Taking Experiential Givenism Seriously:

摘要

In the past few years, a small but intense debate has transpired on the margins of mainstream scholarship in the discipline of Philosophy, particularly within the subfield of American pragmatism. While most philosophical pragmatists dedicate their attention to questions concerning how ideas improve experience (or the theorya??practice continuum), those participating in this exchange have shown greater concern for an issue that is, at its core, a theoretical matter: Does the theory of experience espoused by the classic American philosopher John Dewey succumb to what contemporary analytic philosophersa??for instance, Wilfred Sellars, Donald Davidson, and John McDowella??call the Myth of the Given? One commentator, Scott Aikin, claims that Dewey relied on noninferential and nonconceptual content or givens as perceptual inputs for cognitive experience. The upshot of Aikina??s objection is that these experiential givens constitute a proxy epistemological foundation for the beliefs that flow from inquirya??a position clearly in conflict with Deweya??s commitment to antifoundationalism. The objection assumes a slightly different form in the hands of another scholar of American pragmatism, Colin Koopman. Gregory Pappas and David Hildebrand respond to Koopmana??s version of the objection. The goals of this article are to clarify the objection, highlight the stakes in the debate, identify misunderstandings of Deweya??s experiential metaphysics on both sides, and determine why the experiential givenism objection merits serious philosophical scrutiny in the future.