our experiences: the concept of direct presence most usually had the consequence of making our knowledge of the world indirect, uncertain, or impossible. The directly present must in some way inform us about the indirectly present.

Is there a history of philosophy? Some difficulties and suggestions

Philosophy as a separate discipline is a rather new phenomenon. This presents problems for our understanding of what constitutes the history of philosophy. Past writers often approached their concerns from a multi-disciplinary perspective; thus to understand them we have to do more than answer a contemporary set of issues. To that end, I suggest we attend to Lockes advice on how to read a text. Following this advice may permit us to avoid several puzzles which result from misreading a text.