Reason in Nature REASON IN NATURE New Essays on Themes from John McDowell ✣ ✣ ✣ ✣ ✣ Edited by Matthew Boyle and Evgenia Mylonaki Harvard University Press Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts London, England 2022 Copyright © 2022 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca First printing Jacket photograph: Mike Hill © Getty Images Jacket design: Annamarie McMahon Why 9780674287686 (EPUB) 9780674287679 (PDF) The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Names: Boyle, Matthew, 1972– editor. | Mylonaki, Evgenia, 1978– editor. Title: Reason in nature : new essays on themes from John McDowell / edited by Matthew Boyle and Evgenia Mylonaki. Description: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022006672 | ISBN 9780674241046 (hardcover) Subjects: LCSH: McDowell, John, 1942– | Philosophy of mind. | Naturalism. | Reason. Classification: LCC B1647.M144 R43 2022 | DDC 128—dc23/eng/20220512 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006672 For our families: Rachel, Sylvia, and Tobias; Kostas and Markos Contents Introduction 1 Matthew Boyle and Evgenia Mylonaki I. Nature and “Second Nature” 1. Skepticism and Quietism about Meaning and Normativity 19 Hannah Ginsborg 2. Forms of Nature: “First,” “Second,” “Living,” “Rational,” and “Phronetic” 40 Michael Thompson II. Reason in Perception and Action 3. The Rational Role of Perceptual Content 83 Matthew Boyle 4. Resolute Disjunctivism 111 James Conant 5. Control and Knowledge in Action: Developing Some Themes from McDowell 153 Markos Valaris viii CoNTENTS 6. Naturalism in the Philosophy of Action 171 Jennifer Hornsby III. Consequences for Metaphysics 7. Perceiving the World 193 Sebastian Rödl 8. Seeing the World: Moral Difficulty and Drama 217 Evgenia Mylonaki IV. Historical Pre ce dents 9. See the Right Thing: “Paternal” Reason, Love, and Phronêsis 243 Jennifer Whiting 10. Self- Consciousness and the Idea of Bildung: Hegel’s Radicalization of Kant 285 Andrea Kern 11. The Idealism in German Idealism 309 Robert Pippin Notes 329 Acknowl edgments 375 Contributors 377 Index 379 Reason in Nature