Abstract

Critics of John McDowell's Mind and World have by and large failed to take sufficient notice of the transcendental context within which McDowell situates his work—a failure that has adversely affected their criticisms. In this paper, I make clear this transcendental context and show how it figures in the transcendental argument I see McDowell offering in Mind and World. Interpreting McDowell's argument in this way, I further argue, helps to answer some of the most pressing objections to what he is doing in Mind and World, particularly certain objections made by Robert Brandom and Hilary Putnam.