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Rationality and Engagement: McDowell, Dreyfus and Zidane*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2013

Nicholas H. Smith
Nicholas H. Smith*
Affiliation:
Macquarie University, [email protected]
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Abstract

The article examines John McDowell's attempt to rehabilitate the classical idea of the rational animal and Hubert Dreyfus's criticisms of that attempt. After outlining the ‘engaged’ conception of rationality which, in McDowell's view, enables the idea of the rational animal to shake off its intellectualist appearance, the objections posed by Dreyfus are presented that such a conception of rationality is inconsistent with the phenomena of everyday coping, characterised by non-conceptual ‘involvement’, and expertise, characterised by non-conceptual ‘absorption’. Drawing on Michael Fried's reflections on the representation of absorption in Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's film Zidane, and invoking other considerations concerning the ‘mindedness’ of skilful activity, the sharp contrast between conceptuality and rationality on the one side and absorption and skilled coping on the other that frames Dreyfus's position in the debate is questioned. The paper concludes by suggesting that in order to see why Dreyfus is so firmly committed to that contrast, we need to widen the lens so that a broader range of philosophical motivations comes into view. For it is not just that there are phenomena that go missing or are mis-described in McDowell's account, according to Dreyfus; there are ideals and excellences that go missing too.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , October 2013 , pp. 159 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain 2013 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the ‘Engaging McDowell’ conference held in Sydney in July 2010 and the Social Philosophy Kolloquium at Goethe Universität Frankfurt in November 2010. Sincere thanks to those who invited me to speak and gave feedback on those occasions, especially Daniel Loick, David Macarthur, John McDowell, Huw Price, Paul Redding, Titus Stahl, and Frieder Vogelmann. Thanks too to Susan Best and Richard Menary for insightful and encouraging discussions.

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