The Review of Metaphysics

Volume 68, Issue 2, December 2014

Quietism or Description? McDowell in Dispute with Dreyfus

This paper concerns the widely discussed exchange between Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell that took place a few years back. The author first provides a brief sketch of how McDowell’s practice of philosophy for the last twenty or so years is best described as “quietist” in the spirit of the later Wittgenstein. Next, he shows that this exchange with Dreyfus is best understood as carried on largely in this spirit as well, even though McDowell somewhat inexplicably fails to acknowledge this point in the course of the dispute. Finally and most importantly, the author shows how, somewhat ironically, the dispute takes a turn that suggests a remaining tension in McDowell’s own thought about the nature of philosophy. This tension comes out in his unwillingness to relinquish, or at least set aside temporarily, important parts of the traditional philosophical vocabulary that seem to be getting in the way in his dispute with Dreyfus. At the broadest level, the paper concerns difficulties with attempts to overcome the metaphysical tradition, and the role of the tradition’s vocabulary in such attempts, even in a discussion between two skilled philosophers who both have great sympathy for such a project.