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Jacobi’s Dare: McDowell, Meillassoux, and Consistent Idealism

  • G. Anthony Bruno
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Idealism, Relativism, and Realism
This chapter is in the book Idealism, Relativism, and Realism

Abstract

Does Kant’s restriction of knowledge to phenomena undermine objectivity? Jacobi argues that it does, daring the transcendental idealist to abandon the thing in itself and embrace the “strongest idealism”. According to Bruno, McDowell and Meillassoux adopt a similar critique of Kant’s conception of objectivity and, more significantly, echo Jacobi’s dare to profess the strongest idealism - what McDowell approvingly calls “consistent idealism” and Meillassoux disparagingly calls “extreme idealism”. After exposing the Cartesian projection on which Jacobi’s critique rests, Bruno shows that McDowell’s and Meillassoux’s critiques make the same projection. He argues that whereas McDowell offers an inconsistent alternative to Kant’s idealism, Meillassoux begs the question against it. Finally, Bruno sketches the account of objectivity that follows from Kant’s distinction between general and transcendental logic.

Abstract

Does Kant’s restriction of knowledge to phenomena undermine objectivity? Jacobi argues that it does, daring the transcendental idealist to abandon the thing in itself and embrace the “strongest idealism”. According to Bruno, McDowell and Meillassoux adopt a similar critique of Kant’s conception of objectivity and, more significantly, echo Jacobi’s dare to profess the strongest idealism - what McDowell approvingly calls “consistent idealism” and Meillassoux disparagingly calls “extreme idealism”. After exposing the Cartesian projection on which Jacobi’s critique rests, Bruno shows that McDowell’s and Meillassoux’s critiques make the same projection. He argues that whereas McDowell offers an inconsistent alternative to Kant’s idealism, Meillassoux begs the question against it. Finally, Bruno sketches the account of objectivity that follows from Kant’s distinction between general and transcendental logic.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1 Idealism
  5. Metaphysics, Thinking, and Being 17
  6. Jacobi’s Dare: McDowell, Meillassoux, and Consistent Idealism 35
  7. How Not to Be a Naïve Realist: On Knowledge and Perception 57
  8. Is Hermeneutic Realism a Dialectical Materialism? 81
  9. Nature After Nature, or Naturephilosophical Futurism 97
  10. Part 2 Relativism
  11. Metaontological Deflationism and Ontological Realism 115
  12. Stances, Voluntarism, Relativism 131
  13. Subjectivity as a Feature of Reality: On Diffraction Laws of Consciousness and Reality Within Justified True Belief 155
  14. Concrete-in-Thought, Concrete-in-Act: Marx, Materialism, and the Exchange Abstraction 175
  15. Matter and Indifference: Realism and Anti-realism in Feminist Accounts of the Body 193
  16. Part 3 Realism
  17. Saying What is Not 217
  18. Sense, Realism, and Ontological Difference 233
  19. Realism without Hobbes and Schmitt: Assessing the Latourian Option 257
  20. The Objectivity of the Actual: Hegelianism as a Metaphysics of Modal Actualism 275
  21. Nomological Realism 293
  22. Realism Without Entities 311
  23. Notes on the contributors 325
  24. Index of Names 329
  25. Index of Subjects 333
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110670349-003

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1 Idealism
  5. Metaphysics, Thinking, and Being 17
  6. Jacobi’s Dare: McDowell, Meillassoux, and Consistent Idealism 35
  7. How Not to Be a Naïve Realist: On Knowledge and Perception 57
  8. Is Hermeneutic Realism a Dialectical Materialism? 81
  9. Nature After Nature, or Naturephilosophical Futurism 97
  10. Part 2 Relativism
  11. Metaontological Deflationism and Ontological Realism 115
  12. Stances, Voluntarism, Relativism 131
  13. Subjectivity as a Feature of Reality: On Diffraction Laws of Consciousness and Reality Within Justified True Belief 155
  14. Concrete-in-Thought, Concrete-in-Act: Marx, Materialism, and the Exchange Abstraction 175
  15. Matter and Indifference: Realism and Anti-realism in Feminist Accounts of the Body 193
  16. Part 3 Realism
  17. Saying What is Not 217
  18. Sense, Realism, and Ontological Difference 233
  19. Realism without Hobbes and Schmitt: Assessing the Latourian Option 257
  20. The Objectivity of the Actual: Hegelianism as a Metaphysics of Modal Actualism 275
  21. Nomological Realism 293
  22. Realism Without Entities 311
  23. Notes on the contributors 325
  24. Index of Names 329
  25. Index of Subjects 333
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