John McDowell - The Disjunctive Conception of Experience as Material for a Transcendental Argument

John McDowell's chapter is from the 2008 book "Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge". In it, he argues that the disjunctive conception of experience -- which claims that real perception and being under an illusion are fundamentally different cognitive states -- can be used as an ingredient in an anti-skeptical transcendental argument. The basic idea is this. The external world skepticism needs the idea that experience seems to be (in McDowell's preferred phrase: purports to be) about an external world. But this is only intelligible if we believe that in the best situations, we are in direct touch with the external world -- which is what the disjunctive conception claims. However, the disjunctive conception takes away the reasons that we have to take skepticism seriously. Thus, skepticism undermines itself. Victor Gijsbers teaches philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. This video is part of an ongoing look at various philosophical papers:    • Philosophical Papers